Re: Hunting Elephants

The Loony Bin ( loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk )
Thu, 2 May 1996 18:43:09 +0100


Hiya Loonies...

Make of this what you will...

Wishes & Dreams...

- ANDREA
        xx
-- 
************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************
******************<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>*******************
***                                               ***
***                THE LOONY BIN                  ***
***          loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk         ***
***                                               ***
******************Internet Goddess*******************
*********************ANDROMEDA***********************

  ------- Forwarded message follows -------

Views on elepahant hunting;

Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out
everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is
left.

Professors of mathematics prove the existence of at least one elephant
and leave the capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for one of
their graduate students.

Computer scientists hunt elephants using algorithm A:

1.  Go to Africa
2.  Start at the Cape of Good Hope
3.  Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
                alternately East and West.
4.  During each traverse
        a.  Catch each animal seen
        b.  Compare each animal caught to a known elephant
        c.  Stop when a match is detected.

Experienced computer programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known
elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at
random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus
15 percent of any previously observed elephant.

Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are
paid enough they will hunt themselves.

Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an
elephant.

Consultants don't hunt elephants, but they can be hired by the hour to
advise those who do.

Operations research consultants can measure the correlation of hat size
and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant hunting strategies, if
someone else will identify the elephants.

Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you
catch with the people who voted for them.

Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around
arguing about who owns the droppings.

Software lawyers will claim that they own an entire herd based on the
look and feel of one dropping.

When the Vice President of Research & Development tries to hunt
elephants, his staff will try to ensure that  all elephants are
completely pre-hunted before he sees them. If the vice president sees a
non-pre-hunted elephant, the staff will (1) Compliment the vice
president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any
recurrence.

Senior managers set broad elephant hunting policy based on the
assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper
voices.

Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes
the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

Salespeople don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants
they haven't  caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.

Software salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an
invoice for an elephant.

Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them gray and sell them as
"desktop elephants."