From owner-cvs-src@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 12 12:17:50 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: cvs-src@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3E32916A4CE; Wed, 12 Nov 2003 12:17:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECEF743F3F; Wed, 12 Nov 2003 12:17:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from phk@phk.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id hACKHltB038584; Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:17:47 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from phk@phk.freebsd.dk) From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Nov 2003 12:08:48 PST." <200311122008.hACK8mWu013352@repoman.freebsd.org> Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:17:47 +0100 Message-ID: <38583.1068668267@critter.freebsd.dk> cc: cvs-src@FreeBSD.org cc: src-committers@FreeBSD.org cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/games/fortune/datfiles fortunes X-BeenThere: cvs-src@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: CVS commit messages for the src tree List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 20:17:50 -0000 In message <200311122008.hACK8mWu013352@repoman.freebsd.org>, Poul-Henning Kamp writes: >phk 2003/11/12 12:08:48 PST > > FreeBSD src repository > > Modified files: > games/fortune/datfiles fortunes > Log: > Add a card carryring member of the Pointless Comparison Collection. Modern journalism seems to demand that any measurement or numeric quantity gets translated into "something people can relate to" before publication. Typical examples are that volumes are measured in "swiming pools" (sometimes qualified as "Olympic size"), area in football or baseball fields, heights in multiple of some randomly chosen tourist attraction, small angular sizes as how far away a randomly chosen small household item looks that size ("A golfball on the moon"). You get the idea. I generally think this is silly, but as long as the "real" numbers are given, I ignore it, but recently it seems that the actual numerical+unit quantity magnitude has been dispensed with entirely which I think is a great way to disenfranchise even more kids from science. Anyhow, every now and then somebody goes waaaaay too far, and this one triggered the creation of a new "section" in fortune(6): The Pointless Comparison Collection: To give you an idea of how sensitive these antennas are, if we were to "listen" to one spacecraft in the outer solar system by Jupiter or Saturn for 1 billion years and add up all the signal we collected, it would be enough power to set off the flash bulb on your camera once. (http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/10dsn/) Feel free to add any similar rubbish you find. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.