ramesh was here

1. Processing Power - Like re-creating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with a couple magic markers
2. Water - Like painting the sea—while it’s moving
3. Human Faces - Like trying to impersonate a living person using a finger puppet
4. Artificial Intelligence - Like teaching 1,000 kids to think for themselves overnight
5. Light and Shadows - Like trying to reenact the first few verses of Genesis
6. Fire - Like holding air in your hands
7. Material Physics - Like predicting how sand will spill from a broken hourglass
8. Realistic Movement - Like teaching a rag doll to play dodgeball
9. True-to-Life Simulation - Like cramming the sum of all automotive engineering knowledge into a joystick
10. Motion Capture - Like training a computer to see the world as humans do

I am sure most of you programmers may have experienced this: look at some code, get totally lost, curse that evil son-of-a-bitch who wrote that code, and then realize that it was something you wrote months or years ago. At that point, the narcissist among you may start to admire its beauty and elegance and brevity and style, but the more normal types may start to wonder “Should I move to another line of work?” To help you quell that inner voice, I offer my highly original 27th Rule of Software Development: All code is spaghetti, it just doesn’t taste very good when cooked by another programmer; if you cooked it, it doesn’t stay fresh for very long.

Here is a good application of the rule: when you look at sample code that alpha-geeks present with flourish, especially on internet forums where they fondly hope, against all statistical evidence, that some pretty women may be, just may be, lurking. Often the proud author would present his sample as the ultimate in brevity and style, except that you can’t make head or tail of it at first. Some of us can’t make head or tail of even at last, but that is another story.

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 93 15:14:50 -0500
From: rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman)
To: mcuddy@ctbu.rational.com
Cc: kabuki-west@mica.berkeley.edu
Subject: Another mcuddy..

Could people please not use this list to announce information of no particular interest to the people on the list? Hundreds of thousands of babies are born every day. While the whole phenomenon is menacing, one of them by itself is not newsworthy. Nor is it a difficult achievement--even some fish can do it. (Now, if you were a seahorse, it would be more interesting, since it would be the male that gave birth.)

Following your example, I might send the list an announcement whenever a new GNU program is written. That happens less often than babies are born, it does the world a lot more good, it reflects more conscious creativity and hard work, and some of the readers might actually find the information useful. Even so, I think most of the readers would consider this outside the scope and purpose of the list. Clearly that goes double for babies.

Of course, we have another place for announcements of new GNU programs. If some people like to read birth announcements, perhaps you should set up a suitable list or newsgroup. Perhaps rec.births? (While you're at it, start rec.deaths for obituaries--they're usually more interesting to read.)

These birth announcements also spread the myth that having a baby is something to be proud of, which fuels natalist pressure, which leads to pollution, extinction of wildlife, poverty, and ultimately mass starvation.

Perhaps the people who have decided to have no children should start making proud announcements, so as to set a better example. I could start. I'm sure everyone on this list will be glad to know I don't plan to reproduce myself.