paul@moore.UUCP (Paul Maclauchlan) (02/02/89)
By (another) popular request...
----------from the unix-unanimous archives------------------------
From peter Tue Oct 11 05:12:21 1988 remote from ontmoh
To: moore!unix-unanimous
Subject: Unix Unanimous Meeting Place -- Another Secret Revealed
Date: Tue Oct 11 04:18:19 1988
Edwin Allum asks a question doubtless on the mind of multitudes:
> Was it ever decided as to where the next meeting will be held....
The short answer, of course, is "same old place". The long answer follows:
An Algorithm to Compute a Propitious Location for Unix Unanimous Meetings.
==========================================================================
Those of us fluent in the Ojibwe tongue need scarcely be told that UU
meetings take place in the city of Toronto. To narrow down the field, we
must delve into the ancient history of UNIX. UN, of course, is a prefix of
negation. As you know, IX is Roman for the number nine. Nine, in binary,
is 1001, and its 2's complement value is 0110, or six, in decimal. (There
is a well-known alternate negation process, popular in Australia, that
yields identical results when applied to the numeral 9 directly.)
Astute readers may ask: "so, what does the number 6 tell us about the
meeting place?". The answer is simple: between the 6th letter of the
alphabet and the 6th consonant, lies the letter G. (Geometry majors will
note the strong isomorphism between the number 6 and the letter G.)
G, of course, represents George Bacon, our gracious host and Patron Saint,
on whose street we hold our meetings.
As for the street number, we must refer to even more ancient UNIX history.
Ken Thompson was laying the conceptual foundations of the Unix Time Sharing
System, while vacationing on the Greek island of Sunos. Each day he would
visit the local tea-house by himself, and since the waiter did not speak
English, Ken had learned to write a note that said "UN-I-X". (Greek
scholars recognize this as a short form of "one for tea". Others may find
it useful to know that X is the Greek letter CHAI, and that CHAI is the
Dravidian word for tea.)
Unix hacks, of course, need not be told that the regular expression
"One for tea" has a pithy numeric representation.
Others may ask "what does all this boil down to?", and the answer is simple
-- while fair in height, FLIS, which by a fortuitous coincidence is where
George Bacon works, is dwarfed by the Robarts Library.
"Room 212, 140 St George St in Toronto", you say? Pithy!
--
Peter Renzland @ Ontario Ministry of Health 416/964-9141 peter@ontmoh.UUCP