Obama to meet the pope on 10 July
Harry Mary Andruschak
etc are speculating about it big time
I doubt if it has anything to do with Subject A. The two are at
opposite ends concerning THAT topic.
I suspect the bulk of the conversation will be about the progress of
the Middle East Peace Process. What progress? Personally, I very much
doubt that there will ever be peace in the Middle East.
Dorothy J Heydt
Maybe not.
There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
much."
"Are you kidding?" says the duck. "You're a scorpion.
You'll sting me to death."
"Why would I do that?" says the scorpion. "If you die, I
drown. It's not in my own best interests to sting you."
"Okay," says the duck dubiously, and the scorpion climbs onto
his back and they set off across the river.
But halfway across, the scorpion's worser nature gets the
better of him and he can't restrain himself, he stings the
duck."
"Why?" gasps the duck as he dies. "Why did you do that? Now
you'll die too!"
The scorpion answered, shrugging his chitinous shoulders,
"What did you expect? This is the Middle East."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Philip Chee
> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
> much."
Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
Harry Mary Andruschak
>
> Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
> frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
frog
prog
prop
poop
loop
look
lock
luck
duck
Can anyone do better then this 9 word ladder?
William December Starr
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> said:
> Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When
> did the frog change into a duck?
After the frog had heard the story about five hundred times and
wasn't going to carry the damn scorpion any more.
-- wds
Dorothy J Heydt
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
>> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
>> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
>> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
>> much."
>
>Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
>frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
The way I heard it, it was a duck.
netcat
> In article <2trlt6....@news.alt.net>,
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> >On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >
> >> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
> >> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
> >> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
> >> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
> >> much."
> >
> >Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
> >frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
> variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
> The way I heard it, it was a duck.
This is a very old story and has nothing to do with the Gulf Wars.
The answer in the canonical story is "I couldn't help it, it's my
nature".
rgds,
netcat
Kip Williams
> In article <2trlt6....@news.alt.net>,
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>>> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
>>> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
>>> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
>>> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
>>> much."
>> Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
>> frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
> variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
> The way I heard it, it was a duck.
See also the maiden who takes a frozen snake to her bosom. Also
available as a hit-parade number back in the mid- to late-60s, where I
had to hear it every day on the bus going to and from school.
Kip W
cryptoguy
> In article <KLs7wt....@kithrup.com>, djhe...@kithrup.com says...
>
>
>
>
>
> > In article <2trlt6.l5l.1...@news.alt.net>,
> > Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> > >On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
> > >> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
> > >> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
> > >> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
> > >> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
> > >> much."
>
> > >Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
> > >frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> > Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
> > variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
> > The way I heard it, it was a duck.
>
> This is a very old story and has nothing to do with the Gulf Wars.
> The answer in the canonical story is "I couldn't help it, it's my
> nature".
I've just spent some time trying to track down just how old. To my
great surprise, it's not one of Aesop's fables, and the earliest
actual reference I found seems to be 1955(!) in Mr. Arkadin, a film by
Orson Welles. There are a couple Aesops with related elements: 'The
Farmer and the Viper' and 'The Mouse and the Frog', but this story
seems to be of much more recent vintage.
It *sounds* like an ancient fable, but seems not to be. If you have
older references, I'd be interested to hear them.
pt
cryptoguy
That's a retelling of 'The Farmer and the Viper', which is an Aesop.
The Frog and the Scorpion' seems to be much more recent.
pt
Philip Chee
> In article <2trlt6....@news.alt.net>,
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>>> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
>>> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
>>> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
>>> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
>>> much."
>>
>>Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
>>frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
> variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
> The way I heard it, it was a duck.
Yes but did it quack like a duck?
Karl Johanson
Kip Williams
Burl Ives, singing a song.
Kip W
Harry Mary Andruschak
> "Harry Mary Andruschak" <adoptsoldc...@aol.com> wrote
Nothing that I could afford. Which would be a set of new glasses for
you, as you seem to have either over-looked the phrase "word ladder"
or were unable to figure out how to GOOGLE it.
Harry Mary Andruschak
> > On Jun 24, 10:02?pm, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> >>> Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
> >>> frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> >> frog
> >> prog
> >> prop
> >> poop
> >> loop
> >> look
> >> lock
> >> luck
> >> duck
>
> >> Can anyone do better then this 9 word ladder?
>
> > frog
> > duck.
>
> > What do I win?
>
> Burl Ives, singing a song.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
I used to have a red plastic 78 of that song, with Rock Candy Mountain
on the other side. I can still sing the entire song of the Little
White Duck from memory.
Keith F. Lynch
> I used to have a red plastic 78 of that song, with Rock Candy
> Mountain on the other side.
What are the words to "Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text"?
I've never heard of that song.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Kip Williams
> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Kip Williams <k...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>>> Kip W- Hide quoted text -
>>> - Show quoted text -
>
>> I used to have a red plastic 78 of that song, with Rock Candy
>> Mountain on the other side.
>
> What are the words to "Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text"?
> I've never heard of that song.
To paraphrase Johnny Carson (speaking of Don Rickles), you just break me
up with your joke.
Kip W
Karl Johanson
I don't like wearing my glasses. I saw "word ladder" just fine though. You
seem to have over looked the concept of "humour" or were unable to GOOGLE
it. In this case I went the style of intentionally pretending to
misunderstand your point (the only form of humour more common on this forum
than the pop culture quote), then adding my own absurd version of a ladder
(ignoring all 4 of Lewis Carroll's word ladder rules), then acting as if I
was overly competitive by suggesting that I was somehow the winner of an
unnamed contest by requesting to know what I'd won.
My other humour options were to do a Lewis Carroll style ladder featuring
the word "fuck," or something like:
froggy
froggy
bo
boggy
banana
fanna
foe
foggy
fee
fie
foe
floggy
duck!
I ran all 3 possible posts through isthisfunny.com & the one I went with got
a solid 7.62 (out of a possible 8.3), which seemed worth going with. Any
funnier than that & I'd have to ask for a raise.
Cool ladder dude.
Karl Johanson
My post wasn't as funny as this though:
http://www.bcauction.ca/open.dll/showDisplayDocument?sessionID=16437928&language=En&disID=5761326&docType=Tender&doc_search_by=Tend&fromEmail=yes
Harry Mary Andruschak
>
> What are the words to "Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text"?
> I've never heard of that song.
GOOGLE it.
GeekGirl
wrote:
MicroSoft hopes you'll "badda BING" it.
GeekGirl
Dorothy J Heydt
They hope in vain. They're advertising the thing as not
merely a search engine, but a decision engine. They're going
to help you decide what you should choose. Suuuuuure they
are. I for one am not going to let an A-not-very-I make any
decisions for me whatever.
Harry Mary Andruschak
> You seem to have over looked the concept of "humour" or were >unable to GOOGLE it
Or maybe your humor is along the lines of that Theater 3,000 or
whatever, with the wisecracks tending to repeat, repeat, repeat and
maybe I am just suffering from overload. Maybe this ties in to my not
having been to LASFS since November 1992. Or maybe my voting yes on
Proposition 8. Or feeding the birds. My fault, my fault, my most
grievous (sp?) fault.
mn...@cunyvm.cuny.edu
> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:41:17 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> >>On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:00:44 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
> >>> There's a story that went the rounds during Gulf Wars I,
> >>> about a duck and a scorpion who met on the bank of the
> >>> Euphrates. "Hey," says the scorpion, "take me across the
> >>> river, willya? I can ride on your back. I don't weigh
> >>> much."
>
> >>Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did the
> >>frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
>
> > Well, that's the essence of folklore: multiple record and
> > variation. (I took Alan Dundes's class once upon a time.)
> > The way I heard it, it was a duck.
>
> Yes but did it quack like a duck?
Waddle you say if it did?
Marty Helgesen
mygmailuseridis mnhccatcunyvm
Support the Emergency Committee to defend the Third Amendment!
Tim McDaniel
Karl Johanson <karljo...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>My other humour options were to do a Lewis Carroll style ladder featuring
>the word "fuck," or something like:
>froggy
>froggy
>bo
>boggy
Like!
>My post wasn't as funny as this though:
>http://www.bcauction.ca/open.dll/showDisplayDocument?sessionID=16437928&language=En&disID=5761326&docType=Tender&doc_search_by=Tend&fromEmail=yes
Bad Referer
You have accessed this page through an invalid referer.
This activity has been logged.
Referer:
http://www.bcauction.ca/open.dll/showDisplayDocument?sessionID=16437928&language=En&disID=5761326&docType=Tender&doc_search_by=Tend&fromEmail=yes
Remote ID: 142.32.83.250
User Agent: Opera/9.64 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)
Presto/2.1.1
I don't quite get the punch line.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Kip Williams
> Or maybe your humor is along the lines of that Theater 3,000 or
> whatever, with the wisecracks tending to repeat, repeat, repeat and
> maybe I am just suffering from overload. Maybe this ties in to my not
> having been to LASFS since November 1992. Or maybe my voting yes on
> Proposition 8. Or feeding the birds. My fault, my fault, my most
> grievous (sp?) fault.
You might just want to go pet the cats and listen to music for a while.
Kip W
Harry Mary Andruschak
> You might just want to go pet the cats and listen to music for a while.
>
> Kip W
Purrrrrrr...
Harry Mary Andruschak
> On Jun 25, 1:10�pm, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> > Yes but did it quack like a duck?
>
> Waddle you say if it did?
>
VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS COCTA
NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
Transltion. You know what I think? I think that no one's barbecue
sauce is better than mine.
(From Henery Beard's LATIN FOR ALL OCCASIONS)
Keith F. Lynch
> VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS
> COCTA NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
Maybe that's why their civilization fell: They all went deaf as
a result.
Kip Williams
Beard used to be hilarious, then as soon as he got shed of the Lampoon,
he put his sense of humor into a blind trust and took to grinding out
gift books.
Kip W
Harry Mary Andruschak
> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>
> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: �They all went deaf as
> a result.
No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
Keith F. Lynch
>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
>> deaf as a result.
> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
And another joke of mine falls flat.
Keith F. Lynch
> You have accessed this page through an invalid referer.
> This activity has been logged.
You're in trouble now! You can expect an FBI SWAT team to burst your
door down at any moment. Unless they decide to pull a Janet Reno and
torch your place while remaining at a safe distance.
"What are you in for?"
"I accessed a page through an invalid referer. And I would have
gotten away with it too, if not for that pesky log file!"
Kip Williams
> "What are you in for?"
>
> "I accessed a page through an invalid referer. And I would have
> gotten away with it too, if not for that pesky log file!"
'And they all moved away from me, there on the bench...'
Kip W
Philip Chee
> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>
>>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
>>> deaf as a result.
>
>> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
>> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
>
> And another joke of mine falls flat.
The trouble is that you have so many views that are so out of touch with
current reality, it's hard for people to tell when you are joking and
when you are deadly serious. So I guess to be on the safe side they just
assume that you are deadly serious.
Phil
--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.
[ ]How am I supposed to know what a rhetorical question is?
* TagZilla 0.066.6
Karl Johanson
news:h22ot9$27$1...@reader1.panix.com...
It's a BC government surplus auction page. The item up for auction is a
bucket.
Karl Johanson
Dorothy J Heydt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS
>> COCTA NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
>
>Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
They didn't. But lower-case letters hadn't been invented
yet.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Karl Johanson
news:h23vig$b2e$1...@panix2.panix.com...
> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>
>>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
>>> deaf as a result.
>
>> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
>> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
>
> And another joke of mine falls flat.
I didn't LOL, but I did LIMH.
Karl Johanson
Harry Mary Andruschak
> Harry Mary Andruschak <adoptsoldc...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> >> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
> >> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
> >> deaf as a result.
> > No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
> > alphabet were not used in Roman times. �They hadn't been invented yet.
>
> And another joke of mine falls flat.
That's plane to see
Kip Williams
> In article <h23qrn$6v0$1...@panix2.panix.com>,
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS
>>> COCTA NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>
> They didn't. But lower-case letters hadn't been invented
> yet.
And it doesn't really matter what color suspenders the firemen wear.
Kip W
David Loewe, Jr.
wrote:
>On 26 Jun 2009 22:18:56 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>>
>>>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
>>>> deaf as a result.
>>
>>> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
>>> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
>>
>> And another joke of mine falls flat.
>
>The trouble is that you have so many views that are so out of touch with
>current reality, it's hard for people to tell when you are joking and
>when you are deadly serious. So I guess to be on the safe side they just
>assume that you are deadly serious.
Exactly!
--
"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's
safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government
contract."
- Alan Shepherd
Keith F. Lynch
>> Traditionally the story involves a frog and a scorpion. When did
>> the frog change into a duck? (I can understand a prince, but)
> frog
> prog
> prop
> poop
> loop
> look
> lock
> luck
> duck
> Can anyone do better then this 9 word ladder?
frog
flog
flag
flak
feak
feck
deck
duck
This is the best that can be done with the words in the built-in
Unix dictionary at /usr/share/dict/words, except for several other
solutions of the same length.
Thanks for the programming challenge. It took me nearly an hour.
Keith F. Lynch
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS
>>> COCTA NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
> They didn't. But lower-case letters hadn't been invented yet.
Ah, but when was reading the whole thread to see if the same thing has
already been posted (and replied to, and the reply replied to) invented?
David Friedman
"David Loewe, Jr." <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:33:50 +0800, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
> wrote:
>
> >On 26 Jun 2009 22:18:56 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> >> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>
> >>>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
> >>
> >>>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
> >>>> deaf as a result.
> >>
> >>> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
> >>> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
> >>
> >> And another joke of mine falls flat.
> >
> >The trouble is that you have so many views that are so out of touch with
> >current reality, it's hard for people to tell when you are joking and
> >when you are deadly serious. So I guess to be on the safe side they just
> >assume that you are deadly serious.
>
> Exactly!
I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
David V. Loewe, Jr
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> "David Loewe, Jr." <dlo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:33:50 +0800, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>
>> wrote:
>> >On 26 Jun 2009 22:18:56 -0400, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> >> Harry Mary Andruschak <adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
>> >>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>
>> >>>> Why did the ancient Romans go around SHOUTING all the time?
>> >>
>> >>>> Maybe that's why their civilization fell: =EF=BF=BDThey all went
>> >>>> deaf as a result.
>> >>
>> >>> No, it is simply the fact that lower case letters for the latin
>> >>> alphabet were not used in Roman times. They hadn't been invented yet.
>> >>
>> >> And another joke of mine falls flat.
>> >
>> >The trouble is that you have so many views that are so out of touch with
>> >current reality, it's hard for people to tell when you are joking and
>> >when you are deadly serious. So I guess to be on the safe side they just
>> >assume that you are deadly serious.
>>
>> Exactly!
>
>I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
You have a mancrush on Keith...
--
"I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
I turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away..."
- Tom Scholz
Karl Johanson
>> You seem to have over looked the concept of "humour" or were >unable to
>> GOOGLE it
>Or maybe your humor is along the lines of that Theater 3,000 or
>whatever, with the wisecracks tending to repeat, repeat, repeat
Nope. First time I've ever done a joke about pretending to not understand
how a word ladder works.
>and maybe I am just suffering from overload.
That happened to me once.
>Maybe this ties in to my not having been to LASFS since November 1992. Or
>maybe my voting yes on
>Proposition 8.
My post had nothing to do with your homophobia.
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/184548/Traditional-Marriage.html
Karl Johanson
Harry Mary Andruschak
> And it doesn't really matter what color suspenders the firemen wear.
Firemen wear suspenders?
Joy Beeson
<adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
> Firemen wear suspenders?
You can't hold up bunker pants with a belt.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
Kip Williams
> I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
Nor do I.
Kip W
mor...@epsilon3.com
And belts. They're all pessimists.
Harry Mary Andruschak
Obviously, I do. It may be my age. WAIT! Got it. Too much cat hair
up my nose. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
David Harmon
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote,
>I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
Keith jokes?
Karl Johanson
>> David Friedman wrote:
>> > I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
>
>> Nor do I.
I grok his homour most of the time.
>Obviously, I do. It may be my age. WAIT! Got it. Too much cat hair
>up my nose. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I don't get it.
: )
Karl Johanson
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
<adopts...@aol.com> wrote:
snip
>I used to have a red plastic 78 of that song, with Rock Candy Mountain
>on the other side. I can still sing the entire song of the Little
>White Duck from memory.
Did your 78 have a little revolving mirror to go over the spindle, so
you could see the Little White Duck swimming?
Otherwise, yeah, I had it too.
jrw
Harry Mary Andruschak
> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:49:06 -0700 (PDT), Harry Mary Andruschak
>
Harry Mary Andruschak
> "Harry Mary Andruschak" <adoptsoldc...@aol.com> wrote
> On Jun 27, 6:06?pm, Kip Williams <k...@rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >> David Friedman wrote:
> >> > I don't seem to have any trouble recognizing Keith's jokes.
>
> >> Nor do I.
>
> I grok his homour most of the time.
>
> >Obviously, I do. It may be my age. WAIT! �Got it. �Too much cat hair
> >up my nose. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
>
> I don't get it.
>
> : )
The cat hairs in my nose tickle the lining, causing me to sneeze. This
depleats my orgone energy, which in turn causes an imbalance of my
precious bodily fluids, made worse by the flouridated LA water.
Without my tinfoil hat on, the dreaded N-rays would aso affect me.
Tim McDaniel
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>flog
>flag
>flak
>feak
lock of hair <http://phrontistery.info/f.html>
To clean the bill on the perch after a meal
<http://virtualvideo.cc/falconry/page4.html>
>feck
Feck\, n. [Abbrev. fr. effect.]
1. Effect. [Obs.]
2. Efficacy; force; value. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]
3. Amount; quantity. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Feck?jss=0>
Also from Irish slang "to feck", variously "to throw", "to steal", "to
leave hastily", "to fuck".
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feck>
>deck
>duck
>
>This is the best that can be done with the words in the built-in
>Unix dictionary at /usr/share/dict/words, except for several other
>solutions of the same length.
>
>Thanks for the programming challenge. It took me nearly an hour.
What was your algorithm? The best I can think of is breadth-first
search. Extract from the dictionary all four-letter words. Remove
the source word (frog) from the dictionary extract and put it in an
empty queue, and give it an empty ladder. For word ABCD at the head
of the queue with a ladder X, find in the dictionary extract all words
matching .BCD, A.CD, AB.D, or ABC., remove them from the dictionary
extract (to prevent loops), and append them to the queue with ladder
(X and ABCD).
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
David Goldfarb
>> On Jun 25, 1:10�pm, Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> > Yes but did it quack like a duck?
>>
>> Waddle you say if it did?
>>
>
>VISNE SCIRE QUOD CREDAM? CREDO CONDIMENTUM PRO CARNE IN VERIBUS COCTA
>NULLIUS PRAESTARE EI MEY.
>
>sauce is better than mine.
>
>(From Henery Beard's LATIN FOR ALL OCCASIONS)
Actually, the first part is "You want to know what I think?"
That "visne" is an odd construction here -- it indicates a question
for which there is genuine uncertainty. I would think that "Nonne
vis scire..." would be better, which suggests that the answer will
be "yes".
Also that "MEY" at the end is a typo for something, probably "MEO".
--
David Goldfarb |"For some reason, most of my clearest memories
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |from my youth are of various traumas."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- James Nicoll
Keith F. Lynch
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> This is the best that can be done with the words in the built-in
>> Unix dictionary at /usr/share/dict/words, except for several other
>> solutions of the same length.
>> Thanks for the programming challenge. It took me nearly an hour.
> What was your algorithm?
I decided to take full advantage of the gains in speed and memory
capacity and try to solve it as quickly as possible rather than as
elegantly as possible. (And indeed the whole thing took me less time
than it took to write this reply!)
First, I extracted all lowercase-only four-letter words from
/usr/share/dict/words. Then I constructed a 26*26*26*26 array, such
that each entry in the array that corresponded to a real word would be
1, the entry corresponding to the word "frog" (x[5][17][14][6] in C,
or X(6,18,15,7) in most other programming languages) would be 2, and
all other entries would be 0.
Then I repeatedly looked at every one of the 26*26*26*26 entries, and
for each entry that equaled or exceeded 2 found its 26*4 possible
"neighbors," and if they equaled 1, set them to one more than that
entry. So the valid-word neighbors of "frog" are all set to 3, then
the valid-word neighbors of those neighbors are all set to 4, etc.
This continues over and over until the number of entries equal to
1 fails to drop any more, meaning that every word reachable from
"frog" has already been reached.
Next, I do the whole thing over in a new array, except starting with
"duck" instead of frog.
(To save memory I make these arrays of one-byte integers. I probably
didn't need to bother.)
Next I measure the distance between "frog" and "duck." This is 2 less
than the value assigned to the "duck" node in the "frog" array, and 2
less than the value assigned to the "frog" node in the "duck" array.
Those had better be the same number. And they were -- 7.
(My original thought was to have both "duck" and "frog" only run until
they met in the middle. But each takes only a fraction of a second to
run to completion, i.e. to find the number of steps to every word in
the dictionary that's reachable at all. (Some words aren't reachable
from "frog" or "duck").)
Finally, for each n from 2 through 9, I list all the nodes that have a
value of n in the frog array if they also have a value of 11-n in the
duck array. I prefaced them with n-2. These are the words that are
on the shortest paths between "frog" and "duck." Here's the result:
0 frog
1 brog flog frot prog trog
2 brob brod brot flag foot frat proa prof prop tron trot
3 boob bood boot coot feat flak font fool hoot loot pooa poof poop poot root soot toon toot
4 book cook dont doob dool doon feak funt hook look pook rook sook took
5 bock cock dook dunt feck funk hock lock pock rock sock tock
6 buck cuck deck dock duct dunk huck luck puck ruck suck tuck
7 duck
The rest I do manually, as it's faster to eyeball a solution from this
table than it is to rewrite the program to keep track of what links
to what.
This isn't really very satisfactory. For one thing there were those
two somewhat iffy words, "feak" and "feck." I tried deleting all of
the iffy words that appeared in the table from the dictionary. But
then it couldn't find any solution of this length.
It was also clear that the dictionary was missing some valid words.
What I'd really like is a dictionary that tags the words as to which
are most common, so that the program could find a single solution.
The program is fast enough that I could run it on, say, the 10,000
commonest four-letter words, and if it found several solutions, I
would then try it on just the 5000 commonest, increasing the number
when I had no solutions, and decreasing it when it had more than one
solution, in a binary search, converging on the unique solution with
the commonest words.
So where do I find such a dictionary?
Why not right here?
Fortunately, I have saved more than a quarter million rasff postings.
And fortunately, I'm not trapped in GUI hell like most folks here, but
have a Unix prompt.
So I typed:
cat ~/news/*/rasff* | cut -f 1 -d\ | grep -E ^\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]$ >> words
cat ~/news/*/rasff* | cut -f 2 -d\ | grep -E ^\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]$ >> words
cat ~/news/*/rasff* | cut -f 3 -d\ | grep -E ^\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]$ >> words
cat ~/news/*/rasff* | cut -f 4 -d\ | grep -E ^\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]\[a-z\]$ >> words
etc., etc., on up to -f 25 or so. This won't find capitalized words,
or words adjacent to punctuation marks, but it did find over five
million four-letter words.
Then I typed
sort words | uniq -c | sort -r -n > words2
and the words were sorted in order of how common they were, prefaced
by the number of occurrences of each. Surprisingly there were only
about 4400 different words. (Coincidentally, that's almost exactly
the same number as in /usr/share/dict/words.) The median number of
occurrences is 7. Unfortunately "words" that appeared that rarely
are often typos, abbreviations, or acronyms. And there are plenty of
perfectly valid words that appeared only once or (presumably) not at
all. So I'll probably have to run the program several times, manually
removing non-words from my dictionary each time.
With the "fgrep -v -f" command, I was able to answer the obvious
question as to what the commonest four-letter words in rasff were
that didn't appear in /usr/share/dict/words. I had guessed that it
would be some obscenity, as I had noticed the absence of a certain
f-word from my table above, that obviously should have been there.
Either that or "spam." But no, the commonest word missing from
/usr/share/dict/words was "gets," followed by other plurals.
Excluding plurals, the commonest missing words were "paid" and "near."
(This was on the Apple laptop. Here on Panix, "near" is present, but
"paid" still isn't.)
So what are the commonest four-letter words, in order? The word
"that" is in the lead, with over 600,000, followed by "have," "with,"
"they," "from," "than," "this," "more," "what," "were," "some,"
"just," "your," and "when." I wonder how this compares with tables
worked out by credentialled linquists.
I'll probably rework the program to use this new variable-size
dictionary this upcoming three-day weekend. Well, I'll be at a picnic
(or walking to or back from it) all Saturday, but that still leaves me
two full days.
Maybe I'll even get to it sooner, since I'm taking a week-long
vacation from replying to David Loewe. And since I'm not replying
to Doug at all in the (badly misnamed) "quiet afternoon" thread.
cryptoguy
Nice work. But I could solve it even faster by googling
WORD LADDER SOFTWARE
which gets many, many hits. The first is:
http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=50934
One of those modern rules of software development that seems to have
passed you by is 'Reuse Code".
pt
Keith F. Lynch
> Nice work. But I could solve it even faster by googling
> WORD LADDER SOFTWARE
Where's the fun in that? Or the challenge? Or the mental exercise?
> One of those modern rules of software development that seems to have
> passed you by is 'Reuse Code".
I've reused plenty of code. But potential employers aren't going
to want to hear how much of other people's code I've reused recently;
they're going to want to hear how much code I've written recently.
At a recent used book sale, I bought a book of logic problems. I'm
sure the fastest way to "solve" them would be to turn directly to
the answers in the back. But I'm not going to solve them that way.
Ben Yalow
>cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Nice work. But I could solve it even faster by googling
>> WORD LADDER SOFTWARE
>Where's the fun in that? Or the challenge? Or the mental exercise?
>> One of those modern rules of software development that seems to have
>> passed you by is 'Reuse Code".
>I've reused plenty of code. But potential employers aren't going
>to want to hear how much of other people's code I've reused recently;
>they're going to want to hear how much code I've written recently.
No -- they want to know about projects completed. And if they're
completed by writing code, instead of (re)using libraries, then they don't
want you, since you're doing it wrong.
Writing new code is always a last resort. Understanding how to use
existing libraries is how new projects are completed in the real world.
>At a recent used book sale, I bought a book of logic problems. I'm
>sure the fastest way to "solve" them would be to turn directly to
>the answers in the back. But I'm not going to solve them that way.
>--
>Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
>Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Ben
--
Ben Yalow yb...@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody
Keith F. Lynch
> What I'd really like is a dictionary that tags the words as to which
> are most common, so that the program could find a single solution.
> The program is fast enough that I could run it on, say, the 10,000
> commonest four-letter words, and if it found several solutions, I
> would then try it on just the 5000 commonest, increasing the number
> when I had no solutions, and decreasing it when it had more than one
> solution, in a binary search, converging on the unique solution with
> the commonest words.
> So where do I find such a dictionary?
> Why not right here?
> Fortunately, I have saved more than a quarter million rasff
> postings. And fortunately, I'm not trapped in GUI hell like most
> folks here, but have a Unix prompt.
> . . .
> I'll probably rework the program to use this new variable-size
> dictionary this upcoming three-day weekend.
Done. I got "frog fron cron coon cook cock dock duck." "cron" is a
Unix command, and "fron" is sometimes a typo of "front" and sometimes
a typo of "from." (Surprisingly, the rarest of those words and
non-words was "coon," a real word which appeared just 7 times in my
rasff archives.)
So I removed the two non-words, ran it again, and got "frog frug drug
doug dong dung dunk duck." I removed "frug," a misspelling of "drug"
which appeared 3 times in my archives, and ran it again. This time
I got "frog frop crop coop cook cock dock duck." If I get rid of
"frop," I get "frog frag frak prak peak peck deck duck." If I get rid
of "frak" and "prak," I get "frog from drom doom dorm dork dock duck."
If I get rid of "drom," I get "frog frig brig brit buit buik buck
duck." If I get rid of "buik," I don't get anything. Sigh. So much
for that idea.
Cryptoengineer
'Frug' is a legit word - its the name of a 60's dance.
Peter