* * Archive: UREAL02.NEW * * Created on: Tue Aug 3 15:24:41 1999 * * Number of articles: 24 * * Welcome! This is one of the files that goes to make up the archives of * Project Galactic Guide. To find out what the heck PGG is, go look at its * main Web site at , where you'll be able to find * an FAQ. * * * The articles in this file are: * * 2U23-1 Antigravity, The Feline Butterology Theory * 2U24-1 Legendary Tree People Of Brent, The (TM) * 2U25-1 Sad Bastard Test * 2U26-1 Television Addiction * 2U27-1 Time, Space, And Fathers * 2U28-1 Wizards * 2U29-1 Sexual Differences In Aliens * 2U30-1 Fruvous * 2U31-1 Time * 2U32-1 Black Holes * 2U33-1 X-Rated GIF Site, Astronomers Find * 2U35-1 Bug And The Banana, The * 2U36-1 Cows * 2U37-1 Jellyfish, 1001 Uses Of * LifeAfterDeath-3 Life After Death * 2U39-1 Perception And "Usefulness" * 2U40-1 Space Safe Coke Can * 2U41-1 Conservation Of Cookies, General Principle Of * 2U42-1 Devilled Ham * 2U43-1 Ka-Dink Effect, The * 2U44-1 Secret Of The @, The * 2U45-1 Mathematical Model Of God And Jesus * 2U46-1 Catholic Theme Park * 2U47-1 Gedankenexperiment * %t Antigravity, The Feline Butterology Theory %n 2U23 %a Captured From The Usenet Oracle * * Article text submitted by * Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) * %d 19930625 %i Feline Aerodynamics %i Butterology Physics %e This question was posed to the Usenet Oracle: If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on its feet. But what if you attach a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a cat's back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on its feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground? And in response, thus spoke the Oracle: Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash its furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall. That's right, you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent. Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies. The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and pissed-off aliens crash on top of them. %e *EOA* %t Legendary Tree People Of Brent, The (TM) %n 2U24 %s Brent, And Its Indigenous Life %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19930607 %e There is some debate as to whether there is any indigenous animal life on the planet Brent. Almost the entire biomass is made up of vegetable species. The most important of these is Legendary Tree People of Brent (TM). This race of super-intelligent trees learnt to speak some 2.5 million standard years ago. It is alleged that the first sentence ever spoken by a Brent was "Where am I?". This took some two centuries from the "W" to the "?". Unfortunately no one had yet had a chance to learn the language and the first articulate Brent died from nervous insecurity. However, progress was rapid and it is now possible to hold a conversation with a Brent if accompanied by a Translator. Translators are members of a local type of ambulatory fern which are commonly employed for their linguistic expertise. It was they who introduced the tourist industry to the planet of Brent. Their advertising agency, Snaatchi and Snaatchi, thought up the phrase "Legendary Tree People of Brent" (TM) and trademarked it in twelve major star systems. The Legendary Tree People of Brent (TM) have a religion based on the all-powerful warrior god (or "dei-tree") called "Green-the-Big-Skwiril-Home." Brent religious texts tell of the tale of Green-the-Big-Skwiril-Home's fight against the "small-quick-things-which-went-buzzzz-and-cut-the-tree-people- down." The tales ended with Green-the-Big-Skwiril-Home being beaten and killed: a common occurrence among omnipotent beings. He was later used for making tables, chairs, and other house furniture. Contraband items on the planet of Brent include: wooden spoons, wooden matches, paper books, and McDog's polystyrene burger cartons (famous the galaxy over for their polystyrene food). It is customary to offer manure as a present to Legendary Tree People of Brent (TM). It is not socially acceptable to call mating Brents "lover-trees" and then use toilet humour. One of the major exports of Brent is the Legendary Tree People of Brent (TM) themselves. They are uprooted and replanted to guard military installations. They hold the rank of "sen-tree." There is a sect of dendricidal psychopathic Brents who follow the way of "carpen-tree." Although the Legendary Tree People of Brent (TM) are extremely wise, their conversation is somewhat limited by their area of influence. For that reason it is not recommended to ask a Brent where the best local dance club is. %e *EOA* %t Sad Bastard Test %n 2U25 %s Lifestyle Examination And Self Analysis %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19930409 %i Purity Test, NOT! %e You may be asked to complete the following test at a variety of social events in the region of LoonDoon. You are forewarned and have no excuse for failure. The Sad Bastard Test ==================== Each question requires a "yes" or a "no" answer. You can tick the boxes in the grid at the end of this article if you want, but any spare piece of skin and a biro will do. Do not quibble about interpretation. Make up your own mind as to what the questions mean. You don't get a free point by writing your name at the top of the page. Count up your "yes" answers; this sum is used to calculate your final score. Appearance: 1) Do you own an anorak? 2) ... with five or more pockets? 3) ... Does one of them contain an A-Z? 4) Do you wear glasses? 5) Are they mended with Sellotape(TM), fishing line, or epoxy? 6) Have you tried to grow a beard? 7) ... and failed? 8) ... because you are female? 9) Have you worn the same pair of trainers for more than two years? 10) Have you worn sandals with socks? 11) Are your jean turnups more than four inches high? 12) Do people look at you and laugh? General Computing Questions: 13) Have you used a computer ? 14) Have you owned more than three home computers? 15) ... Was one of them a ZX81? (Which you built yourself?) 16) Have you ever had a Casio Calculator watch? 17) Have you ever got into and argument about whether C was better than Modula 2 or Pascal? 18) Do you collect old computing magazines for the nostalgic adverts (e.g., the Sinclair QL)? 19) Can you pronounce GIF, LATEX, JPEG, & SCSI? 20) ... Do you care? 21) Have you ever deliberately crashed a computer? (Burn in hell scum!) 22) Do you have an email address, and prefer it to the phone? 23) Do you offer your email address to people before your name? 24) Have you ever joined electronic chatline called "HotSex" (or similar) and discovered that all the "women" chatting were really men pretending to be women? 25) ... Were you one of them? 26) Do you hold conversations in jargon? 27) ... with Acronyms/Abbreviations? 28) ... in C/Pascal/Assembly language? Computer Games: 29) Do you shout "NUKE 'EM!" in Lemmings? 30) Have you played more than three versions of Tetris? 31) Have you ever been Elite? 32) Are you waiting for the virtual reality game of "Leisure Suit Larry"? 33) Do you sometimes play computer games for more than three hours a day? 34) ... more than six hours? 35) ... whilst asleep/eating/in the bath? 36) Have you ever had more than thirty computer games at any one time? 37) ... More than 100? 38) Do you get ever so upset if someone knocks you off the high score table? 39) Do you buy computer game hint magazines? (Cheat!) 40) Do you want to buy a Sega Megadrive? (Contact ICSF committee) RPG Section: 41) Do you know what R.P.G. stands for? 42) Do you know what these are: PC, NPC, FRPG, GURPS, THAC0? 43) Do you own more than one RPG? 44) Do you own a d20? 45) Do you own more than 100 dice? 46) Do you own a d100? 47) Have you ever played an RPG by yourself because no one else turned up? 48) Have you ever LRPGed? 49) Have you ever used RPG as a sex substitute? (Does your character get more than you do?) TV & Video & Films & Books: 50) Do you know all the words to Rocky Horror? 51) ... the audience participation version? 52) Do you have a complete collection of Star Trek videos (not including ones taped off the telly)? 53) Are you now collecting Star Trek TNG? 54) When you were younger did you want to be a "Red Shirt"? (You know, those security guards in ST -- the ones who were the first to get shot.) 55) Did you want to be a Tracy brother and fly Thunderbird 2? 56) Do you watch Telly Addicts to improve your knowledge of television? 57) Do you get a friend to vet your sitcoms and only watch the ones he doesn't like? 58) Do you think that "It's a Knockout" should be repeated? 59) Have you read more than 5 Gor books? (Written by John Norman) 60) Have you read the Star Trek Technical Manual? 61) Do you often say "It's not as good as Tom Baker's Doctor Who"? 62) Have you read an entire Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy book? (From cover to cover?) 63) Have you been on a TV quiz show (e.g., "Blockbusters," "University Challenge," "15 to 1")? 64) Have you read Paul Darrow's Blake's 7 novel? 65) Do you still have porn mags from your teens? 66) Did/do you have a crush on Carol Vordermann? General Lifestyle? 67) Have you turned up to a party 2 hours before anyone else? 68) Have you held a party where no one turned up? 69) Have you wanted to hold a party but not had the courage? 70) Have you held a party where people didn't talk to you? 71) Have you worn a costume all day at a (sci fi) convention? 72) Have you spent an entire convention in the video room? 73) When joining a club, convention, or anything with membership do you ask for number six? Double oh seven? Forty-two? Sixty-nine? Six six six? 74) Have you ever photocopied parts of yourself? (Using enlarge?) 75) Have you ever written part of a Sad Bastard Test? 76) Would you describe yourself as a sad bastard? 77) ... Has anyone else? 78) Do you use a tube map when you play Mornington Crescent? 79) Have you got a collection of stamps/stuffed dodos/porn mags? 80) Do you own a 1971 "Tell Me Why" annual? 81) Do you have more than 5 Blue Peter books? 82) Have you posted yourself mail to make yourself look popular? 83) Have you collected the whole alphabet in smarties tops? 84) Have you organized a con? Bonus for inviting yourself as G.O.H. 85) Did you ever buy a C5? 86) ... Do you think the C5 was good? 87) Have you ever spotted trains? Planes? Busses? Collected ISBN numbers? 88) Have you ever left yourself a message on your own answerphone? 89) Are you a member of Octarine? Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll (and Chocolate) 90) Do you know what teledildonics is? 91) Have you ever done a purity test? 92) ... and told everyone your score? 93) Have you done more than two? (And compared them?) 94) Have you written a purity test? 95) Have you ever wanted to be a tampon? 96) Have you ever wanted to be Michelle Pfeiffer's underwear? 97) Do you have a complete collection of Marvel Swimsuit Editions? 98) Is innuendo as much of a sex life as you get? 99) Have you looked through chemistry text books for drug structures? 100) Can you draw the chemical structures for any drugs? (Not alcohol or caffeine) 101) Have you not noticed you were being offered drugs until it was too late? 102) Do you "only need one pint to get pissed"? 103) Have you gone to the pub immediately after donating blood? 104) Do you headbang to Bohemian Rhapsody? 105) Do you regularly quote '70s songs? 106) Do you sing along to ad jingles? 107) Have you the complete collection of Dire Straits albums? 108) ... Do you listen to them? 109) Do you listen to your music collection in alphabetical order? 110) Have you more than three versions of the same song by the same artist? 111) Have you ever done something to deliberately lower your purity test score? 112) Have you hired a PI to track down a member of a pop group? 113) Do you have more than 1 Rolf Harris song? 114) Have you been on a "Club 18-30" holiday? 115) Do you catalogue your music collection using a spreadsheet? 116) Ummm... can you think of any more questions for us? (Sorry, I lied about there being a question on chocolate.) -------------------------------------------------------------------- email address: ................... Name: .......................... Address: ........................................................... Phone number: .................... Cash card PIN: ................. There are roughly 125 questions altogether so divide your score by 5 and multiply by 4. Answer grid (check off the boxes for "Yes" answers): | | ------------------------------------------------------------- 1-30 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------- 31-60 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------- 61-90 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------- 91-130 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------- | | Oh, and if you feel that the test was "ageist" then lose two points for expecting it to be Politically Correct. Score ----- x 4 = ......% 5 Score Table: ------------ 1-10 : You are unreal! You are such a hoopy frood that you couldn't do a thing wrong. 11-20 : Hey, don't worry about it, you are probably an ex-sci fi fan. 21-30 : My score is in here. You are in the band between being too normal and too weird. 31-40 : In a pub, if the barmaid has to decide between talking to you and talking to the accountant sipping something with an umbrella in it, the accountant wins. 41-50 : This is Steve Brewster's range. He is the one with the anorak with five pockets, and an A-Z. 51-60 : Urr, you beat Steve! Cor, wow! 61-70 : People cross the street to avoid you. 71-80 : Get with it. You have been practicing, haven't you? 81-90 : Cheat! You go to Imperial College, don't you? 91-100 : SEEK HELP NOW! YOU HAVE SB SYNDROME. This isn't contagious because no one will go near you. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please send back new questions to: alexmc@biccdc.co.uk or (The Sad Bastard Test) Imperial College Science Fiction Society c/o Imperial College Union Beit Quadrangle Prince Consort Road South Kensington London SW7 2BB (United Kingdom) %e *EOA* %t Television Addiction %n 2U26 %s Story Of Dijacee, A Race Without Enough To Do %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19930704 %i Addictions, Television %e One of the saddest cases of television addiction arose in the Dijacee sector of the Galaxy. Before initial Contact by missionaries of the Great Prophet Zebedee, the Trekk system was a dull place. Its inhabitants had conquered most of the innocuous germs found there, and traffic accidents were kept to a minimum by the introduction of a law requiring men with red flags to be waved in front of motorized vehicles. (The motorized vehicles would spin their wheels and charge at the flag which would be whipped away at the last moment. The motorized vehicle would then spin round quite viciously and proceed to try and run over the red flag once again. This law achieved its aims since very few people died by being run over at pedestrian crossings, but it also resulted in the vehicles being shunned by sensible minded people due to the simple fact that they never got anywhere - just backwards and forwards trying to impale this red flag. Although rather hard on the red flag, not one was heard to complain.) This idyllic state of affairs resulted in the usual problems of over-population and over-efficient politicians. Over population was not too much of a problem from a Malthusian/food point of view, but it meant high unemployment resulting in a large part of the population spending its time at home utilizing the common home entertainment systems of a typical pre-contact world. Unfortunately this included television. Politicians were extremely adept at manipulating this public access media for their own purposes. (Very few post-contact worlds suffer from the delusion that politicians do anything for the _public's_ good.) This was the backdrop to which we introduce "Contact." Some of the sub-classes of scientists were involved with super-string FTL (Faster Than Light) communication theory. Their device (which included two paper cups and a long super-string) was switched on at a quarter to three on a Monday, about the same time as children's TV was starting for the evening. What they got was war. Bloody war. Alien war. The universal language of death and destruction. On their cathode ray tubes, images of a great galactic confrontation flickered in little red, green and blue dots. The linguists got to work straight away. They worked night and day at deciphering the military communications. The psychologists examined the motives and causes. The military analyzed the strengths of the two sides. The churches catalogued the alien's concept of honour, and analyzed the way that the fatally injured prayed as they died. And the common man rooted for either the Yellows, or the Grays. The everlasting battle had white-noise filtered out of its signal, was computer enhanced, and relayed to every TV on the planet. 24 hours a day, every sentient being with nothing to do sat down with the Dijacee equivalent of popcorn, on the Dijacee equivalent of a sofa, and watched the epic struggle between the Grays and the Yellows. For six months neither side gained the upper hand. Then the politicians entered the fray. Not only did their campaign slogans offer more work, more interesting life-styles, and more research into psychedelic drugs, but also they proclaimed their allegiance to one of the two sides in the aliens' war. Rosettes and party badges were no longer red and blue. They were yellow, or they were grey. Membership of the Dijacee Nazi party dropped, together with the National Front, and even the Conservatives lost ground to the Yellow and the Grey. But bigotry and intolerance were on the rise. It was no longer of any relevance whether your neighbours' ancestors invaded the northern bit of your island a hundred years ago because that was just peanuts when compared to the galactic magnitude of the war of a thousand suns. (Sun usage was near a thousand at its height, but quite a few had been destroyed by a rather useful "nova device." Actually, it was useful if you had the means to bugger off out of the solar system that was about to be blown up.) It couldn't go on as a simple couch potato event. Emotions ran too high. The planet Trekk knew war once more. Brother Trekker killed Brother Trekker, and the politicians urged them on. The next few months were the worst in Trekk history. Half the population was wiped out in urban guerilla warfare between the Trekk-bound Yellows and Grays. Minor skirmishes in the alleyways often resulted in many innocent bystanders dying due to the density of population. Such was the skill of the politicians' oratory that over half the population died before the first anniversary of "Contact" could be celebrated. And then... disaster! As was habitual amongst the astronomers at the time, they fed the images of the stars which the military communiques had ordered to be blown up into the astronomical computers. They would then point their telescopes at the doomed star and wait for the explosion (which would not be seen for many years because of the light-years distance away). But that day the computers analyzed and spat out its oracle, no-one waited with glee for the new scientific information. The sun to be destroyed was their own. Time of destruction: two days hence. A few of the astronomers checked and triple checked the calculations, but most went home to their wives and girlfriends and husbands and boyfriends and had sex for the rest of the day. No contraception was used that night. The press caught wind of this, half the world's star watchers getting laid, and the others not even getting home for supper, and so they made discrete enquiries. The newspaper headlines the next day cried out: "DIJACEE STAR TREKK LAST NIGHT" And they published all the data that the astronomers had been working on, and they showed all the star-field models as best they could in two dimensions. It wasn't understood, but it was believed. The whole world laid down its arms and waited in fear. Nothing happened. Or rather the star Trekk blew up in a super nova. But only on TV. The Dijacee people looked up and saw that their star was fine. The were no star destroyer spaceships in the region, no killer robots painted white, no strange clouds of energy of an unknown type, and no nova bombs. Very few people were left on the planet who had the technological expertise to maintain the super-string to television conversion device, and so the battle of the Yellows and the Grays was no longer seen on Dijacee. It was generally accepted that trying to regain the TV network wasn't such a hot idea anyway. There were more important things to do, such as killing stray cats for food. It was a shame really, for if they had lasted a few more weeks then they would have been able to translate a new message. This one was different in that it was a voice speaking over a still picture showing heroic deeds of Yellow spacemen firing plasma bolts at Grey spaceships. Had the translator computers been working, they would have heard the voice announce: "Stay tuned to this channel! The war film "The Jedi Empire's Revenge" will continue after a short commercial break." %e *EOA* %t Time, Space, And Fathers %s Confusion Reigns Supreme; Beidernath Rules OK! %a Mark Anthony Young (marky@engin.umich.edu) %d 19931006 %n 2U27 %x Infinity %x Time %e People have always been confused by time and space and long talks with their fathers. It's not so much time and space and fathers separately that cause the problems, as the discussions that result from combining them. For instance, if a galactitrain left Alpha Tau Ceti at 3pm traveling spinward at 5 light years per second (ly/s), and another galactitrain left Ursa Minor Beta at 4pm traveling anti-spinward at 7 ly/s, why would my father ground me for driving his galactic runabout to Tau Kappa Beta at 4 ly/s? Even juxtaposing two of these concepts is enough to boggle the minds of a Blanterian. The profundity of the thought typical of these multi-brained organisms has inspired the awe of great thinkers and the envy of Reader's Digest editors throughout history. But ask one why space contracts when you're trying to sneak past your father after denting the finish in his new sports coupe, and they're as stumped as a clearcut forest. The Spatio-Paternal Department of the Temporal University has been in the forefront of spatio-tempora-paternal (STP) studies for centuries. The SPD (or "spud," as it's affectionately known to its alumni) has always been led by the leading scientists of the day, such as: Dr. Gogolan Marf, EC; Dr. Friesenseile, IC; Dr. Sir Lionel Barnold, EC, IC, CGE; and Dr. Dame Cyleckra Lady Beidernath, EC, IC, CGE, RGL, and Playbeing Pet of the Year, 21472. (The institute has always had what it calls "a healthy attitude to sex" -- it being a great way to pass time, use space, and produce fathers. The SPD's detractors have often pointed out that the use of contraceptives has severely curtailed the production of fathers, that most of the sex has taken place within the confines of the Grotto, and, most importantly, they couldn't get the time of day from Lady Beidernath.) The SPD has produced the best-selling text of STP studies, Lady Beidernath's "If You've Got the Time, I've Got the Place, Daddy." This illustrated text is well worth the Altarian $59.95 they charge for it (not available where prohibited by law). But for all its illustrious history, the SPD has not produced one iota of data on the reasons for STP confusion. Not one shred of illumination has been shed on the problem. This raises the question: did all those undergrads really buy that text book for the articles? %e *EOA* %t Wizards %s Wise Guys Every One... %a Mark Anthony Young (marky@engin.umich.edu) %n 2U28 %d 19920605 %q In the uttermost West I was Olorin,In the South I am Incanus, %q among the elves I am Mithrandir,in the North I am Gandalf. %q To the East,I go not. %r Mithrandir -- tkelly@unix2.tcd.ie %e In the great stories of olden days, terrific battles were fought between heroes of gigantic stature and monsters of hideous proportions. These contests were described in loving detail by the blood-thirsty story-tellers, and cheered on heartily by the even more blood-thirsty audiences. But before the hero could meet the monster for the final battle, there were always some little tasks that had to be carried out. More likely than not, these tasks were set out by a wizard of one sort or another whom the hero had consulted. The tasks that the wizard would set out almost invariably involved the hero seducing some unsuspecting maiden and absconding with her father's sword. Psychiatrists, of course, just eat this right up. "Ahhh," they say. "Yes, very interesting. VERY interesting." They smile knowingly and nod at each other, and write little notes in their little note-books whenever someone mentions having enjoyed one of these stories or identifying with one or the other of the characters or uses the word "abscond." "Yes, um-hmm. Very interesting." Having retreived the sword, the hero would take it to the wizard, who would examine it and pronounce it the perfect instrument for the destruction of the beast. Of course the examination would involve some magical incantations, for which the wizard would pull out a large staff. Once again, the psychiatrists smile and nod, and make little notes. So our hero takes his stolen sword and has the great final battle with the horrible beast. Several of the hero's followers are trampled to death before the battle is over, and large tracts of real estate destroyed. And when the battle is over, the wizard claims all the land covered by the blood of the beast, saying that it is enchanted. Later he will sell it to some psychiatrist at an obscene profit, and the doctor will build a hospital and get rich treating traumatised heroes and fathers of seduced daughters. Sorry for the abrupt ending, it's time for my therapy.... %e *EOA* %t Sexual Differences In Aliens %n 2U29 %s An Example Of How Sexual Habits Can Vary From Galaxy To Galaxy %a Curt Siffert (siffert@spot.colorado.edu) %d 19931014 %i Spraticon-V, Sexual Literature And Customs %i Sex, Alien %e It's been a hard night zooming through the universe. You've jumped three freighters, a cruiser, and a junk collector, and none of them have had a comfortable cot. You're beyond the point of sleep now, your towel has an unidentifiable stain, you're low on peanuts, and all of a sudden you realize that you are near some aliens that look like they might be similar to your appropriate preferred gender. All of a sudden, you want some action. Hey, don't be embarrassed. It's perfectly natural - a great way to relieve tension after a strenuous zip through hyperspace. However, you must first be aware of the possible pitfalls in progressive procreation. The main thing is that genders, no matter what kind of gender we may be referring to, are full of surprises. While presenting steamy stories about hermaphrodites or three-breasted creatures may illuminate you or even titillate you after your hard day's travelling, a piece of erotic literature from the tiny planet Spraticon-V will probably provide you with the insight you need to follow your urges safely. This piece of literature is one of the only scraps of knowledge we have coming from this planet. Due to their almost negative-population growth, the inhabitants of Spraticon-V do not partake in inter-planetary export. The literature you are about to read is a telling tale of the Spraticon-V culture. Note: Certain Spraticon-V terminology was left in, so as to provide an accurate flavor to the experience. ----- It was a cold night on Spraticon-Five. Spleeg Flumm wangled his florg around in a circle. The night was making him shriddy, and he was ready for action. And there she was. Spleeg instantly wrinkled his morf, thinking it made him look cool. It worked. "Hey, baby," said she, "shall we find a flibbite?" Spleeg plebbled. This was going well. "What's your name, honey?" he asked. "Fem! Fem In-In!" she answered gaily. She tossed three of her fackles back, and they reflected in the moonslight. The two maters joined glicks and walked off in search of their last part. And there fle was. "Look at flim!" exclaimed Spleeg. "Fle is *portrid*!" "Yeah, fle is!" Fem hargled and mooeyed. She quoomed and blurked. She thought this would grab flis attention, and she was right! It did! The flibbite rockled up to them. "Well, hey hey! Aren't you a cute couple of medgies!" Fem and Spleeg purkied. This was ideal. They immediately put their fackles together and came up with a plan. Seventeen units later, Spleeg, Fem, and the Flibbite, Uhuhuhuh, were in Spleeg's dwelling. Spleeg was already so shriddy that he got right down to business. "Uhuhuhuh! Go over there! Fem! Take off your moooooo!" he ordered, with a crazed look in his ficks. Uhuhuhuh knew the routine. Fle went over behind the sofa and started gyrating in place. "OH, george HAR-rison! OH, george HAR-rison!" fle screamed rhythmically. Fem ripped off her moooooo and started meckelling coyly. "You *must* pay the rent! I *can't* pay the rent!" Spleeg ripped off his mork, proudly exposing his above-average feen. It was perfectly flat and gleaming, and had more surface area than Fem had ever seen before! "OH!" exclaimed Fem, and she dove towards him. Four of her fackles splatted against the feen before Spleeg grunted with satisfaction. "NOW, UHUHUHUH, NOW!" screamed Spleeg, as Fem started to turn black. Uhuhuhuh was all too ready to oblige. "OH, george HAR-rison!" fle screamed one last time before fle leapt up into the air. And then, all of a sudden, fle opened up like a mongoroose and enclosed the other two with his oopaloop! A look of ecstasy crossed Uhuhuhuh's fackles as the other two moved underneath flim. "OH, george HAR-rison!" fle screamed repeatedly as the shapes moved beneath flis oopaloop. The screams beneath flim increased in volume and intensity until finally, Fem exploded in a shattering "I'LL PAY THE RENT!!!" and a brownish goo leaked out from under Uhuhuhuh. Uhuhuhuh retracted off of Fem and Spleeg, went over to the sofa, and sat down. After a moment, Spleeg, weary and shaken, joined flim. And finally, Fem reformed out of the brown goo, carrying a smaller creature in her glicks. She went over to the sofa and shared her creation with the other two. They all skooed and fayed repeatedly over the small creature. Then they ate it and smoked cigarettes. The End. %e *EOA* %t Fruvous %s War, Peace, And Small Dogs %a Peter E. Janes (pejanes@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca) %n 2U30 %d 19930925 %x Earth %i Fruvous, Marion %i Misunderstandings, Language %e It is a well-known fact that most intergalactic conflicts are caused by misunderstandings. Many of them would have been easily prevented simply by understanding the nuances of language. In fact, the Babel fish, while making interspecies communication possible, has been named as a catalyst in over 83.792% of wars in the history of the Guide. (Interestingly, a large number of the rest have to do with differing opinions of whether the next century begins January 1, 2000, January 1, 2001, or October 23, 2071.) In the interests of peace, then, the Guide provides a short example of multiple interpretations of the word "Fruvous." Fruvous (froo'ves) appears to have originated on the planet Earth, although its etymology is shrouded in some controversy. One faction devoutly believes that it is a magical monk-baked pastry loaf that was served to evil burgermeisters in the Middle Ages. Other word historians say that Fruvous was a high-stakes Mesopotamian board game, the rules of which have faded into obscurity. The author personally accepts the theory that "Fruvous" is the sound produced when yogurt dollops are dropped in searing liquid. Other connotations include the slightly corrupted "fru-vest," which, as the name suggests, is an article of clothing; a mysterious light similar to St. Elmo's Fire; and a species of small dog with a bird's beak and a reddish coat. The potential for conflict may not be immediately obvious from the above paragraphs. This should be rectified in the following paragraph. The origin of the word Fruvous has recently come into further question with the discovery of evidence confirming the existence of legendary environmental crusader Marion Fruvous. The convictions of Ms. Fruvous were so great that her name has become synonymous with "unflappable." In honour of this historical figure, Fruvous, while being an adjective, is placed after the noun which it describes. For example, a super-unshakable but ultra-cool person might be referred to as a "hoopy Fruvous." It is understandable if, at this point, the hitchhiker who has been following closely still cannot visualize a violent confrontation over the use of Fruvous. While the preceding paragraph was originally designed to clarify the problem, it has succeeded only in elaborating on the unknown origins of the word. Immediately following that explanation is a short tirade (which is currently being read) that will end shortly. Next is the problem. Fruvous can also be used to mean "multi-legged and aural." The alert hitchhiker can quickly see the difficulties when using Fruvous in conversation. With someone unfamiliar with the previous interpretations, a hitchhiker could be seen to be insulting a native's physical manifestation, when a compliment is the intended meaning. This sort of unintentional provocation is exactly what we're talking about. (It should be noted that while "Fruvous" itself has not been known to cause any major conflicts, minor disputes, or even hurt feelings to date, all use is at your own risk. The Guide assumes no liability or responsibility for death, dismemberment, or Revenue Canada audits resulting from the use of "Fruvous.") %e *EOA* %t Time %s There's So Much Of It, How Come We Can Never Find Any? %a Mark Anthony Young (marky@engin.umich.edu) %d 19931015 %n 2U31 %x Infinity %x Time, Space, And Fathers %e It is truly amazing the number of supposedly sentient beings in the universe that don't seem to be able to "find the time." Given that there is just so much of the stuff flowing around us, carrying along birthdays and anniversaries and absolutely-positively-the-last-chance-get-it-done-or- you're-fireds, you'd think that people would be finding it coming out their ears (this being the orifice of choice of over 90% of sentient beings when asked what orifice their excess possessions flow out of). But no. Of course, when I say people, I don't mean everyone. Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, that big dumb jerk, is profoundly aware of time. He was one of the first people to point out the unusual fact that time seems to "pile up" on Sunday afternoons, leaving many people crushed by the weight of it. It is this peculiar weight that makes people feel particularly listless all that afternoon, and totally wiped out the next morning. In view of this, many of the more advanced societies have made Monday the day of rest, and given Sunday over to activities that consume vast amounts of time, such as committee meetings and governmental emergency response activities. (Of course, the even more advanced societies have eliminated both committees and governments, and get rid of the excess time by exporting it to planets with temporal deficits. The most advanced societies have also eliminated economics, and deal with the excess time by shifting it back to Saturday night, where it's put to much better use.) Some philosophers have theorized that this tendency not to notice time is rooted in the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest. Given the huge amounts of time that there are, people who noticed time would be too busy noticing it to notice other things, such as that succulent apple-pie tree in the near distance, or that even more succulent member of the appropriate sex giving them that come-hither look. Such people never get a chance to reproduce, and so don't pass on their genes. The result of all this is that we end up with species that never _fail_ to notice apple pies or members of the appropriate sex, which explains why so many people are run down by lorries outside of nudist bakeries. Of course, if there were anything to the theory of evolution, there wouldn't be any philosophers around to propound this other theory, so the whole thing's a load of bunk, anyway. %e *EOA* %t Black Holes %n 2U32 %s The Definitive Guide To Black Holes %a Christopher P Thomas (C.P.Thomas@CS.BHAM.AC.UK) * Full Internet Address: C.P.Thomas@computer-science.birmingham.ac.uk %d 19931210 %x Light %x Shadowlight %x Dark Suckers %x Gravity %e Black Holes are one of the least understood phenomena in the galaxy. Due to extensive research, many worn out pairs of badly made shoes, and sore typing fingers, we are able to bring you the _definitive_ guide to Black Holes. Definition of a Black Hole: 1) A hole that is black. 2) A huge imploded star with such a gravitational pull, not even light itself can escape. How to find a Black Hole: 1) Close your eyes (although you don't get the full gravitational effect). 2) Turn all the lights off, to try and attract one. 3) Look for a large dark region of space that pulls you toward it. 4) EtherPhone the Black Hole Spotters Association and ask if any Black Holes are passing your system in the near future. Do not be disappointed if you suddenly discover that the five Black Holes you have been tracking on your scanner scope are, in fact, grit. What to do inside a Black Hole: 1) Find the souvenir shop and buy some Black Hole Rock. 2) Get squashed into the shape of a nearly infinitely thin ultra-pancake. 3) Look for all those biros you've lost over the years. How to get out of a Black Hole: 1) Dial the operator and ask for Black Hole Rescue. 2) Look for a door marked "Exit." 3) Walk out backwards, saying "nice film wasn't it?" in an attempt to convince the Black Hole that it is a cinema. What to do once you have left a Black Hole: 1) Write a more informed Guide entry. %e *EOA* %t X-Rated GIF Site, Astronomers Find %n 2U33 %s Scientific Breakthrough In Pornography Research %a Simon Travaglia (spt@waikato.ac.nz) %d 19931210 %i Hamilton, New Zealand, Earth %x Earth %e In a landmark discovery, Astronomers at the Waikato Observatory in Hamilton, New Zealand have used advanced Astronomical triangulation techniques to locate Computing sites that store X-Rated GIF and JPEG format pictures. The technique was pioneered by Dr. Ian Analpeeper and is based around variations in the Earth's rotation and predicted orbit about the sun. "It's quite simple really," Dr. Analpeeper explained to our reporters. "The Earth revolves somewhat like a car wheel turns; and like a car wheel, it is *precisely* balanced. When the balance is upset, the wheel does not revolve as smoothly. Bearing this in mind, we used the facts before us to locate the sites we wished to get to. These facts were: 1) Firstly, we knew that GIF and JPEG files take up a lot of disk-based space. 2) We know that the large the disk, the heavier it will be. 3) All the really good pictures are in large concentrations. 4) It costs a lot of money to buy new hard disks. 5) Old hard disks have a low capacity. Using these facts, we came to the following conclusion: Somewhere, there's lots of pictures on a lot of old, really heavy hard disks, upsetting the Earth's gravity. After that, it was simple. We just looked at the changes in the Earth's rotation over the past few months, allowed for the gravitational attraction to other planets by a mass of this size, allowed also for the movement of crowds where U2 plays, divided by the numbers X, Y and Z (our own secret ingredient), came up with a rough approximation to the nearest square foot of where the machine was, rung up the site concerned and asked for the name of the machine at that location, and started an FTP session. Fortunately, as astronomers we have a significant budget and are able to buy very small, very large hard disk drives so we don't upset our findings. Simple really." Dr. Analpeeper would not disclose the names of the sites concerned, nor would he let our reporters near his 27-inch monitor. %e *EOA* %t Bug And The Banana, The %n 2U35 %s The True Story About The Bug And The Banana %a Ragnar Aas (ragnar@kvark.fi.uib.no) %d 19940303 %x Norway, Earth %i Banana And The Bug, The %i Dire Straits %i Zingy Beepbopper %e There have been some stories about a bug and a banana. For example, in the article on Norway. This is the True Story, as it was told by the Great Knower of Time, Space, and Everything Else, also known as Herbert. The bug was originally a country called Norway on planet Earth. The Earth here meant the one that used to be at 1.231+901.234i in the probability dimension. But on this Earth, like on many others, Norway was considered a threat to the environment, wars, and everything else that was fun. On this Earth they had come to the knowledge of improbability machines, and this led to the unexpected vanishing of this once-so-great country. Later it proved to be a tree-loving environmentalist who decided to remove Norway from the planet before they did any more damage. Of course, when a large country like Norway was removed, the place where it had been had to be filled with something. This something was the sea. The filling caused large waves to appear that killed all living creatures on land. Later the planet was blown up by accident by a passing battle starship that was out on patrol, mistaking it for a camouflaged Xurbit Interspace Enemy Tracker that had been observed in those areas. Now, back to Norway. Norway, in a glimpse of space, time and probability anomalies, turned somehow into a bug. There were some sightings of the bug as it transformed through the probability. One person who observed this, was the famous singer Mark Knopfler. It inspired him to write the song "The Bug." This song is on the record "On Every Street" by Dire Straits. More precisely, the bug turned out to be a Zingy Beepbopper -- the poisonous one. Now, as anyone can understand, a transformation from a medium-sized country into a bug is quite some change, so naturally, the newly appearing bug had some first thoughts about life. Here they are, according to the book _The Facial Expressions Of An Invertebrate, And How To Tell What It Thinks_ by the famous author Sugornio Mellop, who was generally looked upon as an idiot. Mostly because he was, but also because he invented the theory of relativity. This suddenly made time travel impossible, and the whole planet was set back several thousand years. They are only now starting to recover from the incident and are on the edge of discovering that the theory was wrong. According to his book, the following conversation took place between the bug and itself: "Oops. That was some trip. Hey! I can speak! Is it normal for a country to speak? And hey, who turned out the lights, and why did it get so crumpy around here so all of a sudden? I think I'll just sit tight and wait." We admit that this may not be exactly what the bug thought to itself, due to the fact that Mellop's theories had a certain way of being highly inaccurate, generally disputed, and mostly just hallucinations after several Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blasters. The reason for the sudden dark was the fact that a banana had just appeared out of nowhere at the very spot where it sat. The banana was therefore wrapped around the bug. Now, where did this banana come from? It proved to be the planet that disappeared from star system ZF519 Gamma. Now, for some amazing coincidence, a monkey appeared at this already complicated scene. This monkey had been transferred to this location by some kids playing with their dad's improbability machine Perullion XB-4. This monkey was of course hungry, ate the banana, and died soon after because it also ate the poisonous bug. In good tradition with the theory of chaos, the Doomsday Prophets, and Murhpy's Laws, this seemingly unimportant sequence of events actually lead to the destruction of two perfectly average cultures on two whole planets. Anyone who watches "Tomorrow's News" know that the dad of those children who transferred the monkey was running for President, and was therefore, in a good upholdment of tradition, assassinated. If the monkey hadn't been transferred, it would have been sitting on his knee when the assassin came around, and it would have been killed instead of him. He, Kurdo Pingmon, was the only person who could have saved that planet from the raging war, which, of course, now broke out. There was this neighbouring planet just a few parsecs away that heard about this war and, in the interests of good neighbourdom, sent a few peace-keeping negotiators to try to make the parties stop fighting. The only problem was that nobody knew who was fighting who, and in a polite attempt to find a leader, they were unfortunate enough to pick a "leader" who was so outraged by being chosen as the one to be blamed for the war that he declared war against the neighbouring planet. After about a thousand years or so, there were only ten persons left. These few survivors shook hands and promised never to call anyone a jerk ever again. This word was what had caused the war in the first place. %e *EOA* %t Cows %n 2U36 %s Something About Extremely Silly Animals %a Peter Juul (Rockbear@diku.dk) %d 19940307 %i Bovine Animals %x Denmark, Earth %e Cows are extremely silly. They are ugly, too. They spend a large amount of time running around saying "Moo!" That is widely why a lot of danes are rather furious about them often being depicted as jerks running around with hats that makes them look like cows. In Denmark a rather special kind of cow exists: the climbing cow. It is a special kind of cow so mind-bogglingly stupid that it: A) does not know that cows cannot climb trees, due to them having hoofs instead of claws B) is afraid of dogs, although most dogs would be killed as soon as the cow sat down on it Therefore, when a dog enters the scene, these climbing cows run to the nearest tree, climb it, and sit there discussing the quality of the grass in the field, and how the grass were so much greener back when they were young. (Cows have no long-term memory, so actually they are making it all up.) Usually they forget why they climbed the tree and just sit around until they for some reason fall down and get killed. The only reason cows have not all been shot is that they happen to make a rather yucky substance called milk, which some people like to drink. %e *EOA* %t Jellyfish, 1001 Uses Of %n 2U37 %s Take One With You On Your Journeys %a Roel van der Meulen et. al. (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * * With a big thank you for a lot of hoopy internetters reminding me of * what Bran Manmanayt wrote again. * %d 19940209 %x Travel Necessities %e As a special service to all you hitchhikers out there, I have at a great length completely and utterly studied the book _1001 Uses of Jellyfish_ by Bran Manmanayt (Stin/Gauch-Press). I hereby present an extract in which I have included the more funny and short examples. I have made a separate list of uses of special interest to the hitchhiker. This is to underline my conviction that jellyfish definitely are one of the most important things a true hitchhiker should carry around with him -- maybe even more important than towels, plastic bags, thumbs, pillow cases, spoons, and can openers. Some uses concern jellyfish that sting and some concern jellyfish that don't sting. Bran Manmanayt has provided indexes: Do Sting (DS) and Don't Sting (DS). As these are the same for every entry, I have excluded them. General ------- (0043) Jellyfish salad. In California, you can get jellyfish salad in many Vietnamese restaurants. It isn't bad. (0054) Soup. Just heat it up. All soup ingredients are already present. (0077) Jellyfish in vinegar and soy. Doesn't taste of anything, but gives a great feeling when chewed. They are best sliced in neat strips. (0080) French gourmet delicacy (possibly). (0081) Chinese gourmet delicacy (probably). (0082) Japanese gourmet delicacy (definitely). (0120) Mix. Run a jellyfish through a food processor, then mix some interesting and probably rather strong drinks. (0130) Dog biscuits (dried). (0253) Wig or toupee. (0256) Hair styling gel. (0275) Organic breast implant with features for amazing sex life in aeroplanes. Expand and contract with changes in altitude. (0278) Cheap brain substitute (pink and wet). (0280) Inside-of-your-eye transplant. (0288) Cheap contact lens for the Extremely Amazed. (0304) Medicine against rheumatism (exactly like rubbing yourself all over with a stinging nettle). (0312) Pillow for when you've just had a leg or other limb amputated. (Guaranteed to take your mind of it!) (0330) Diapers (knot them together with the tentacles). (0353) Lubricating jelly. (0357) Potency enhancer (just like rhino-horn). (0399) Ice hockey puck (freeze them first). (0412) Jellyfish baseball (entirely not unlike frog baseball). (0413) Jellyfish cricket (nice and messy). (0414) Jellyfish golf (again, nice and messy). (0430) Underwater "clay-pigeon" shooting. (0473) Aquatic frisbee. (0481) Swimming pool/area marking. (0502) Clay substitute (throw it against a wall to see it sticks). (0504) Water balloon for children's games. (0511) Freeze them and use them in your cooler to keep drinks cold. (0522) Window. (0532) Mince them and put them in an isolation kit tube. (0534) Draught excluder. (0537) Doorstop. (0541) Unwelcome mat. (0555) Mince them and use them as wallpaper paste. (0574) Shower cap. (0583) Light bulb for special light effects (new year festivities). (0587) Light shade, after you've stuck a light bulb in it. (0590) Waterbed in itself or waterbed filling (extremely stable). (0593) Furniture coasters. (0594) Good conversation pieces on the coffee table or over the sofa or as hood ornament. (0600) Nail them to the wall as picture substitute (fine art). (0620) Cushion (for piano stool for example. Wear SCUBA trousers). (0630) Paperweight. Use waterproof paper or a dried jellyfish (use towel). (0713) Prison wall material; prisoners at day build the wall, at night can not escape and next day continue constructing (never-ending process) (0722) Windsock (after sticking a pole in them). (0747) Bookmark (use a squashed one). (0751) Pencil case. (0760) Mouse pad (it really works!). (0777) Pet jellyfish. (Easy to feed, don't disturb neighbours, don't make noise, etc.) (0792) Lunch bag (dry it first) or any other bag. (0808) Fluoriscating jellyfish can be used as body paint, after which you can go to fancy dress parties as the Michelin man. (0816) Translucent medallion. (0838) Christmas tree decoration, especially the ones with long tentacles. (0877) Masochism masturbation: eat one and then pull the tentacles back out through your nose with one of those devices Arnie used in Total Recall. (0891) Sexual contact maker. Get someone to piss on the stings. (0919) Jellyfish... trade them with your friends... collect them all! (0920) Pickle one and send it to the 'Preserve Wildlife' society. (0933) Actor in cult and/or horror movie. (0935) Alien Punch and Judy (or Thunderbirds) puppet. (0940) Prop for that Japanese "Endurance" show (you need a *lot* of them). (0958) Puree one and use it in your water gun. (0963) Sting yourself just for the hell of it. (0964) Use it as a nickname (some people do this voluntarily you know!). (0977) Write books about them like _1001 uses of Jellyfish_ or _1001 Jellyfish Nights_ with fascinating stories like "Ali-Jellyfish and the Forty Thieves," "Jellyfish and his Magic Lamp," and of course "Jellyfish the Sailor." (0979) Listen to their music. The album "Spilt Milk" should sound like a groovy mix of the Beatles and Queen with an alternative twist to it. (0981) Oceanic UFO substitute (Unidentified Floating Object) (is it Bob J. or Arnold J.?). (0983) Fire fighter water balloon. (0997) Use them to turn the old "bucket of water on top of the door" practical joke into an effective home security system. The selection of the next section is highly arbitrary, so don't hesitate to make use of one of the above uses while hitch hiking. Hitchhiker's Special Interest ----------------------------- (0019) Tuna and jellyfish sandwich (heavy on the mayo). (0021) Sandwich spread. (0023) Peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich. It's hard to keep them from sliding off the bread, but worth a try. (0029) Chili or pepper replacement. Simply eat you food with your hands after touching one of the most stingiest. (0098) Instant Jello dessert. (0111) Canteen. (0129) Crisps. Dried cannonball jellyfish are a delicacy in Japan. They look and sound just like giant potato crisps. (0211) Vitamin pill. (0259) Soap. Use jelly fish eggs 1/2 inch diameter. How? Beats me. (0311) Dental floss. Use the longest, thinnest tentacles. (0335) Psychiatrist. Convey all your problems to the patient jellyfish. Its inherent calmness will provide you with an atmosphere in which answers will erupt like ink from a squid. (0337) Brain exerciser (think of 1001 ways to use jellyfish). (0352) Fancy condom (inspect your local beach for new and used ones). (0477) Large dried ones as sunshades. (0633) Dried ones as cheap toilet paper. Wet ones as bottom tissues. (0666) Inverse towel. (0812) Swatch watch. (0830) Hat. Especially nice and cooling in desert areas. (0937) Banana peels replacement for beach pratfalls or in comic acts. (0953) If you put one down on a wooden pier in the summer, it will dry up and disappear without a trace. Put a piece of white paper under it first and a few hours later you have a faint picture of a jellyfish on the paper. (0965) Excuse for avoiding unpleasant date (gotta wash my jellyfish). (0969) Practical jokes: -Put one in handbag and watch from a distance. -Puree them and pour them over the windscreen on someone's car and they will drip down inside the ventilation ducts and start to reek after a few days. -Throw them to someone's stomach, who will suck his gut in so it will neatly slip inside his shorts, creating a lively scene. -Throw them onto people from tall buildings. -Put one in someone's aquarium/laundry/mailbox/toilet/bed/chair/ pocket/shampoo. (0990) Short range self defence weapon. Walk into a room swinging a jellyfish around your head and you'll command respect. (0999) Beach protector to keep little sisters away from one's beach possessions. A neat circle of them in the sand around a spread-out towel is guaranteed to keep suntan lotion, sunglasses and Barbie dolls safe from knifing fingers. Works just as well with other creatures. (1000) Hot bath guards. Guard your bath just filled with the perfect temperature of water against partners eager to steal your perfect bath. But before you start and use the jellyfish and fish everyone of them out of the seven seas I suggest you first consider what it must feel like for the poor jellyfish. Then just go ahead and use it. You can skip the empathy bit if you don't really feel related to jellyfish. %e *EOA* %t Life After Death %n 2U38 "updated" article %s Enjoy It While It Lasts %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19971121 %x Classification Of Religions %x Hell %x Immortality, What To Do When You Have Acquired %x Insane, How Do You Prove You Are Not? %x Philosophy %i Death, Life After %i Afterlife, The Existence Of %k Life %k Death %k Afterlife %k Religion %k Eternity %e One of the more interesting questions of life is whether it continues after the dramatic change we call death. Is death a transition, or is _this_ all we get? A lot of time has been spent thinking about and discussing this subject, energy that could have better been used in a more constructive way. To settle this issue once and for all I have written this article. Most of the discussions about life after death are more about _what_ happens in that life (the contents) than _if_ it exists. Buddhists and Hindus suppose that after death you get reincarnated; you come back on this same earth as, for instance, Ghandi, or an extremely rare species of beetle, depending on how well you lead your present life. After travelling through many lives and achieving a perfect state of being, you go to Nirvana. Here you are granted eternal rest from telemarketers (although I do remember a loud rock band was involved somehow, but I forgot the details). Catholics suppose you either go to a boring place and sing songs accompanied by a harp, or you go to an exciting and hot place, this inversely dependant on how you lead your present life. Scientologists suggest that your soul goes to Mars (the area for souls between lives) to be subjected to unspeakable tortures during which you are made to "forget" your previous life [1]. Afterwards you go back to Earth and decide which body to inhabit next. This decision is affected a bit by the fact that everyone seems to be stark raving mad. After some centuries/ millennia of these ill-inspired decisions, Earth will resemble a particularly badly run mental institution. The effects are already widely noticeable. The Ancient Norse folk thought Odin collected mortals who had died during battle, to add to his famous collection in Valhalla. All the remaining dead, the wimps, went to Helheim (or Nifflheim). Odin's collection of warriors were supposed to fight the ultimate battle at the end of time, Ragnarok. It is unclear what they thought to win at the _end of time_. It supposedly has something to do with the circularity of time, like the hand of a watch going round and round. It goes round and round and round, and always returns to the same numbers, like clockwork. Peacefully the hand goes round and round; look at it going... You feel relaxed now, and as the hand goes round, with each passing you will relax some more. Take it easy, relax, relaaax. Now, after some three minutes you will awaken and never remember that you have read this paragraph. You will think favourably of the author of this article, specifically in a monetary sense. Now relax, and keep watching the hands of the clock... The Torajans of Indonesia, after dying, have their soul, the "Bombo", resembling the deceased in every detail, transported (only if the funeral rites are properly orchestrated, otherwise the Bombo will haunt the living) to Puya, the land of soles (where also the Holy Shoes reside), together with all the wealth and livestock sacrificed at the funeral. In Puya, the Bombos live in a similar environment as the living for an eternity, unless they are promoted to the rank of deified ancestor, Deata, which are small and golden. The Deatas live in the heavens and provide protection and prosperity in exchange for ritual offerings. Muslims suppose people die and rest in their grave until judgment day. The non-believers and believers both have to cross a bridge over an abyss, in which Hell lies, to the other side, Heaven. The believers' bridge is normal, the non-believers' bridge is as thin as a hair (so start practising tight-rope walking, guys!) Once plunged into the eternal fires, you have to drink boiling water (tea) and eat fruit from the Zakkoen tree. This looks like the head of Satan and, once in the stomach, feels like molten metal (peppers?). Heaven, on the other hand, is a beautiful garden. The women who arrive in heaven are rejuvenated and become ecstatic at the thought that they are allowed to keep their husband company for all eternity. The men, on the other hand, become as potent as 80 men and are met by one hundred heavy breasted women a day, who regain their virginity every time they've had sex. Let's say, a somewhat different kind of ecstasy. Atheists have almost got it right. They say there is nothing after death. It is true that after your present life terminates, there is nothing. But life after death _exists_. And _this_ is it. This might sound like a contradiction. Not so. At this very moment you are experiencing the life after death. The fact is, that you've already had your previous existence, a LIFE in the largest sense of the word. Unfortunately you will never be able to even imagine what it was like. Back then the only thing you _knew_ was that there _would_ be something after that life, and that made people (if "people" is the correct word) content and peaceful. We would never have thought about life after death if it wasn't for the fact that a tiny bit of information of the previous existence manages to seep through: the awareness that there is something after death. Pretty ironic, if you consider that the present is your last journey. This little "cosmic" error is therefore the cause of all the discussions and this general fussing about. I hope that now I have made that clear, you won't spend any time and effort on that subject anymore. The loss of prospect may make you sad, but don't be! There's still plenty of time to make the best of life now. I hope I've made that easier by getting rid of the senseless discussions about "what's next?" Before you start questioning on what authority I speak, I'll tell you that I am the one who most people regard as being God. While you let this sink in, I'm sorry to disappoint the majority of them, as almost every one of them has different expectations about me. Although I speak through the hands of this human (the author), I must confess that I'm not as all-powerful as many people think. I'm the only "higher" being in existence, but I didn't create Earth and everything. Otherwise I would have certainly made a lot more of those fun fjords around the place. I can, however, at least give you humans a little information via the net, to make your existence a trickle easier and more fun. [1] After first learning how to play it... that may take quite some time, but hey, you've got an eternity! [2] The soul-wash isn't entirely successful, so you still remember _some_ of your previous lives, and you can still pay the Church hard cash to help you recall all the horrible things that happen during and in between your previous lives, in a futile attempt to regain your sanity. %e *EOA* %t Perception And "Usefulness" %n 2U39 %s An Attempt At A Typology %a Paul B. Tjon Sie Fat (ptjonsie@pobox.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19931215 %i Throwing Stuff Away %i Needing Stuff %e Delayed usefulness is defined as finding that one needs something at almost the moment it has been disposed of, often after years of having saved it because of some perceived usefulness. This is an exceedingly common phenomenon, baffling to the point of supernatural weirdness. Our research group (The Shiji/Wuwei Karl A. Shlemihl Vajrapani Collective) has conducted intensive fieldwork on the subject over the last 50-odd years in extensive areas in the developed industrialized world. Our research was limited to the industrialized First World society due to a lack of funding and our preliminary assumption that the concept of "delayed usefulness" is essentially related to exploitative consumerist capitalist waste-lot-want-more thinking. We have since accumulated sufficient evidence to suppose a certain universality, on Earth as well as in the rest of the hitchhiked universe. We will hereby present some of our findings and attempt a typology of this misunderstood subject. 1. "Inherent Usefulness" ------------------------ Things which are later found to have been useful must primarily be objects. Such objects can be physical, abstract, and in very few cases, both. Secondly, these objects must exist. In colloquial usage, this state will be described as "found," "bought," "borrowed but never returned," "it's always been here," "stolen," etc. The fact of the matter is, the objects must exist in a given consciousness (hereafter: "self"). Constant and actual perception is not a prerequisite: existence in this context differs subtly from phenomenological existence. We have found that the existence of objects was related to the inception of the state of being disposed of. This is the moment when objects are no longer perceived, are lost, are incompletely remembered after having been forgotten, are destroyed, or are otherwise actively disposed of. The self's motivation to allow an object to exist is described as a "use" that the said object is believed to have in some undefined future. Objects are therefore always useful: perceived usefulness is an inherent part of the identity of an object to the self. However, as objects are also never used, this inherent usefulness is unreal. Usefulness is thus a function of perception. 2. "Relative Usefulness" ------------------------ ... and if they hadn't junked the tapes, I could have finished this @#$%&!**! article. %e *EOA* %t Space Safe Coke Can %n 2U40 %s Drinks In Space %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) * * Apologies to the Coca Cola company, and Jack Dee's copy writers for re- * using his fantastic widget advert. Note: Jack Dee (stern faced comedian) * sings the widget song in a beer advert on British television. It is not * really an advert for coke. The widget in question is a device for making * beer in cans taste like it was draught beer - pulled straight from the * barrel. * %d 19940322 %e Earth's most popular drink had a problem when people first went into space. It was relatively early that history had the first dog in space, the first woman in space, and the first marital consummation in space. However the first Coke in space ended in disaster. The problem with Coke cans is firstly to do with pressure difference. If you take a coke can into the hard vacuum of space, the pressure of the carbonated drink inside will explode the can, sending aluminum shrapnel in all directions, damaging satellites, shuttles, and especially astronauts in space suits [1]. If you sensibly open the can inside the pressurized cabin compartment then the gas escaping from the can's ring-pull will project the can in the opposite direction. Of course, you usually hold the can firmly tight when opening it, and so the whole system of yourself _and_ the coke can is shot through the cabin. Eventually you figure out how to point the top of the can straight up and position your feet on the ground. You can open your can and absorb the pressure with your legs. Then you then come across the problem that the ring-pull is not perfectly symmetrical. The gas escapes from one side faster than the other. The coke can may twist from your grasp, spraying liquid sugar in a Catherine Wheel of gunk. Alternatively, you may be the one to start spinning [2]. Not to be defeated, the food scientists designed a widget which released the gas in a safe and symmetrical fashion. This is the source for the advertising campaign: Widget, Its got a Widget, A lovely Widget, A Widget it has got, A Widget. [1] It is rather silly trying to drink from a coke can _inside_ a space suit when the coke can is _outside_. [2] This is the reason for those training machines which spin prospective astronauts in all directions at once. [3] From: John Holland FYI, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi have developed cans for dispensing their beverages for space shuttle crews. I saw some film of the first trials in space. Quite amusing actually. The beverage would come out as a foam spheroid, which would be played with by the crew. They would blow on the edges to make it spin, or just follow it around the cabin and sneak up on it and consume it. There is an example of one of the actual cans on display at the National Space Hall of Fame (or something like that) in Alamogordo, New Mexico, located near White Sands Missile Range. %e *EOA* %t Conservation Of Cookies, General Principle Of %n 2U41 %s Splergle Arb %a Robyn C. Reed (reedrc9@ac.wfu.edu) * * Intercepted from alt.humor.best-of-usenet by Roel van der Meulen * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940303 %i Recipe For Cookies, Not A %e Christopher Smith (shmed@acs2.bu.edu) once gave a recipe for cookies, which culminated in the formulation of a principle most people have never thought about: : Cookies even you can make: : Take a 12 oz box of Nilla wafers and mash them into little crumbs. You : can do this with graham crackers too. [Directions deleted... but do not delete when cooking, or you'll have lots of little crumbs and not much else...] Chris's cookies arise from other cookies. We may apply this to the general Principle of Conservation of Cookies, which postulates that at any given time in a closed system, the number of cookies in said system remains constant. The corollary is that cookies can neither be made anew nor destroyed. The addition of other ingredients in Chris's cookies (e.g. condensed milk, chocolate chips, coconut) is required for two reasons: first, although the number of cookies in the system remains constant, the size of said cookies need not. Chris, being a cookie fan, obviously wants cookies bigger than the Nilla wafers from whence they sprung. The second reason for adding additional ingredients in the cookies is that in every cookie transformation process, there is inevitably some irrecoverable loss of cookies. In this case, some crumbs will fall on the floor and get stepped on, and there is no way to avoid this. An extrapolation of this theory suggests that, barring the addition of extra ingredients (condensed milk, chocolate chips, what have you), the cookies in a given system will eventually degenerate to greater and greater crumbliness, culminating in a completely flavorless pile o' crumbs. Some may object that we see new cookies in the stores every day, and that the number of cookies must therefore be increasing, rather than remaining constant. My reply to this is that the grocery store, and indeed, the city, is not a cookie-dynamically closed system, and therefore additional input of cookies does not violate this principle, as long as they come from somewhere where the number of cookies is decreasing at the same rate. With the NCJS grant I will be receiving some time next week (rent is due this week at Rosenthal-by-the-Bay and cash is short), I will continue to investigate the theory and implications of this powerful new paradigm. Feel free to drop by Wake, offer criticisms and ideas, and bring me oatmeal cookies. %e *EOA* %t Devilled Ham %n 2U42 %s Recipe For Devilled Ham %a Nancy A. Howells (howells@athena.mit.edu) * * Spotted by Roel van der Meulen on alt.humor.best-of-usenet * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940404 %i Yummie! %i Recipes, Devilled Ham %e If I'm not mistaken, the process of devilling ham begins with the drawing of a pentagram. Several women who were known in their previous lives to have ridden broomsticks in to work then begin incantations and dances around the pentagram. The ham sits inside the pentagram, where the Devil is hopefully going to appear. After chanting several prayers backwards, and beseeching Beelzebub to appear, the women are joined by men who have pointed tails and horns. They appear from someplace as yet unknown, bearing bottles of spices and grinders. These are placed inside the pentagram with the appropriate reverence and with the chanting of "Satan! Satan!" If the chants are all done with total conviction, and all present truly believe, the supplicated being, Satan, will appear in the pentagram, and, in a flash of blinding light, grind the ham, mix in the spices, and leave everything in a sealed can with a pop-up top. He leaves a small portrait of himself on the wrapper which is supposed to go around the can. Voila! Devilled ham. Now, for devils food cake..... definitely a sacrifice of some kind is necessary. %e *EOA* %t Ka-Dink Effect, The %n 2U43 %s Mechanical Click In An Apple Newton Computer %a Greg Harp (harp@netcom8.netcom.com) * * Seized from alt.humor.best-of-usenet by Roel van der Meulen * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940303 %i Ker-Splash Effect %i Newton Problems %i LCD %e brian@arl.wustl.edu (Brianosaurus) has a problem with his Newton computer. Problem: -------- OK. Call me crazy. Perhaps I was delirious last night while playing Solo on my Newton, but is there some sort of _mechanical_ click in the Newton when you put a card in one of the four spots (I forget what they're called) on the top? I swear I hear this little thump, and it doesn't sound like its coming from the speaker. Answer: ------- What you are experiencing is the LCD equivalent of the "Ka-Dink Effect." The Ka-Dink Effect, as we all know, is the result of the electron streams that trace along your computer monitors (and all CRTs actually) to display images. The electrons bounce off the glass in front and make a noise that, played back slowly, sounds like "ka-dink!" Of course, at the speed that this normally occurs, the individual "ka-dinks" can't be separately heard. What is often reported is a sort of high pitched whine emanating from the monitor. This is actually a result of millions of "ka-dinks" occurring every second. In the case of the Newton, you are probably hearing the lesser-known "Ker-Splash Effect." When a dark area on the LCD is moved, a large number of the liquid crystals must be carried to the new position on the display. In "Solo," when you drag the cards across the screen and drop them, you hear (and possibly feel) the liquid crystals falling back into place. This results in a sort of "splash" sound. The existence of the "Ker-Splash Effect" as well as the "Ka-Dink Effect" is a widely disputed issue which has resulted in a handful of small skirmishes, at least one holy war, and the bruising of one individual's lower left arm. However, I think that you would agree, given your experience, that this condition actually does exist. If you wish to learn more about this subject, I suggest that you read _Theories And Other Bits_ (subtitled _Ethel Takes A Really Long Walk_) by Sir Alfred Glotschmeyer. %e *EOA* %t Secret Of The @, The %n 2U44 %s Who Made The @ And Why? %a Peter Juul (Rockbear@diku.dk) %d 19940324 %i The Badger-Sect %x Classification Of Religions %e It is a widespread rumor that the @, also known as a "Curly a," a "sniarf," an "at," an "elephantnose," and even a "going" is simply another ASCII code meant to make people mental. That is not true. It is also said that the reason it is so widely used in connection with electronic mail of all sorts is that a $ would be misinterpreted, and a "@" was one of the few signs not yet used for anything else. That, too, is a lie. The truth is that it is a religious symbol for a mad sect of carnivoural badger-worshipping lunatics in the more western parts of Holland. They have through long and hard pushing at the right people, and pulling the wrong strings, made their symbol a means of communications. This is in no way a secret coding of the number 666, as some might think, this having nothing to do with money. It is, though, a secret coding of the sentence "Badgers are rather hoopy froods. Ni!" Their leader, "Bubba the Badger-like Being" made up the sign while watching "The Wizard of Oz" at 9 times normal speed for the 538th time that month. It suddenly occurred to him that the religion he wanted to start needed a sign, and that curly thing at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road would probably qualify. He, being a little drunk at the time, made up the @ and a religion was born. Very soon now, Bubba is expected to claim his copyright and start charging people for using the @. He'll be rich, and the Internet Community will be in trouble. The religion is classified as: ?D4Z-9A0D Comments: No one knows how many badgers exists, therefor the number of deities is unknown. No one knows the name of the sect, so there are NO ways to properly spell it. %e *EOA* %t Mathematical Model Of God And Jesus %n 2U45 %s Sexual Sin And Christians %d 19940404 %a Charles Magee (Not available via Internet) * * Captured and edited from Internet by Roel van der Meulen * (vdmeulen@strw.LeidenUniv.nl) * %x Classification Of Religions %x Life After Death %i God Is Against Sex %e To solve the question of if sex is a sin in Christianity, the following model has been constructed. In this model God is a point mass, centered at the origin of our XYZ space. Christ, we assume, is at the right hand of God, about 100 centimeters away. His mass is probably around 75 kilograms. Since God has a very large mass (a bit less than infinity), Christ, who we assume is in a circular orbit around God, has a very large momentum, and hence has a very small wavelength. This means that Christ's uncertainty is quite small, so we can therefore conclude that he is fairly certain in all that he does. Now let us consider a sinner. We shall place him at a large distance from God, say one inch and 45 million light-years. He, being at a constant distance from God and thus in a circular orbit, and having approximately the same mass as Christ, will be travelling significantly slower than Christ, and will therefore be more uncertain. One should also consider, however, that since Christ's orbit could fit in a kiddie pool, while the sinner's would encompass not only our galaxy, but a few of the nearby ones as well, that the sinner gets around more, sees more, and is generally a more knowledgeable guy than the Savior. This fits in with traditional wisdom. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, being a fairly pure person, is close to God. This means that she must be a fast woman. From this situation we can draw the conclusion that sinners have a lot more potential than saints, since less of their energy is stored as kinetic energy. Further insights can be gained when we look at the situation of the heathen. A heathen is someone who, in general, is not affected by God. This means that they are at least an infinite distance from him. Now, assuming that one of these folk starts, by random causes, to travel towards God, he will convert his potential energy to kinetic energy during the approach, or descent. Since he started out an infinite distance away, but with some kinetic energy of his own, he will approach God on a hyperbolic trajectory and then disappear into space again, never to be seen again. If his approach is such that it brings him inside the orbit of The Son of God, then right after his closest approach, the heathen's velocity will be greater than Jesus', which means that he will be more sure of himself in his escape than Christ who is in orbit. This is an interesting notion, but some of the side ramifications are even more intriguing. Without any orbiters, therefore, God would not be able to attract anyone; all approaching bodies would have either parabolic or hyperbolic trajectories. However, once God has an orbiter, the two of them could collaborate to capture other bodies. This means that heathens that get too close to believers in their approaches might get trapped, and by the same token, believers who are buzzed by heathens could be ejected. And what, the reader asks at this point, does any of this have to do with sex? Well, the answer is this: Sex, as we all know, is the union of two or more people. This, in our analogy, would be represented as a collision. Now, in Christianity, almost all of the holy figures are male. For God, a collision between any of these close in folk would be disastrous, because, even if we assume they are indestructible, such a high energy collision would either: A) Eject one of the men out of orbit (becoming a heathen) B) Cause one of them to fall into God (to die) C) Give them highly irregular elliptical orbits (becoming a doubter) All of these would be bad for God, because in the first two he would lose orbiters, making His chance at capturing new ones less, and in the third case He would have a much greater chance of more collisions, as the elliptical orbiters would cross many of the unaffected circular orbits. Therefore, God probably disapproves of these collisions. If anyone is not offended yet, I can use the analogy to prove the verse in Leviticus, that no man shall wear clothes of two different fabrics. %e *EOA* %t Catholic Theme Park %n 2U46 %s Froodiest Kitch In The World, Once It Exists %a George Tirebiter (Author unavailable via Internet) * * Roel van der Meulen got this from alt.humor.best-of-usenet * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940411 %x Classification Of Religions %x Hell %e It is time that we face the facts. The Catholic Church has been in steady decline for 500 years. The invention of the printing press and the spread of literacy has been a disaster for the church. This has allowed parishioners access to ideas without the necessary clerical interpretation. Luckily, the computer revolution is reversing this literacy problem and making books obsolete. The recent discussion of the Disney Historical Theme Park has given us a great idea to revitalize the church and to provide you with the spiritual and financial opportunity of the millennium. We are proud to announce today Papacy Park, opening summer of 1995. This promises to be the most complete Catholic multimedia experience yet. No expense will be spared and there will be attractions for the whole family. The kids will love Grottos of Spain. A beautifully landscaped park with the latest Animatronic Apparition (TM) technology will allow your child to receive their own Personalized Prophecy. Take them to feed the lambs in the Pastoral Petting Zoo. Don't miss the Stations of the Cross miniature golf course. For the grandparents: health care crisis? Forget about it! Let them soothe away their ailments in the Bethesda Healing Pool and Spa. Extra charge for towels. The latest in 3D cinemax technology will blow Dad's mind. Our first feature: "The Ecstasy of St. Theresa" starring Natassia Kinski. Critics are calling this "Thrilling...," "Sensuous...," and "Two Crosiers up!" In production now is "Borgia Family Values" starring John Goodman as Pope Alexander VI, Sharon Stone as his daughter Lucrezia, and Don Johnson as his son Cesare. There's already a BIG buzz on this movie! Dad will also get a big kick out of Popemobiles: Concept Cars of the Future. For mom, I'm sure she'll love Papal Fashions of the Ages. The Bernini ensemble number is to burn in Hell for! For the clergy, we will have realistic reenactments of Lives of the Saints using the latest virtual reality technology. In our focus groups, the Passion of St. Sebastian was a big hit with young seminarians, if you know what I mean. The day ends with a smash extravaganza in the Papacy Parade. The parade starts with the finest penitents all the way from the Philippines in the Cavalcade of Crosses down the street of Olde Jerusalem. Authentic Replicas of Authentic Pieces of the True Cross will be available for sale as will be Imprinted Shrouds and Veils, suitable for adorational display. Our floats will contain fabulous tableaux of church history. Cheer Torquemada as he drives devils out of heretics! Hiss and boo at the man you love to hate as he nails his protests to the church door! The finale of the evening is, of course, the appearance of the big man himself, the REAL Chairman of the Board. He'll be singing his monster hit "I did it my way (and you will, too!)." There is still a great opportunity for investors. The people who got in early on the indulgences thing saw their earthly rewards multiply like loaves and fishes. This opportunity is available to you now! But don't wait! Remember, it is no sin to risk some exposure now for some really big after-tax capital gains in the hereafter. We are still in the process of finalizing our plans for our park. If you have any ideas for other attractions, please pass them along. %e *EOA* %t Gedankenexperiment %n 2U47 %s What Does This Word Mean, And Where Does It Come From? %a Aephraim M. Steinberg (aephraim@physics5) * * Found in alt.humor.best-of-usenet by Roel van der Meulen * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940419 %i Thought Experiment %i Icelandic Fiziks %i Many-Fjords Theory %i Ludwig Plutonium %x Quantum Mechanics Of Sandwiches In Lunchboxes %e This word comes from the Middle Icelandic, where part of one volume of "Fizikshritt" has miraculously survived the ages. Since paper had not yet been introduced in Iceland, and all the great minds were too busy arguing about the interpretation of Littlbitzuvstuffmekanik to invent printing, their journals were published in snow and were completely unknown (except in an unreliable Aramaic translation) until an *extremely* lost Bedouin fell into a snow cave in the mid-1950s and looted what he thought were cave drawings. He stupidly tried to peel the snow pages apart, and later merchants used Scotch tape to repair them, so most of the surviving manuscript is in small pieces containing at most a fragment of a word. This makes a complete understanding of Middle Icelandic physics extremely difficult. For example, the best reconstruction of one of the surviving abstracts reads (roughly translated) "It [will] be sh[own] that ... universe splits into different fjords which do [not] communicate with ... whale blubber for dinner pick up cheese for breakfast and go to cleaners on Tuesday." It is hard to believe that the down-to-Earth Icelanders really believed in the Many-Fjords Theory, but we have no independent sources with which to compare these reconstructions. Many of the articles also contain references to a "Wise One" whose "number is 93." Some workers identify this leader with Ludwig Plutonium, and conclude that the beliefs of his cult have existed for much longer than originally suspected. In Icelandic, there is no separate word for "fun" and "wise," however, so another theory is that this was simply an early piece of graffiti and "93" was someone's phone number. (Phone numbers were only two digits, because phones were still luxury items in Iceland during the era of Littlbitzuvstuffmekanik; since as alluded to before, the scientists dealt only with abstract issues instead of transistors, consumer electronics relied on the switching capabilities of very expensive ice flows. The upshot is that the origin of "gedankenexperiment" remains obscure. There are several suggested etymologies. The most commonly accepted is that it is a contracted form of "Gott damm en experiment," which Icelandic fizikists used to shout when trying to perform experiments which were too difficult to do in practice, especially when "massless" pulleys fell on their toes and hurt them. Another widespread belief is that quantum optics experiments had to be done during the dark and cold Icelandic winters to avoid background counts from the sunlight, so most physicists had perpetual sneezes. When you say "gesundheit" to a sneezing Icelander, he replies "gedanken yu," and quantum opticians hence came to be known as the "gedankenfizikists" and their experiments as "gedankenexperiments." By an odd coincidence, the word also looks exactly like the German for "thought experiment," i.e. an experiment which may not be feasible in practice but by imagining which one can (hopefully) come to some interesting conclusions. The root for this word is "denken," to think, and most modern workers incorrectly assume that this is the correct etymology. This is probably because the term was popularized by Einstein, who relied heavily on gedankenexperiments both in his derivation of relativity and in his arguments with Bohr about quantum mechanics. %e *EOA* * * End of file: UREAL02.NEW * Share and Enjoy! *