[comp.text.tex] LaTeX snigglet

newman@frith.uucp (Timothy S Newman) (06/16/90)

Today's guest observation:

I knew that the TeXBook was full of many ``inside'' jokes, so to say,
but I never suspected Leslie Lamport of sharing Donald Knuth's sense of
humor.  Specifically, I just noticed the reference on page 72 to the
Hitchiker's Guide series.

Well, it was funny for me anyway...

mdeck@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Mary Deck) (06/16/90)

In article <1990Jun15.195819.29726@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> newman@frith.uucp (Timothy S Newman) writes:
>
>Today's guest observation:
>
>I knew that the TeXBook was full of many ``inside'' jokes, so to say,
>but I never suspected Leslie Lamport of sharing Donald Knuth's sense of
>humor.  Specifically, I just noticed the reference on page 72 to the
>Hitchiker's Guide series.
>
>Well, it was funny for me anyway...

You think that's good?  Read through (well, scan) the index of the
TeXbook.  You'll find references to Plato, Goethe, Agatha Christe,
and, my personal favorite, Sesame Street.

There's a really good joke in the METAFONTbook, p.8, too:
	.... Now that authors have for the first time the power to
	invent new symbols with great ease, and to have those
	characters printed in their manuscripts on a wide variety of
	typesetting devices, we must face the question of how much
	experimentation is desirable.  Will font freaks abuse this toy
	by overdoing it?  Is it wise to introduce new symbols by the
	thousands?  Such questions are beyond the scope of this book;
	but it is easy to imagine an epidemic of fontomania occurring,
	once people realize how much fun it is to design their own
	characters, hence it may be necessary to perform 
	fontal lobotomies.  
	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :)

.....It's late on a Friday; what do you expect??!?! :)

					....Mary

roelofs@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Ender Wiggin) (06/16/90)

newman@frith.uucp (Timothy S Newman) writes:

>I knew that the TeXBook was full of many ``inside'' jokes, so to say,
>but I never suspected Leslie Lamport of sharing Donald Knuth's sense of
>humor.  Specifically, I just noticed the reference on page 72 to the
>Hitchiker's Guide series.

...and in section 4.2, at that...