He's the guy who is uncovering the sinister BPL conspiracy.
The BPL recently changed its street number from 666 Boylston to 700 Boylston.
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Reply-To: kibo@world.std.com.dot.net.dot.dot.www.dot.org.dot.dot.com.dot
Subject: Re: Public Life at Boston Public Library
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.stupidity, alt.religion.christian.boston-church
Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology
Organization: welcome datacomp
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 03:04:05 GMT
X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 7419 centons, 81 microns, .93 hectars
X-Kibo-Equipment: a Memex, a Memorator, a Nyctagraph, & Apple BHA
Don Saklad (dsaklad@berne.ai.mit.edu) wrote:
>
> "Did you see that guy? He's always coming in the library here asking
> for information on the library."
>
> "I heard he has a personality disorder."
>
> "Don't waste time with unworthy reference questions, we've got people
> coming in doing research or with crossword puzzles to solve."
>
> "Besides, he can always file a freedom of information appeal."
Be sure to go into the old (McKim) building sometime and go all the way up
to the top floor (past the gilt statues of the saints, etc.) into the
hermetically-sealed Rare Book Room, and ask at the top of your lungs, "DO
YOU HAVE ANYTHING BY WILLIAM SHATNER?"
And then ask if they have any coloring books by Aldus Manutius in the early
1500s, and if they have one, COLOR IT IN!!!!
-- K.
Then go to the Museum of Science and stand
in front of any exhibit case in "Fluidica"
and shout "I GOTTA GO TO THE BATHROOM!!!!"
Then see if you can FIND the MANOMETER.
Then shout again: "I GOTTA GO TO THE BATHROOM!!!"
Also go to the basement of that wing and
lick the giant salt crystal that vibrates
like a bell.
What's brown and vibrates like a bell?
DUNNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!!
Go to the library and ask where the dung is.
Then just go everywhere shouting "I GOTTA GO
TO THE BATHROOM!" at the top of your lungs.
When done, report back here to be debriefed
and to receive new stupid orders.
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Re: Over H-iever
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.religion.louis-nick, alt.tv.southpark
Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology
Organization: welcome datacomp
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 07:47:42 GMT
X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 1023 centons, 97 microns, .01 woxwox
X-Newsreader: McTV. It's a Web browser and a "delicious" burger!
snick@animal.blarg.net (Louis Nick III) wrote:
>
> baking good things to life (FeralOne@Humanoid.net) wrote:
> >
> > Perplexed Bobbie: Why do you have a Giant H-type thing
> > in your noose-group?
>
> It isn't a Giant H.
>
> It isn't even Giant H-like.
>
> IT'S THE GIANT TOTAL-PERSPECTIVE DYNAMIC RANGE IMPOSSIBLE H!!
>
> OF DOOM!
I should point out that this trumps the slighly larger BIG LOWERCASE H OF
MODERATE NUISANCE VALUE. And how does one computer nuisance value, you ask?
Simple! It's the difference between the price on the tag and the price on
the register at LEChMERE!
Know why Lechmere's going out of business? It's because BIFF designed
their in-store signage!
[Photo of "LEARN 'N GR0W" sign would go here if Usenet had pictures.
It's in Optima, a typeface in which not only is the zero much narrower
than the letter O, it's slightly shorter too! Only a B0Z0 would not
notice it!]
> > _ _
> > /\_\ / /\
> > / / / / / /
> > / / / / / /
> > / / / / / /
> > / / /__________/ / /
> > / /\____________\/ /
> > / / / h-bar ^ / / /
> > / / / / / /
> > / / / / / /
> > / / / /_/ /
> > \/_/ \_\/
>
> SEE! IMPOSSIBLE! THE BORG ARE DOOMED!!1
You are not Borg. You are not Eye-Borg. Aitch and Aitch! What is Aitch!
(The H of Zetar comes out of Catherine Schell's eye, and chases the
Enterprise around. It goes into librarian Don Saklad's head. The left
half of his face turns negative green and he begins to make noises like
a street-sweeper truck with phonograph needles instead of bristles driving
through a vat of tapoica pudding.)
KIRK: Oh no! The H of Zetar has destroyed the memory banks of
Boston Public Library Alpha!
SPOCK: The loss to mankind is incalculable, because it's too small!
DON SAKLAD: Wwwwrrrrgggggghhh aaaarrrrggggllll bbbaaaavvvvlllpppzzzzttt!!!
Ah-oo-ga, ah-oo-ga! Oop oop ort bzzt bleep WOO WOO!!!
MEADOWLARK LEMON: Hey Super Globetrotters! Crime Globe is summoning us
to play some tricky basketball to bounce our way out
of a sticky situation!
THE TAPIOCANATOR: That's right, Super Globetrotters! My super-adhesive
elementary school cafeteria tapioca will seal your fate!
MEADOWLARK LEMON: Help, I'm sinking!
KIRK: Spock! The badly-animated tapioca can't affect us here in the
live-action segment, can it?
SPOCK: Unknown, Captain, but I believe were are in a similar yet far
more deadly predicament. We appear to be trapped in something
similar to quicksand, only far stickier.
KIRK: You mean...
SPOCK: Yes, Captain, we are sinking into water with vermiculite
floating on top.
KIRK: That fiend! Quick, Spock, save yourself from drowning by
hanging onto my hair!
DON SAKLAD: WOO WOO!!!!
> .. .. .. ..
> Douglas Hofstadler will now write _Kibo, McIrvin, Benvenuto: An Internet
> Shadenfreud_ "A Metamemical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of
> St. Louis."
ACHILLES: Hullo, Mr. Tortoise.
TORTOISE: Why greetings, Achilles, my dear friend.
ACHILLES: What's that you're reading?
TORTOISE: It's a fascinating book on mathematics by Sir Bertrand Russell.
I'm almost up to the point where he disproves the existence of
Sir Alfred Whitehead!
ACHILLES: I think Sir Bertrand was helped by his wife Helena. But anywho,
that book has a fascinating perspective on the Peano Postulate.
TORTOISE: It wasn't a very large postulate, now that you mention it.
ACHILLES: Apparently Peano was fascinated with the idea of a giant H-shaped
snowflake made of little Hs. Sort of an H of Hs, as it were!
TORTOISE: Lovely idea! But would it stain!
ACHILLES: I guess it would. So let's discard that idea forever as we
consider topology. Did you ever notice that a dougnut does not
actually has a hole--it merely goes around the area where the
hole WOULD be?
TORTOISE: So that's why Dunkin' Donuts sells "Munchkins" and not
"Doughnut Holes"!
ACHILLES: But what I don't understand is how the topolical properties
of everyday coffee cups prove that you can turn a sphere inside
out through the fourth dimension.
ACHILLES: Hey, look, there are the kids from "South Park"!
STAN: You dildo!
CARTMAN: I'm not a dildo! I'm big-boned, you asswipe!
KYLE: Ha ha Cartman's a fat dildo!
CARTMAN: Fuck you! (lets a big fart, spraying little brown pieces of
construction paper all over Kenny.)
KYLE: Stop farting, you prick!
STAN: I'll hold his asshole closed so's he can't fart no more!
(Stan sticks his hands up Cartman's ass.)
CARTMAN: Ow! Stop fucking with my ass, you weinerhead!
STAN: Eww, this is gross. Okay, Cartman, I'm gonna let go. Hey, my arm's
stuck on a turkey bone or something...
(He pulls his arm out with a violent ripping sound, and a paper cutout of
Cartman's intestines spills onto the ground.)
CARTMAN: That sound I heard had better have been my ass ripping open because
Mom will kill me if it was my new church pants!
KYLE: Shut your fat face! Your intestines are really gross!
STRAY CAT: Meow. (begins eating Cartman's intestines.)
CARTMAN: Ow! The cat is eating my intestines!
STRAY CAT: Munch munch munch. BURP!
KENNY: (mumbles inarticulately)
STAN: Ha ha ha! You're right, Kenny!
(A marching band passes by, walking on Cartman's intestines. One of the
Sousaphones sucks in one end of them. Cartman is pulled into the Sousaphone
and comes out the other end... inside out!)
TORTOISE: I see. A new world of mathematical topology has been opened to me!
ACHILLES: Ripped open, as it were.
TORTOISE: (chuckles) Oh, what a witty yet ribald jape!
ACHILLES: Now about Cantor's diagonal argument...
TORTOISE: Oh, who cares about some silly argument. Let's talk about math!
ACHILLES: Hooray! More math!
PLEASE NOTE THAT I DID NOT WRITE THIS DISGUSTING, INFANTILE STORY.
DOUGLAS HOSTADTER DID. HOWEVER, HE HAS A PULITZER PRIZE SO IT'S OKAY.
-- K.
P.S. Comedy Central refused
to air this episode of
"South Park" because it
contained math.
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Don Saklad's Day (was: Re: Way to go...)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,soc.libraries.talk
Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology
Organization: welcome datacomp
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 01:27:35 GMT
X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 8716 centons, 75 microns, .02 monera
X-Newsreader: HotNews. Read, search, post to Usenet through your microwave!
In alt.religion.kibology, Don Saklad (dsaklad@yaroslav.ai.mit.edu) wrote:
>
> Reply-To: suekamm@class.org
> From: Sue Kamm (suekamm@class.org)
> To: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List (alaoif@ala1.ala.org)
> References: (Pine.SUN.3.91-FP.971201103810.5841B-100000@cap1.capaccess.org)
> X-To: lshapiro@CapAccess.org
> X-Cc: ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom List (alaoif@ala1.ala.org)
>
>
> Way to go, Leila! I have heard from former and current BPL
> staff that this man is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. I
> think we should ALL ignore him henceforth.
>
> --
> Your friendly CyberGoddess and ALA Councilor,
> Sue Kamm
> Email: suekamm@class.org
>
> "The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for
> students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas."
> --Clark Kerr
> President, University of California, 1961
Hmm, I believe I recently saw this one on alt.mcdonalds.crew, only
it said "I have heard from people at McDonalds that Jeffery D. Hunt
is a few volumes short of a Funk'N'Wagnalls." And anyway, why would
having a Happy Meal in your head be the same as being sane? If anything,
having fries in your head would be less healthy than being a vegetable.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present
D O N S A K L A D ' S D A Y
=================================
Don Saklad's life is Copyright (C) 1997 James "Kibo" Parry.
Do not live Don Saklad's life without written permission from Kibo.
4:00am -- wake up
4:01am -- call Boston Public Library to ask when they open
4:02am -- write down that at 4:01am they said 9:00am and that this note
was made at 4:02am
4:03am -- leave for Boston Public Library
4:04am -- count the number of cracks in the sidewalk on the way
4:05am -- after stepping on a crack by accident, go back and start over
4:06am -- write down the license number of the bad boys who yelled swear words
4:19am -- arrive at BPL
4:20am -- check the back door to see if it's also locked
4:21am -- wait patiently by the front door for them to open
4:22am -- buy coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts across the street
4:23am -- use their bathroom
4:24am -- try the library doors again
4:25am -- check the library dumpster for discarded evidence of the cover-up
4:26am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
4:27am -- try to get into the library through the book return slot. Fail.
4:28am -- wait impatiently by the front door
4:29am -- begin tapping foot exactly 1,666 times, no less, no more
4:48am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
5:14am -- finish tapping foot. Make a note of it.
5:15am -- start tapping foot another 1,666 times to do a re-count for accuracy.
5:29am -- altercation with homeless man who does not seem to CARE about
the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY CONSPIRACY and seems DERANGED!!!
5:32am -- resume waiting patiently by the front door
5:33am -- check the back door again
5:51am -- use the Dunkin' Donuts bathroom again
5:55am -- fall asleep in Dunkin' Donuts.
10:20am -- wake up at the exact same time LINCOLN WAS SHOT!
10:21am -- run across the street to the library.
10:22am -- go back and cross the street after looking both ways like the
policeman said to.
10:23am -- enter the library. Ask a security guard what happened between
5:55am and 10:23am.
10:24am -- When they say they don't know, write their badge number down.
Ask the name of their supervisor.
10:25am -- Write down "Jack Sprat" like they said.
10:26am -- use the BPL men's room.
10:27am -- count all the books in the BPL.
2:18pm -- count all the entries in the card catalog.
4:42pm -- okay, so they have the same number. But perhaps DIFFERENT books
have been censored from each! Spread card catalog out on floor
to compare.
4:43pm -- Hide from library guards in BPL men's room. Also use men's room.
4:47pm -- begin counting the number of bricks in the BPL.
4:48pm -- start over when distracted by the nutty person down the aisle
who is counting the number of light bulbs in the BPL.
5:02pm -- break for dinner in the cookbook section.
5:23pm -- realize that no library personnel have bothered you for almost
an hour. Start showing your library card to all of them, saying,
"I HAVE THE CARD, SO I HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE" until someone
disagrees with you.
5:24pm -- make a scene.
5:25pm -- use the BPL men's room again.
5:28pm -- check the paper supply in all library Xerox machines. Try to get
dimes out by putting chewing gum on a piece of fishing line. Fail.
5:32pm -- try to get gum out of hair. Start shouting "STOP STARING AT ME!!!
I HAVE A LIBRARY CARD!!!"
5:37pm -- make a joke about the BPL having VPL. Fail to explain joke
because saying "VPL" makes you all giggly.
5:41pm -- discover some weenie has locked the bathroom door. Run across
street to Dunkin' Donuts. Injure bladder trying to go through
BPL turnstile the wrong way.
5:44pm -- upon returning, discover the BPL has closed and moved to a secret
location to prevent you from discovering THE SHOCKING TRUTH OF
THE SECRET PUBLIC LIBRARY.
5:45pm -- go to a trendy cybercafe to surf the Internet.
5:46pm -- discover that you've been called "a few fries short of a Happy Meal"
on a mailing list. Proudly repost it to alt.religion.kibology,
where everyone deeply cares that your public library fetish was
impugned. LIBRARY FETISHISM IS A SERIOUS MATTER!!!
5:57pm -- go home to watch "Who's The Boss?" and try to solve the mystery
of who the boss is.
5:58pm -- fall asleep with library card clutched in right hand. It falls
out of the hand and lands in the cat's dish. The cat eats it.
SEE DON SAKLAD RUN THE CAT THROUGH THE LIBRARY'S BAR CODE SCANNER!
TUNE IN TOMORROW, SAME TIME, SAME DEWEY DECIMAL CODE!
-- K.
I realize that no GOOD library
uses the Dewey Decimal System, but
the LOC code wouldn't work there:
The Dewey Decimal System is WACKY.
And Don, lest you get the wrong
impression, you're welcome to
post your library adventures to
alt.religion.kibology. Just be
warned that some of the people
there, like Gardner Trask, are
pulling the strings of the
BPL's puppet board of directors.
From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
Subject: Re: Don Saklad's Day (was: Re: Way to go...)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology, alt.culture.gard-trask, soc.libraries.talk
Followup-To: alt.religion.kibology
Organization: welcome datacomp
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 06:16:28 GMT
X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 8716 centons, 75 microns, .02 monera
X-Newsreader: HotNews. Read, search, post to Usenet through your microwave!
"Gardner S. Trask III" (trask@world.std.com) wrote:
>
> James "Kibo" Parry wrote:
> >
> > And Don, lest you get the wrong impression, you're welcome to
> > post your library adventures to alt.religion.kibology. Just be
> > warned that some of the people there, like Gardner Trask, are
> > pulling the strings of the BPL's puppet board of directors.
>
> There is no BPL Cabal, and I am not one of them.
I'm not talking about the Beeple Cabal.
I meant the Beeple Double Secret MK-Gosmo Shadow Triumviral Commission.
You know, the people who decide that Kurt Vonnegut goes under "Literature"
and Harlan Ellison goes under "Sci-Fi" but his books go under "Young Adult".
> > I realize that no GOOD library uses the Dewey Decimal System, but
> > the LOC code wouldn't work there: The Dewey Decimal System is WACKY.
>
> By the way, in an effort to modernize the Library, I have proposed the Dewey
> Hexidecimal System.
Way ahead of you. See my 1992 posts about the Dewey Negabinary System.
Negabinary is STILL my favorite means of counting on my fingers (with the
right hand being positive and the EVIL hand being negative) although I'm
growing fonder and fonder of the CCITT Group 3 Huffman code table, which
shares with negabinary the ability to represent signed integers:
DECIMAL NEGABINARY CCITT DECIMAL NEGABINARY CCITT
0 0 00110101 -0 (n.a.) 0000110111
1 1 000111 -1 11 010
2 110 0111 -2 10 11
3 111 1000 -3 1101 10
4 100 1011 -4 1100 011
5 101 1100 -5 1111 0011
6 11010 1110 -6 1110 0010
7 11011 1111 -7 1001 00011
8 11000 10011 -8 1000 000101
9 11001 10100 -9 1011 000100
10 11110 00111 -10 1010 0000100
42 1111110 00101011 -42 101010 000011011010
100 110100100 1101100010101 -100 11101100 0000001111000011010100
666 11111101110 011001110010011 -666 1010111010 0000001001010000011001010
You see, negabinary and CCITT Group 3 are better than binary because they
can represent negative numbers without any gross ol' "two's complement,
three's a crowd" notation. (Technically, the CCITT Group 3 code represents
runs of white and black pixels, but here I'm calling them positive and
negative. I'm left-justifying them because they're designed to pack together
end to end--the "100" code is actually "64" followed by "36". This code
is used by your fax machine and some monochrome TIFFs.)
Anyway, you see how efficient these codes are. Instead of typing "-666"
to dial the Anti-Satan on your new phone, making your fingers do all that
walking across some big keypad that has ten digits and a minus sign on it,
you could simply use a keyboard with zeroes and ones, IF ONLY THE GOVERNMENT-
RUN PHONE COMPANIES HERE IN AMERICA WOULD STOP SUPPRESSING NEGABINARY
AND CCITT GROUP 3!!!
Alas, I can't figure out how to do a negative zero in negabinary.
So maybe the phone should have "0", "1", and "-" buttons just so that
I could give someone the phone number of negative zero.
> Card catalogs will be in two byte streams, and will be emblazed with the
> Microsoft Logo
And all of Don Saklad's favorite books would be in the little-endian section!
> And Don, the Lost and Found Department has requested you stop asking
> about the muffler you lost in 1978.
Do you mean the car muffler or the woolen scarf knitted by his grandma Mazie?
> Given the recent and expansive constructions work, we are confident
> it is no longer in the main reading room, and we tire of your inquires.
> We have a copy of the flyer you posted all over the library, and will
> check any returned mufflers against your more than adiquate description.
I have a copy of the flyer here. It said:
LOST, MUFFLER, WOOLEN, ONE
SAYS "SMASH THE BPL CONSPIRACY"
You see, Don Saklad's muffler can be uniquely identified with only two
sentence fragments, yielding a higher textual extropy (and therefore better
compression ratio) than anyone else's muffler. Anyone else's would have
to specify color, length, etc., with sufficient precision to distinguish
said muffler from all other mufflers of the same Platonic class. For instance:
LOST, MUFFLER, WOOLEN-POLYSTYRENE BLEND, ONE
LENGTH APPROXIMATELY 1.0000000000000831092 METERS
"Sorry, Kibo, the only muffler turned in this month was only
1.0000000000000831091 meters long."
"Waah! The salesman said the polystyrene made it dimensionally stable!"
"Kibo, in the BPL, nothing is dimensionally stable.
Seems the architect failed to take into account the gravity
generated by the mass of the books. Notice how all those
parked cars are an inch closer than they were when you walked in?"
"Goshers! I never knew library science had science in it!"
> P.S. Doors open at 9:00 M-F EXCEPT Major Holidays.
At the BPL, every day is a holiday!
-- K.
This article will be filed
under "N" for "Nerdy" and
"P" for "Paranoid Rant" in
the vast newsgroup we call...
The Twilight Hierarchy.
P.S. I hereby apologize for talking about numbers in the library newsgroup.
And while I'm at it, I apologize in advance for discussing Pez injuries.
| James "Kibo" Parry | kibo@world.std.com | last revised Mar. 12, '98 |
Web site contents & design: Copyright © 1997, 1998 James "Kibo" Parry, all rights reserved.