wednesday, january 05, 2000

How to Write Good

• Avoid alliteration. Always.
• Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
• Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
• Employ the vernacular.
• Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
• It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
• Contractions aren't necessary.
• Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
• One should never generalize.
• Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
• Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
• Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
• Be more or less specific.
• Understatement is always best.
• One-word sentences? Eliminate.
• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
• The passive voice is to be avoided.
• Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
• Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
• Who needs rhetorical questions?
• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

5:28 pm | Comments (0)

tuesday, january 04, 2000

Kurt Vonnegut's commencement address at MIT

<< We all know he didn't really give this speech, right? >>

"Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday

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5:25 pm | Comments (0)

monday, january 03, 2000

Warranty Card

                      McDonnell Douglas Corp.

                Aircraft - Space Systems - Missiles

                      IMPORTANT!  IMPORTANT!

                Please fill out and mail this card 

                   within 10 days of purchase

Thank you for purchasing a McDonnell Douglas military aircraft.  

In order to protect your new investment, please take a few moments 

to fill out the warranty registration card below.  Answering the 

survey questions is not required, but the information will help us 

to develop new products that best meet your needs and desires.

1.  [ ] Mr.  [ ] Mrs.  [ ] Ms.  [ ] Miss

    [ ] Colonel        [ ] General

    [ ] Comrade        [ ] Other

    First Name __________  Initial __  Last Name __________

    Latitude ____________  Longitude ____________

    Altitude ____________  Password, Code Name, etc. ____________

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5:19 pm | Comments (0)

sunday, january 02, 2000

Nerd Season

A truck driver hauling a tractor-trailer load of computers down I-35 stops at the Rundburg exit for a beer. As he approaches the bar he sees a big sign on the door saying:

"NERDS NOT ALLOWED-ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!"

He goes in and sits down. The bartender comes over to him, sniffs, says he smells kind of nerdy, asks him what he does for a living. The truck driver says he drives a truck, and the smell is just from the computers he is hauling. The bartender says OK, truck drivers are not nerds, and serves him a beer.

As he is sipping his beer, a skinny guy walks in with tape around his glasses, a pocket protector with twelve kinds of pens and pencils, and a belt at least a foot too long. The bartender, without saying a word, pulls out a shotgun and blows the guy away. The truck driver asks him why he did that. The bartender said not to worry, the nerds are over populating Austin, and are in season now. You don't even need a license, he said.

So the truck driver finishes his beer, gets back in his truck, and heads back onto the freeway. Suddenly he veers to avoid an accident, and the load shifts. The back door breaks open and computers spill out all over the frontage road. He jumps out and sees a crowd already forming, grabbing up the computers. They are all engineers, accountants and programmers wearing the nerdiest clothes he has ever seen. He can't let them steal his whole load. So remembering what happened in the bar, he pulls out his gun and starts blasting away, felling several of them instantly.

A highway patrol officer comes zooming up and jumps out of the car screaming at him to stop. The truck driver said, "What's wrong? I thought nerds were in season."

"Well, sure," said the patrolman, "But you can't bait 'em."

4:52 pm | Comments (0)

saturday, january 01, 2000

The Project

In the Beginning, the Project Manager created the Programming Staff
The Programming Staff was without form or structure
And the Project Manager said, "Let there be organization"
And there was Organization
And the Project Manager saw that the Organization was good
And the Project Manager separated the workers from the supervisors
And he called the supervisors "Management"
And he called the workers "Staff"

And the Project Manager said, "Let there be a mission in the midst of the Organization"
And then he added "Let it separate the people one from the other"
And it was so
Those who were to benefit from the system were placed far away
And those who were to build it were placed in boxes called "Cubicles"
And he called the former "End Users"
And he called the latter "Programmers"

And the Project Manager said, "Let one among the Programmers be chosen to lead"
And there was turmoil, chaos, back-stabbing and arguments for forty days and nights
Finally the Project Manager selected the most competent among them
And he called the man "Chief Programmer"
The other Programmers decried the selection saying, "What standards were used?"
And the Project Manager smiled and said, "That is not for you to know."
And the morning and the afternoon of the first phase were past

And the Project Manager called the Chief Programmer before him
And he said, "Prepare for me a schedule so that I may look upon it"
And the Chief Programmer walked among his staff
And the Staff was divided into two sections
One section was called "Analysts"
And the remainder, he called "Application Programmers"
And it came to pass that each Analyst brought his estimate to the Chief Programmer
Whereupon the Chief Programmer collected them and combined them into a "Flow Chart"
And the Chief Programmer saw that it was good
And the morning and the afternoon of the second phase were past

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4:50 pm | Comments (0)