How To Hunt Elephants
Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out
everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.
But professors of mathematics prove the existence of at least one elephant
and leave the capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for one of their
graduate students.
Computer scientists hunt elephants using algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope 3. Work northward in an
orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately East and West. 4. During
each traverse a. Catch each animal seen b. Compare each animal caught to
a known elephant c. Stop when a match is detected.
Experienced computer programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.
Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.
Economists don’t hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough they will hunt themselves.
Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.
Consultants don’t hunt elephants, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those who do.
Operations research consultants can measure the correlation of hat size
and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant
hunting strategies, if someone else will identify the elephants.
Politicians don’t hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
Lawyers usually don’t hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds
around arguing about who owns the droppings.
Whereas software lawyers will claim that they own an entire herd based on
the look and feel of one dropping.
When the Vice President of R&D tries to hunt elephants, his staff will try to ensure that all elephants are completely prehunted before he sees them. If the VP sees a nonprehunted elephant, the staff will (1) Compliment the vice president’s keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.
Senior managers set broad elephant hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.
Quality control inspectors take a different approach. They ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.
Salespeople generally don’t hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven’t caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. Software salespeople sell anything that resembles a white elephant until a newer version becomes available. Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them grey, and sell them as “desktop elephants”.
Insurance Claims
The following are actual statements found on insurance forms where car drivers
attempted to summarize the details of an accident in the fewest words.
These instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that even incompetent
writing may be highly entertaining.
Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t
have.
The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intentions.
I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head
through it.
I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before
I hit him.
I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and
headed over the embankment.
In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.
I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached
an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see
the other car.
I had been driving for 40 years when I feel asleep at the wheel and had
an accident.
I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint
gave way causing me to have an accident.
As I approached the intersection, a sign suddenly appeared in a place where
no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to
avoid the accident.
To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.
I told the police that I was not injured but on removing my hat, I found
that I had a fractured skull.
I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road
when I struck him.
The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run so I ran over him.
I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a ditch
by some stray cows.
The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out of its
way when it struck my front end
Sunday Humor
One Sunday morning the pastor noticed little Johnny was standing staring
up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church.
The young man of seven had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up and stood beside him and gazing up at the plaque he said quietly, "Good morning son."
"Good morning pastor" replied the young man not taking his eyes off the plaque. "Sir, what is this?" Johnny asked.
"Well son, these are all the people who have died in the service", replied the pastor.
Soberly, they stood together staring up at the large plaque. Little Johnny's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which one sir, the 8:30 or the 10:30?"
Slow Day in Heaven
A guy dies and goes to heaven. It's a slow day for St. Peter, so, upon passing
the entrance test, St. Peter says, "I'm not very busy today, why don't
you let me show you around?"
The guy thinks this is a great idea and graciously accepts the offer. St. Peter shows him all the sights, the golf course, the reading room and library, the observation room, the cafeteria and finally, they come to a huge room full of clocks.
The guy asks, "What's up with these clocks?"
St. Peter explains, "Everyone on earth has a clock that shows how much time he has left on earth. When a clock runs out of time, the person dies and comes to the Gates to be judged".
The guy thinks this makes sense but notices that some of the clocks are going faster than others. He asks why is that?
St. Peter explains, "Every time a living person tells a lie, it speeds his clock".
This also makes sense, so the guy takes one last look around the room before leaving and notices one clock in the center of the ceiling. On this clock, both hands are spinning at an unbelievable rate. So he asks, "What is the story with that clock?"
"Oh, that," St. Peter replies, "That's Bill Clinton's clock. We decided to use it as a ceiling fan."