Collage 213               H u m o u r N e t                8 FEB 96

Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of time to throw together
another long, detailed opener. (Consider yourselves lucky. :-) So,
instead, I'll cover some less amusing material, and then get on with
the funny stuff.

First of all, I have written a very nice program to efficiently
manage all my HumourNet material -- it automates everything from
the individual submissions right through to the construction of the
Collages, themselves. All I have to do is type in some cutesie
opener, make sure it's all formatted in an anal-retentive manner,
press the "send" button, and away it goes.

And, like everything else that's designed to make life easier, when
it screws up, it screws up big time. :-(

When material comes into HQ HumourNet, I designate a file to which
it will be appended. Well, several weeks ago, someone sent me a piece
which I designated as heading for the "Geeks" file; unfortunately, my
trusty program trusted me too much, and *overwrote* the Geeks file.
<sniff>

Are there backups? Of course there are backups. But I didn't notice
that the file had been overwritten for perhaps a week or two, and the
backups had themselves been backed up by that time.

So ... (*yes*, there's a point to this!) if you have sent me anything
over, say, the last three or four months that could be considered
"Geek" material (ya know, computer-related humor, etc.) that hasn't
appeared yet on HumourNet, please re-send it. In particular, I blew
away <sniff> a piece on a set of instructions for setting up computer
equipment (or something like that) -- if you're familiar with it, or
if you have it, please send it my way.

As always, the address for contributions is: HumorNet@bgu.edu

Which brings me to another point: ***PLEASE*** do not send mail to
"owner-humornet@bgu.edu" -- at least, not if you want me to read it.
Mail sent to that address is treated by the listproc as an error, and
is subsequently filtered by Eudora into the "Errors" folder -- which
I rarely read. In the last few days, I've fished several messages
out of there. If you need to contact me, and you're not sure where
to send the mail, the HumorNet@bgu.edu address is always a safe bet.

And the final point: it seems that yesterday's "Women's Attitudes"
opener has actually been pretty well received ... !? <gasp> I thought
for sure I'd opened the floodgates -- or I'd come in this morning to
find that half the list had unsubscribed. Instead, I've received
several messages from people saying, "Yeah, I agree with you!"

And -- are you sitting comfortably? -- almost half of them were from
women! Somehow, it sure looks as if I have managed to escape with my
butt uncharred. :-)

Famous last words, right? Probably. And we have more of them --
Scott sends us the piece, "Famous Last Words" (catchy name, huh?),
which contains an entertaining set of actual quotes from people over
the last 100 years or so.

And, for more entertaining quotes, Mark sends us "Quotes on the
Nature of the Universe," which are ... well, I think it's probably
pretty self-explanatory.

Many thanks to Scott and Mark. Enjoy!

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1996 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: Famous Last Words

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously
considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of
no value to us."
  -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who
would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
  -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
  -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred
Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith
went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
  -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

 "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and
not Gary Cooper."
  -- Gary Cooper, on his decision to not take the leading role in
"Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports
say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like
you make."
  -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
  -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
  -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment.
The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
  -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for
3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay
our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then
we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you.
You haven't got through college yet.'"
  -- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get
Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal
computer.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and
reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against
which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out
daily in high schools."
  -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's
revolutionary rocket work.

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across
all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life.
You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an
unalterable condition of weight training."
  -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem
by inventing Nautilus.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?
You're crazy."
  -- Drillers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist in his project to
drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
  -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University,
1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
  -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole
Superieure de Guerre.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
  -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
  -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon".
  -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed
Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Quotes on the Nature of the Universe

Carl Zwanzig: "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a
dark side, and it holds the universe together...."

Douglas Adams: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody
discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it
will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more
bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that
this has already happened."

Albert Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and
human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Unknown: "Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a
comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they
leave things."

Edward P. Tryon: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I
offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those
things which happen from time to time."

John Andrew Holmes: "It is well to remember that the entire
universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

Max Frisch: "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that
man doesn't have to experience it."

Kilgore Trout: "The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

Woody Allen: "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the
universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

Douglas Adams: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This
has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a
bad move."

William J. Broad: "The crux... is that the vast majority of the
mass of the universe seems to be missing."

Rich Cook: "Programming today is a race between software engineers
striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the
Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the
Universe is winning."

Fred Hoyle: "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I
don't know what it's a plan for."

Ray Bradbury: "We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."

Christopher Morley: "My theology, briefly, is that the universe was
dictated but not signed."

Edward Chilton: "I'm worried that the universe will soon need
replacing. It's not holding a charge."

Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): "The surest sign that
intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has
never tried to contact us."

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