Subject: elephants
From: [email-masked] (agu)
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 13:45:19 -0800

From [email-masked] Fri Mar  3 13:25 PST 1995
	Date: Fri, 3 Mar 95 13:24:09 PST
	From: [email-masked] (djl)
	To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
	Subject: A different bend to the hunting theme... (fwd)

	                          **** HUNTING AN ELEPHANT  ****

	MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out
	everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever
	is left.

	EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the
	existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to
	step 1 as a subordinate exercise.

	PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one
	unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an
	actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.

	COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising 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 pass,
	   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.

	ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute
	Algorithm A on their hands and knees.

	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, and many have never hunted
	anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise
	those people who do.

	OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can
	also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the
	efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else
	will only identify the elephants.

	POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the
	elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.

	LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around
	arguing about who owns the droppings.

	SOFTWARE LAWYERS
	will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and
	feel of one dropping.

	VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to hunt
	elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent
	it.  When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the
	staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are
	completely prehunted before the vice president sees them.
	If the  vice president does see 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 ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for
	mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

	SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling
	elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the
	season opens.

	SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they
	catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.

	HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray,
	and sell them as desktop elephants.