Fun_People Archive
7 Dec
Bits of BONG Bull #350

Date: Thu, 7 Dec 95 13:39:10 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Bits of BONG Bull #350

Excerpted-from: BONG Bull No. 350!

  Copyright (c) 1995 by BONG.  All rights reserved.
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GENTLY, GENTLY.  The Vancouver (B.C.) Sun, reports that at the San
Francisco home office of Mother Jones magazine, where everyone
is supposed to be working together for peace and freedom, a little
aggression problem has been uncovered.  A memo electronically
circulated to staff noted:
     "Kicking the copier is BAD.  If you kick the copy machine it
will break. Someone kicked the copier paper-tray drawer to shut
it, leaving their footprint as evidence on the drawer (which the
repair man was nice enough to wash off for us).  This fatal blow
knocked out several pins that hold some roller in place, which in
turn connects to the feeder, which broke the machine.  Stop this
insanity!  We must be nice to our machines"
     The memo was signed "Americans United Against the Abuse of
Non-Profit-Owned Machines."


ANOTHER EXAMPLE.  Dialogue from the Usenet group alt.cesium:
     Scientist A: "An alternate theory holds that what you're
hearing is the noise produced by the countless tiny meniscii that
the milk forms in the pockets of the cereal. As the milk wets the
cereal, each meniscus advances very suddenly, producing a 'snap'
sound.  The sound is more pronounced in those very starchy (hence
resistant to wetting) cereals with large, open spaces in their
structure, such as Rice Crispies (cut one open and look at it
under a magnifier). This theory, however, while it deals
adequately with the snapping, fails to account for the crackling
and popping, which is why serious scientists prefer the cesium
explanation."
     Scientist B:  "I believe I read once that the 'popping' is
actually the sound of the internal chambers of the Rice Crispies,
their walls much thinner than the outer shell of the Crispie,
imploding under the pressure of the milk.  The article went on to
say that a child had actually been seriously injured when a
rhythmic series of implosions set the milk to vibrating at its
resonance frequency, hurling the spoon into the face of the
hapless breakfaster and damaging an eye.  Of course, this was on
the back of a package of Cheerios, so I suppose it might not be
the most reliable of information.  All the same, I make sure to
thoroughly crush my Rice Crispies with a mortar and pestle before
eating them, just in case.  The article didn't mention what caused
the crackling, though.  I always suspected it had something to do
with Rice Crispies picking up radio waves, but that's just a
theory."

© 1995 Peter Langston