New Scientist‘s Feedback section has long featured entries about people whose names are wierdly appropriate for their jobs.
Reading through an article on The Register entitled “Guantanamo Bay loses ‘least worst place’ status”, there is mention of the ultimate combination. One of the PR officers for Guantanamo Bay with the name Kafka! Those familiar with Franz Kafka‘s work will recognise the scary similarities between events in Guantanamo Bay and his book “The Trial” (also made into a film by Orson Wells).
Back in 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took a crack at solving this riddle, dubbing Guantanamo Bay “the least worst place” to store evil-doers. But now, with the torture scandal unfolding, the Navy has declared that Guantanamo Bay is not “the least worst place” at all.
The Navy once embraced the “least worst place” Rumsfeldism proudly, displaying the slogan across the banner of its Guantanamo Bay web site. …snip…
Times, however, change, and when a new commanding officer for the prison – Captain Les McCoy – took over near the end of 2003, he ordered a Photoshop job on the “least worst place” banner, removing the slogan all together.
“The removal was ordered because the commanding officer did not feel it accurately reflected his vision of the base,” said Navy spokesman Lieutenant Mike Kafka.
(Yes, you’re reading that correctly. A man named Kafka has been deployed to field questions about a prison where the criminals are only vaguely charged with crimes, can’t speak to lawyers and likely will never get out.)
One of the best things about languages such as Prolog is the ease with which you can validate theorums. As an example take a look at the program to validate the theory that if a woman weighs the same as a duck, then she must be a witch:
witch(X) <= burns(X) and female(X).
burns(X) <= wooden(X).
wooden(X) <= floats(X).
floats(X) <= sameweight(duck, X).
female(girl). {by observation}
sameweight(duck,girl). {by experiment }
? witch(girl).
> yes
For reference here is the original plain english line of reasoning:
BEDEVERE:
Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.
VILLAGER #1:
Are there?
VILLAGER #2:
Ah?
VILLAGER #1:
What are they?
CROWD:
Tell us! Tell us!...
VILLAGER #2:
Do they hurt?
BEDEVERE:
Tell me. What do you do with witches?
VILLAGER #2:
Burn!
VILLAGER #1:
Burn!
CROWD:
Burn! Burn them up! Burn!...
BEDEVERE:
And what do you burn apart from witches?
VILLAGER #1:
More witches!
VILLAGER #3:
Shh!
VILLAGER #2:
Wood!
BEDEVERE:
So, why do witches burn?
[pause]
VILLAGER #3:
B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?
BEDEVERE:
Good! Heh heh.
CROWD:
Oh, yeah. Oh.
BEDEVERE:
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
VILLAGER #1:
Build a bridge out of her.
BEDEVERE:
Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?
VILLAGER #1:
Oh, yeah.
RANDOM:
Oh, yeah. True. Uhh...
BEDEVERE:
Does wood sink in water?
VILLAGER #1:
No. No.
VILLAGER #2:
No, it floats! It floats!
VILLAGER #1:
Throw her into the pond!
CROWD:
The pond! Throw her into the pond!
BEDEVERE:
What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1:
Bread!
VILLAGER #2:
Apples!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1:
Cider!
VILLAGER #2:
Uh, gra-- gravy!
VILLAGER #1:
Cherries!
VILLAGER #2:
Mud!
VILLAGER #3:
Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER #2:
Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR:
A duck!
CROWD:
Oooh.
BEDEVERE:
Exactly. So, logically...
VILLAGER #1:
If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood.
BEDEVERE:
And therefore?
VILLAGER #2:
A witch!
Browsing the articles on Linux Mafia Knowledgebase I came across a link to The Parable of the Languages. Having sufferred XML for the past
three years while using CCM I couldn’t help but be moved ;-)
XML! Exclaimed C++. What are you doing here? You’re not a programming language.
Tell that to the people who use me, said XML.
…snip..
And yet, all I am is a simple little markup, from humble origins. It’s a burden, being XML.
At that XML sighed, and the other languages, moved by its plight gathered around…
…and tromped that little XML into the dirt. Yes, into the very dirt at their feet. Basic tromped, and C++ tromped, and Java cleaned and tromped and cleaned again, and COBOL tried to throw a kick at XML’s head but fell over on its cane. Even LISP pulled itself out of the pond to throw loopy hands around XML’s throat, but only managed to choke its ownself.
And each language could be heard to mumble as it tromped and tromped and tromped, with complete and utter glee:
Have to parse XML, eh? Have to have an XML API, eh? Have to work with SOAP and XML-RPC and RSS and RDF, eh?
Well parse this, you little markup asshole.
A common misconception amongst developers is that GNU Arch is hard to learn and
use. The Linux Journal has just published an excellant article illustrating how to achieve common tasks from CVS using Arch.
‘00000000’. According to this story (also featured on /., the 8-digit launch code to protect against a rogue missile launch was left at this trivial setting because commanders didn’t want procedure to get in the way of action during a war time situation. Carrying on with the scary but true theme I came across this comment in the same /. article
A flight attendant invited me to a party a few years back, and it was mostly pilots and flight attendants at the party. All getting sloshed, of course – pilot and flight attendants DRINK. Since most airline pilots started their careers in the military I got to spend a lot of the evening listening to ‘war’ stories.
One pilot I talked to used to copilot one of the two big planes (747s?) that they send up that can launch all the missiles remotely in case NORAD gets knocked out. He told a story about how they would run all these drills where they would scramble, get in the air immediately, and then get transmitted codes from the ground. They would unscramble the codes as “do not launch” and then return to base without transmitting anything to the silos, drill over.
According to him, on one of these sorties received the “launch” code in error. So they asked the ground to repeat the transmission. Which they did, and it was the same. So they took a chance and broke protocol and radio’d the ground and told them that they had just sent the “launch” codes, and did they really want them to transmit this along to the silos? Of course the ground told them to cease and return to base.
Scary truth or dunken bravado? Who knows.