Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:27:00 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Amusing review(s) of the iPad
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Mike B. wrote:
> mark wrote:
>> Michael Walsh wrote:
>>> Two! Two reviews in one!  One for techies, one for everyone else.
>>>
>>> How do you know if you're a techie?
>>>
>>> "Read the first one if you*re a techie. (How do you know? Take this
>>> simple test. Do you use BitTorrent? Do you run Linux? Do you have more
>>> e-mail addresses than pants? You*re a techie.)"
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/technology/personaltech/01pogue.html
>>>
>>> http://tinyurl.com/ygzt8eh
>> Um, I run linux at home, have more pants than email addresses, and don't use
>> bittorrent.
>>
>> I'm also a Unix/Linux sysadmin, and have over 20 year of programming
>> experience. But I guess I'm not a techie?
>
> You're a techie...just not a logician.
>
> Those were sufficient conditions to qualify, not necessary conditions.
>
> I don't run bittorrent either, but I do run Linux (several varieties,
> some on virtual machines, and one on a server the size of a grilled
> cheese sandwich), and do have more e-mail addresses (or at least
> aliases) than pants.  Been programming since about 1975 (Fortran, on
> punch cards, for a machine with 8k of memory and that filled half a
> classroom and only did one program at a time).  I also have a soldering
> iron and know how to use it.
>
> As for logicians, there were three of them riding on a train through
> Scotland.  The Jr. Logician, looking out the window and seeing sheep,
> said, "Look!  All the sheep in Scotland are white!"
>
> The Journeyman logician then corrected him, "No, the most you can say
> about it with your current evidence is that *some* of the sheep in
> Scotland are white."
>
> The Master logician then corrected both of them, "You are both wrong.
> The most you can say with your current evidence is that some of the
> sheep in Scotland are white...on at least one side."

Yes, but the sheep in Scotland, along with those in Utah (according to the late
U. Utah Phillips) also run scared.

  mark
--
Certified lunatics are shut up because of their
proneness to violence when their pretensions are
questioned; the uncertified variety are given the
control of powerful armies, and can inflict death
and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.
     --Bertrand Russell, Power [1938] ch.16