______ __
/ ____/___ _____/ /___ ______ ___
/ /_ / __ \/ ___/ __/ / / / __ \/ _ \
/ __/ / /_/ / / / /_/ /_/ / / / / __/
/_/ \____/_/ \__/\__,_/_/ /_/\___/
Mythology, n.:
The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its
origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished
from the true accounts which it invents later.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Reporter, n.:
A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a
tempest of words.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.
Review Questions
(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the
Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?
(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off
his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?
(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four
tellers?
Another Glitch in the Call
------- ------ -- --- ----
(Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
Chorus:
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared
to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
-- Havelock Ellis
Saturday, 5 September 2026 Michael J. Chappell Contact me at:
mcsuper5@freeshell.org
