From wadler@shaalvim.israel.net Fri Oct 18 02:15:41 1996 Received: from postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu (postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu [128.174.5.11]) by dynamic.isdn.uiuc.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id CAA02937 for ; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 02:15:39 -0500 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) id HAA74732 for roth@dynamic.isdn.uiuc.edu; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 07:15:38 GMT Received: from actcom.co.il (root@actcom.co.il [192.114.47.1]) by postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA97750 for ; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 02:15:32 -0500 Received: from shalvim.UUCP by actcom.co.il with UUCPshalvim (8.7.6/actcom-0.1) id IAA28483 for roth@uiuc.edu; Fri, 18 Oct 1996 08:47:29 +0200 (EET) (rfc931-sender: uucp@localhost) Message-Id: <199610180647.IAA28483@actcom.co.il> Received: from ncet/wadler by shaalvim.israel.net (PMail+UDG PegWaf v0.31 93.10.18) id 2897 for roth@uiuc.edu; Thu, 17 Oct 1996 23:50:48 EET 2 EETDST X-PH: V4.4@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu From: WADLER@shaalvim.israel.net To: mwilensk@uiuc.edu, roth@uiuc.edu, bmtmc@aol.com, weco614@shaalvim.israel.net Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 23:50:47 Subject: Lichvod................................ Reply-to: wadler@shaalvim.israel.net Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Organization: Sha'alavim Yeshive. Status: RO Hey all... this was sent to me by The Honorable Senator VICE- President of the United States of America, President of the United Federation of Planets, Safety Inspector (Springfield Nuclear Power Plant), Postmaster General, Secretary of Defense, Undersecretary of Agriculture, Minister of Infrastructure (Israel), Deputy Director of the CIA, Head of Military Installation (Roswell, New Mexico), Ambassador to Lichtenstein, Grand Nagus, Director of the Bureau of Prisons (Singapore), Chairman of The Senate Committee on the Armed Services, Moreinu Harav Hagaon Chief Justice Admiral General Captain Field-Marshal Dr. Matthew Scharf SHLIT"A AMUS"H MD, PhD, PhD, PhD, DhL, JD, DDS, MK, MC, MP (ret.). He is a rather humble man, with humble upbringings. He was a born in a log cabin in Montana. He only had dirt to eat as a child, and he was glad to have it. He had to walk to school without shoes, 12 miles, through shards of glass, over hot coals, in the snow, uphill [copyright Bill Cosby - sorry] -- BOTH ways. He... Sorry about that. I get a little carried away sometimes (obviously I have a most interesting definition of the word "little"). Anyway, enjoy... ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- The Shiftkey FAQ - Version 0.001 Unleash the Power of Shift! Q. My shift keys have little arrows on them. Does that mean the *real* shift keys are located above them, and these keys are just little signs to point them out? A. Nope, they're the Real McCoy. The little arrows mean "up", as in "look up at the screen". Your keyboard is telling you to learn to touch type and quit staring at your fingers. Q. What happens if I press both shift keys? A. Even bigger letters may show up on your screen. You should not use this feature, however, because these letters are also brighter, and may cause Screen Burn-In, which would be particularly embarrassing if you were typing something naughty at the time. You might consider obtaining the author's Shift Key Burn-In Protector program for only $139.95. Or you might not, it's your computer, but don't say I didn't warn you. q. my religion prohibits the use of shift keys. how can i type capital letters and punctuation A. Discuss alternatives to the shift key with your spiritual advisor. Perhaps your deity would not be angered by repeated use of the Caps Lock key, or maybe you can retain a consultant to depress the shift for you. You might also consider replacing punctuation marks that require the use of shift keys with lower case expressions; replace ? with "huh" and ! with "zowie". Q> I PRESSED SHIFT AND IT"S STUCK DOWN NOW> A. Do small children with a fondness for peanut butter use your keyboard frequently? If so, you may want to clean it off for more reliable operation. First, disconnect your keyboard by gripping each of its ends firmly and pulling as hard as you can. Next, immerse the keyboard in warm water and scrub thoroughly with your favorite lemon-scented detergent and lots of steel wool. Finally, you need to dry the keyboard. Either dry it to touch with a handheld blowdryer, or place it it the dryer for not less than 60 minutes. Be sure to clean the lint screen when you are finished. Q. Why are there are no "shift" keys on my keyboard, but there are two keys labelled "hif"? A. Again, you may want to consider cleaning your keyboard, and washing your hands more frequently for that matter. Q. Are there shift keys on my Macintosh? A. Yes, although instead of the notation "shift", the key may be labelled with an excited Mac face, something like :O . Press this key to use shift, and be thankful you're using a friendly Mac instead of a mean old PC with all them confusin' words 'n stuff on it. Q. I'm sick of pushing the shift key every single time I want big letters. Is there any other way to do this? A. This is the Modern Age of Convenience, and you may be able to activate the shift key merely with the power of your voice! Check to see whether your computer is equippped with speech-recognition equipment by saying the word "shift" very clearly and slowly into its speaker. Then watch the keyboard closely to see if the Shift key moves down. Note that you may have to repeat this action several times to "train" the computer to recognize your voice before the feature works reliably. Q. There are two shift keys, which should I use? A. Avoid unnecessary wear on either shift key by alternating between the two. Keep track of your usage of each key so that you press them in equal amounts. Your keyboard may be equipped with a small notepad; you should use this to make little tally marks in two columns for each time you shift. Remember, it's better to go to a little trouble than wind up with a broken shift key. Q. Why are the shift keys bigger than the other keys? A. They aren't. This is simply an optical illusion. Just as the moon appears much larger when it is close to the horizon, your shift keys look larger because of their proximity to other keys. To verify this, go out in a large field at night with your keyboard, place it in an upright position, and view it from a distance of 200 yards. Sure enough, the keys all look the same size! Q. If I press the shift key at the wrong time, or too many times, will my computer explode? A. No. Well, generally no. Not unless you are using a NEC laptop Or vt100 terminal emulation. But even then, hardly ever. Really, don't worry about it. Forget I mentioned it. Just type softly. Move along, next question. Q. No matter what I do, the shift key just doesn't seem to work. What's wrong? A. Have you ever considered that the problem may not be your keyboard, the problem may be YOU? Perhaps God Himself has suspended the operation of these keys to send you a Message that you have strayed from the path of righteousness. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your life. Before rushing blindly ahead with a lot of shifting, consult the spiritual advisor of your choice for help in dealing with any unresolved issues in your relationship with the Almighty. Making Toasters If IBM made toasters... They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters. If Microsoft made toasters... Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway. Toaster 95 would weigh 15000 pounds (hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that let's you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters. If Apple made toasters... It would do everything the Microsoft toaster does, but 5 years earlier. The toast would make a little smiley face at you when it popped up, or else it would get stuck and there would be a little picture of a bomb burned onto it. If they break, these toasters would require a special set of MacToaster Tools to even open up. Worldwide market share would only be 5%, but all the bread in school lunches would be exclusively toasted on the MacToaster. If The NeXT Corporation made toasters... It would be a large, perfectly smooth and seamless black cube. Every morning there would be a piece of toast on top of it. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number, and the blueprints for the box would be highly classified government documents. The X-Files would have an episode about it. If the NSA made toasters... Your toaster would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case they needed to get at your toast for reasons of national security. Does DEC still make toasters?... They made good toasters in the '70s, didn't they? If Hewlett-Packard made toasters... They would market the Reverse Polish Toaster, which takes in toast and gives you regular bread. If Sony made toasters... Their Sony Toastman, which would be barely larger than the single piece of bread it is meant to toast, can be conveniently attached to your belt. If the Franklin Mint made toasters... Every month, you would receive another lovely hand-crafted piece of your authentic Civil War pewter toaster. If Cray made toasters... They would cost $16 million but would be faster than any other single-slice toaster in the world, at least for a couple of years. If Thinking Machines made toasters... You would be able to toast 64,000 thousand pieces of bread at the same time. If Timex made toasters... They would be cheap and small quartz-crystal wrist toasters that take a licking and keep on toasting. If Radio Shack made toasters... The staff would sell you a toaster, but not know anything about it. You would be able to buy all the parts to build your own toaster. If K-Tel sold toasters... They would not be available in stores, and you would get a free set of Ginsu knives. If Wang made toasters... Marketing would never agree upon what customers really want or need in a toaster so millions of dollars would be spent in development and the toaster would be several years late. Just after release Wang would buy another company whose toaster ran on NT but would find that they got more orders for the original. | William Adler (wadler@shaalvim.israel.net) | | DNRC Midwest Regional Minister of all That Passes Through My House | | Worf: "Captain, I must protest; I am NOT a merry man." |