The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES

SPECIES:	Cranial Males
SUBSPECIES:	The Hacker (homo computatis)
Plumage:
	All clothes have a slightly crumpled look as though they came off the
	top of the laundry basket.  Style varies with status.  Hacker managers
	wear gray polyester slacks, pink or pastel shirts with wide collars,
	and paisley ties; staff wears cinched-up baggy corduroy pants, white
	or blue shirts with button-down collars, and penholder in pocket.
	Both managers and staff wear running shoes to work, and a black
	plastic digital watch with calculator.

	The General disliked trying to explain the highly technical
inner workings of the U.S. Air Force.
	"$7,662 for a ten cup coffee maker, General?" the Senator asked.
	In his head he ran through his standard explanations.  "It's not so,"
he thought.  "It's a deterrent."  Soon he came up with, "It's computerized,
Senator.  Tiny computer chips make coffee that's smooth and full-bodied.  Try
a cup."
	The Senator did.  "Pfffttt!  Tastes like jet fuel!"
	"It's not so," the General thought.  "It's a deterrent."
	Then he remembered something.  "We bought a lot of untested computer
chips," the General answered.  "They got into everything.  Just a little
mix-up.  Nothing serious."
	Then he remembered something else.  It was at the site of the
mysterious B-1 crash.  A strange smell in the fuel lines.  It smelled like
coffee.  Smooth and full bodied...
		-- Another Episode of General's Hospital

	The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury.  Due north of
the center we find the South End.  This is not to be confused with South
Boston which lies directly east from the South End.  North of the South
End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.

	"The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")

On the good ship Enterprise
Every week there's a new surprise
Where the Romulans lurk
And the Klingons often go berserk.

Yes, the good ship Enterprise
There's excitement anywhere it flies
Where Tribbles play
And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.

	See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
	Mr. Spock is at his side.
	The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
	It gets fried, scattered far and wide.

It's the good ship Enterprise
Heading out where danger lies
And you live in dread
If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
		-- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics

	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on
the subject of towels.
	A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an
interstellar hitchhiker can have.  Partly it has great practical value.
You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons
of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches
of Santraginus V ... use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River
Moth; wave your towel in emergencies, and, of course, dry yourself off
with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
		-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on
the subject of towels.
	Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value.  For
some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel
with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a
toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc.  Furthermore,
the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or
a dozen other items that he may have "lost".  After all, any man who can
hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds,
win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be
reckoned with.
		-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

	The honeymooning couple agreed it was a fine day for horseback riding.
After a mile or so, the bride's mount cantered under a low tree and a
branch scraped her forehead lightly.  The groom dismounted, glared at his
wife's horse, and said, "That's number one."
	The ride then proceeded.  After another mile or so, the bride's
horse stumbled over a pebble and the lady suffered a slight jostling.
Again, her man leapt from his saddle and strode over to the nervous animal.
"That's two," he said.
	Five miles later, the bride's horse became frightened when a rabbit
crossed its path, reared up and threw the girl.  Immediately, the groom was
off his horse.  "That's three!", he shouted, and, pulling out a pistol, he
shot the horse between the eyes.
	"You brute!" shrieked his bride.  "Now I see the kind of man I
married!  You're a sadist, that's what!"
	The groom turned to her coolly.  "That's one," he said.

	"The jig's up, Elman."
	"Which jig?"
		-- Jeff Elman

	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE

Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene
Descartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence.  The
language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics
and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund.  A
spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of
ours."

The center is very pleased with progress to date.  They say they have
almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the
organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to
exist.

	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK

This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,
Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to
the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.

The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs
while they worked.  Unfortunately few programmers could survive there
because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and
Perrier.

Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle
and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower
case.  For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the
message:
	"i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that.  can
	you find the time to try it again?"

	The Lord and I are in a sheep-shepherd relationship, and I am in
a position of negative need.
	He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area.
	He conducts me directionally parallel to non-torrential aqueous
liquid.
	He returns to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup.
	He switches me on to a positive behavioral format for maximal
prestige of His identity.
	It should indeed be said that notwithstanding the fact that I make
ambulatory progress through the umbrageous inter-hill mortality slot, terror
sensations will no be initiated in me, due to para-etical phenomena.
	Your pastoral walking aid and quadrupic pickup unit introduce me
into a pleasurific mood state.
	You design and produce a nutriment-bearing furniture-type structure
in the context of non-cooperative elements.
	You act out a head-related folk ritual employing vegetable extract.
	My beverage utensil experiences a volume crisis.
	It is an ongoing deductible fact that your inter-relational
empathetical and non-ventious capabilities will retain me as their
target-focus for the duration of my non-death period, and I will possess
tenant rights in the housing unit of the Lord on a permanent, open-ended
time basis.

	The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the
master programmer to examine.  The magician wheeled a large black box into the
master's office while the master waited in silence.
	"This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation,"
began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating
system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user
interfaces.  It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct.
Is it not amazing?"
	The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he
said.
	"Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that
everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs.  Do you agree
to this?"
	"Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the
data center immediately!"  And the magician returned to his tower, well
pleased.
	Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master
programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program.  Do
you know where it might be?"
	"Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform
in the data center."
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	The Martian landed his saucer in Manhattan, and immediately upon
emerging was approached by a panhandler.  "Mister," said the man, "can I
have a quarter?"
	The Martian asked, "What's a quarter?"
	The panhandler thought a minute, brightened, then said, "You're
right!  Can I have a dollar?"

	The master programmer moves from program to program without fear.  No
change in management can harm him.  He will not be fired, even if the project
is canceled.  Why is this?  He is filled with the Tao.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all
students to do some "volunteer work" as a prerequisite to high school gradu-
ation.
	Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's
recognition of the sanctity of human life."

	According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22,
1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm."  Their
"farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year.  But as a "family
farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year.

	Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of
Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers."  You
probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency.

	It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore.  Now it's "chrono-
logically experienced citizens."

	According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was
just a case of "uncontained blade liberation."
		-- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)

	"...The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
	"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
feel interested.
	"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
vexed.  "That's what the name is called.  The name really is, 'The Aged
Aged Man.'"
	"Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
Alice corrected herself.
	"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing!  The song is
called 'Ways and Means':  but that's only what it is called you know!"
	"Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
	"I was coming to that," the Knight said.  "The song really is
"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
		-- Lewis Carroll,
		   "Through the Looking-Glass,
		   and What Alice Found There" (1871)

	The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball...
You've got to start way down, at the bottom, when you're six or seven years
old. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen.  You've got to let it
grow up with you, and if you're successful and you try hard enough, you're
bound to come out on top, just like these boys have come to the top now.
		-- Babe Ruth, in his 1948 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium

	The Priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly.
I will not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.
	A voice, sweetened and sustained, called to him from the sea.
Turning the curve he waved his hand.  A sleek brown head, a seal's, far
out on the water, round.  Usurper.
		-- James Joyce, "Ulysses"

	The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to
get results.
	The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
problems in order to get results
	The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at
toy problems in order to get results.

	The programmers of old were mysterious and profound.  We cannot fathom
their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
	Aware, like a fox crossing the water.  Alert, like a general on the
battlefield.  Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved
blocks of wood.  Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
	Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
	The answer exists only in the Tao.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"