Hey There,
Well, as the title of this post suggests (actually, asserts, unless it's toying with us ;) this marks our 500th post. Even though this is a momentous occasion (which most occassions composed of moments are ;) we're sticking to our guns and staying with the lazy (I mean diversified) format of the standard weekend post by showcasing other sites' humor :) It only took us 5 months of not analyzing any statistical data to realize that nobody liked to read about how to use Unix and/or Linux in the workplace on the weekends. That startling revelation led to our weekend-readership growing by about 500% (coincidence? The folks at Time-Life books would beg to disagree ;) If you didn't grow up in the 70's watching endless television commercials about American outlaws (amongst them, a bandit so ornery that he once shot a man just for snoring!) a lot of the in-jokes that litter almost every post like TP may seem like insanity. We assure, however, that (even if you did grow up at the same time we did) your perception is probably correct ;)
For our 500th post (which will, if our calculations are correct, make this our umpteenth weekend humor post), we bring you a message of worship to the ultimate text editor: ED! We found this piece in the Gnu Project's Mail Archives.
Since we'll be moving soon, anyway, we've come to the decision that we will no longer edit out profanity from our featured posts, at the risk of being labeled an "adult" site. This means that you can read the almost-exact-same thing at Gnu.org's page. Most of the stuff we've edited out over time has been fairly tame (in our opinion) anyway. Of course, the logical next steps (according to the Institute for the Preservation of Logical Fallacies ;) for this blog (after letting a "crap" or a "shit" slip through the cracks) are going to be drug humor (done it already) and pornography (haven't technically done it, yet, but just consider that everything is made up of 1's and 0's... Some folks somewhere have to find that entire concept sexually offensive (although statistics show that they're more likely to be offended if you wave a lot of 1's in their faces ;). If you're still single, avoid these people at all costs because - SPOILER ALERT - no matter how hard you try, you're not going to get laid ;).
The concept the whole progression, listed above, relies on is that you're too simple-minded to question authority. For instance, the use of swear words is a gateway to dehumanization and ever-increasing detachment from normal polite society (Which is just fuckin' crazy. Who "are" these meat puppets? ;). The same people who bring you that argument are also responsible for the world-famous "Marijuana is a gateway drug" argument; noting that most crack addicts started out smoking cigarettes and huffing joints. Of course, by that same logic, you could deduce that caffeine (found in coffee and most soft drinks) also leads to crack addiction. I'd bet my paycheck that a lot of those very same addicts started out with an innocent sip of Diet Pepsi or RC Cola. If they'd only known ;) You see what we mean, though, right? The backwards logic doesn't make sense unless you sensationalize it. Even then, it still doesn't make sense, but (if you're good at spinning public paranoia) by the point in time that anyone might come around to questioning the validity of your argument, you've pressed enough hot buttons in enough people to virtually ensure that anyone who has the courage to question you will be sought upon by an angry mob of delusional idiots ;)
As an aside, if you ever read the keyword lists for our weekend posts, do they sound like really poorly transcribed titles to Eastern TV or Movie comedies? (e.g. The happy funny laugh joke time show! ;)
As for keyword stuffing (think: Linux Unix Unix Linux Unix Linux Linux RedHat Solaris Perl Shell Script Perl Linux Unix Perl Shell RedHat SUSE Linux Bash Shell Linux RedHat Unix Linux Linux Linux Perl Unix Shell), we have yet to go there, but we may just give it a shot. This site doesn't really fare well in the SEO game, but that's never been our concern. Or, per our new editorial guidelines, we'd rather Linux write Unix helpful Redhat posts Shell on Unix topics Perl that Unix people Linux might Shell find SUSE useful Linux than Shell Script cow IBM tow Unix to Linux the RedHat arbitrary Linux whims Solaris of Unix whomever Linux is Perl in Unix charge Bash of Perl keeping Linux you Shell up-to-date Ubuntu with Linux what Unix you Shell should Linux enjoy Perl on Unix your Linux own Linux free Unix time :)
Enjoy this 500th post with our compliments (and derogatory gestures ;). It's some funny shit. Don't be afraid to laugh, even if the overt references to drug-induced sexuality and pornographic violence fuck with your head a little ;)
We'll see you at the "you must be 18 years or older" gateway page tomorrow!
Cheers,
Ed, man! !man ed
From: patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti)
Subject: The True Path (long)
Date: 11 Jul 91 03:17:31 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs,alt.slack
When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
*and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like,
'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor
that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.
Ed, man! !man ed
ED(1) Unix Programmer's Manual ED(1)
NAME
ed - text editor
SYNOPSIS
ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
---
Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed
because it's ED!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs
Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:
golem$ ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?
---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.
ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN
SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!!
Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
TEXT EDITOR.
When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their
"edlin" on a Unix standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely
you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.
Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you
are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should
not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE
SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!
?
, Mike
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