HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stame@emunix.emich.edu (Stewart Tame)
Subject: Re: Mis-applied physics in advertising
Organization: Eastern Michigan University
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 23:24:57 GMT

In article <jimf.711923596@centerline.com> jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost) writes:
>ssnyder@sunai.er.usgs.gov (Steve Snyder) writes:
>
>>Which reminds me of the ads that say "4 out of 5 doctors recommend 
>>Brand X..." I've always wondered about that 5th doctor. Why is s/he 
>>different?
>
>Something to remember: the guy who got D's through med school is still
>a doctor.  Could be they found four D-level doctors and one that
>really knew his (her) stuff.

I seem to recall this one from Cecil Adams with regards to Trident gum.
According to Cecil the fifth dentist "usually recommends no gum at all."
Obviously Trident doesn't want to publicize this statistic . . . 

****************************************************************************
"...I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring...the future
 is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul." -- J.G. Ballard
****************************************************************************
 I understand it's obligatory to mention Kibo somewhere in one's postings.
****************************************************************************
The opinions expressed above can be  *	Stewart Tame
yours for a very reasonable price!   *  311 Jarvis, Apt.106
Send inquiries to the address there>>*  Ypsilanti, MI    48197
****************************************************************************
		Email:  stame@emunix.emich.edu
****************************************************************************
"But for the most precise literary antecedent to [_RN: The Memoirs of
 Richard Nixon_], we must consider nothing less than Vladimir Nabokov's
 _Pale Fire_ . . . "			-- Ron Rosenbaum
From: mayers@cemmva.cem.msu.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Sanity
Date: 28 Jul 92 00:14:06 GMT
Reply-To: mayers@cemmva.cem.msu.edu
Organization: MSU_Chemistry

If I am reading the crediting/bibliographying right in Laughing Matters (Gene
Shalit, a must read), then the 'Party of the first part, party of the second
part' Marx Brothers routine is called 'Groucho and Chico Make a Deal' and was
in their 1935 movie _A Night at the Opera_.  Good skit, even on paper, of 
course, it's a killer on screen 8-))))!!!!!!

Anson "No thanks required, but a nice $ reward $ would be appreciated" Mayerss
--
ObDeadSig
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: cldavies@nyx.cs.du.edu (cindy davies)
Subject: Re: Moxie, submarines (was: Re: Prince Albert in a can?!?)
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 14:20:18 GMT

In article <39465@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk> kgg@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Kees Goossens) writes:
>local food. (What a thought! Having to eat _real_ rolls with _real_ meat,
>instead of those drab, tasteless objects known as 'McTurds' or wharever.)
>
>Kees
>--
>Kees Goossens                       Keep in Touch with the Dutch:
>LFCS, Dept. of Computer Science     JANET: kgg@dcs.ed.ac.uk
>University of Edinburgh, Scotland   UUCP:  ..!mcsun!uknet!dcs!kgg
>Wiskunde is bouwen in de geest.	--- Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer.

When I was in Germany a few years ago it wasn't the food the "drove" me
to McD's and BK's.  It was the Coke.  Served WARM <blech> and with a lemon
slice <double blech>  Where is the Hard Rock Cafe when you need one?  If your
going to serve American food, you must prepare it correctly.  1. Put 3 large
cubes of ice in glass. 2. Open bottle. 3. Pour from bottle into glass...And   
AVOID contact with Citrus at all times.

--
Life among academics has taught me that a well-expressed opinion is
usually better than a badly expressed fact, so far as professional
advancement goes.  --Gabaldon, Outlander.
cldavies@silver.sdsmt.edu        cldavies@nyx.cs.du.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: ssnyder@sunai.er.usgs.gov (Steve Snyder)
Subject: Re: Mis-applied physics in advertising
Organization: Why?
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 15:47:44 GMT

In article <sysmatt.711809308@aix3090b.uky.edu> sysmatt@aix3090b.uky.edu (James M. Simpson) writes:
>I've often wondered about the difference between "prescription" strength and
>over-the-counter versions of the same drug. For example, after a recent
> [etc]

Which reminds me of the ads that say "4 out of 5 doctors recommend 
Brand X..." I've always wondered about that 5th doctor. Why is s/he 
different?

Steve
From: zumel@ri.cmu.edu (Nina B Zumel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Tasteless comments
Date: 29 Jul 92 23:16:22 GMT
Organization: Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

In article <1992Jul29.013426.25975@news.columbia.edu>, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
|> There was a local weatherman who was a quick-drawing artist called Tex
|> Antoine for many years.  He is alleged to have said something like "if
|> rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it" as some parable relating to some
|> impending bad weather.  He got a chance to appear on the air again and
|> give a public apology, but was subsequently fired.

The guy who ran against Ann Richards for governor of Texas a few years
back supposedly said the same thing at some point during the campaign. 
He lost.
From: rich@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Richard Hempsey)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: catching bullets with the teeth
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 00:31:14 MDT
Organization: Edmonton Remote Systems #2, Edmonton, AB, Canada

stame@emunix.emich.edu (Stewart Tame) writes:

> In article <1992Jul29.211347.2741@crd.ge.com> salantel@wsqtb9.crd.ge.com writ
> >I heard from coworkers, that on tv they showed a man who could 
> >catch a bullet fired from a gun with his teeth.  Supposedly the
> >
> 
> Hmmmmm . . . the bullet catch is a standard of magic.  Quite a number
> of magicians have died from things going wrong with it, most notable
> among them perhaps was Chung Ling Soo.  I've seen one magician actually
> perform this.  It's not popular, just a classic.  In these cases, sleight
> of hand *is* involved.  I do seem to recall reading, however, about some
> fool who actually tried to catch a .22 caliber bullet with his teeth on
> the old "That's Incredible" program or something.  I don't recall if he
> succeeded though . . . 

Yes, I remember this program.  I used to watch every show (as well as 
"Real People" and "Those Amazing Animals", so shoot me) and remember 
catching this episode.  The gun was carefully mounted on a stand, the 
guys head was carefully placed.  He had some kind of teeth protector made 
of rigid plastic which covered all the teeth and fixed the lower jaw in 
place.  A block of some material was inserted into his mouth and affixed 
to the teeth protector.
They showed him catching the bullet from about 7 different angles at full 
speed and slow motion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard  at  rich@knoware.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca  (preferred)
Hempsey  at  rich@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: sdr57@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Mandatory negatives (was Re: Agnostics and Athiests)
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:48:51 GMT

In article <7540@public.BTR.COM> grady@btr.BTR.COM (Grady Ward  grady@btr.com) writes:
>
>What breaks the symmetry between "believing in God"
>versus "not believing in God," is that contrary to
>both sides needing equal bodies of evidence to support
>their claim, the side making the *assertion* needs to
>support it while the denier of that assertion need
>only laugh.
>
>
>--
Er...laughing disproves an assertion?

Ha, Ha, Ha.

(In the context of this thread, I would point out that atheism
requires at least as much faith as any theism - the atheist
must believe in the *nonexistence* of a deity - and that any
religion which argues for the existence of free will in choosing
to believe - accept good or embrace evil - however you put it -
will tell you that the existence of the deity can *not* be independently
demonstrated, since that would remove freedom from that choice. You
either have faith or you don't. In other words, if your *assertion* is
that God does *not* exist, where is your proof? And will you consider
it an adequate and complete disproof of that assertion if I laugh at
you for making it?)
From: csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Revenge of the Choking Doberman
Date: 28 Jul 92 11:01:47 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK

In article <1992Jul27.181503.20261@acuson.com> lawson@aldia.UUCP (Drew Lawson) writes:
>In article <6074@otc.otca.oz> wayner@otc.otca.oz.au (Wayne Robinson) writes:
>
>>The type of dog seems to be a regional variation. Every account I have heard
>>comming from Australia involves a Rotweiler. These dogs have been involved
>>in quite a few attacks on kids,in recent years and so is
>>"more believable" to Australians than a German Shepherd. Does anyone know
>>what the most popular dogs are in different areas for this story? Perhaps
>>it really is dobermans (dobermen?) doing the amputation and they are
>>feindishly framing the rotweillers...
>
>
>Dobermans (dobermen?) were the "in" killer dog of the 70s, roughly when
>this story started.  These days, I would heve expected to hear versions
>with pit bull terriers.
>
>[Are pit bull terriers simply K-9 "Terry"s with attitude?]
>
>I'm not surprised by the rotweiller stories.  They've been involved
>with some child maulings in the US, as well.
>

Likewise in the UK. A pair of rots killed an 11(?) year old girl here last
year, while playing on a beach or something. Also several other bad
attacks, including a young girl (approx 5) who had her chest ripped open, but
survived...

Later,

The Wisp.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Chris Williams <csuah@uk.ac.warwick.csv> aka <csuah@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
"Tony Greig in the slips, legs apart, waiting for a tickle"
                                      Brian Johnson (thanks to A. Simha 8^>)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.humor
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Mandatory negatives (was Re: Agnostics and Athiests)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 01:05:59 GMT

In article <1992Jul26.232745.23523@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>
>Or the fact that there's a difference between "N times as much" and "N times
>more".  Anybody got any more "off by one" or "one vital contingency slopped
>over" examples?

Assuming someone else reads this, I'm not just talking to myself.

Anyone notice any creeping language changes that are subtlely changing 
the meaning?

When I was growing up, there were highway signs that warned of "falling
rock zone".  Today, they are all "fallen rock zone".  As if they guarantee
you can't drive by during the fall!

What about unnecessarily formal names for things?  There's a company that
doesn't sell bandages, etc., instead they sell Wound Management Systems.

cjl

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Subject: Re: Banks + Short Term Car Loans = Scam?
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 20:36:30 GMT

mikkelson@breakr.enet.dec.com (snopes) writes:
> If you paid off $70,000 of an $80,000 mortgage on your house, then defaulted,
> do you think the bank could foreclose, sell off your house for $80,000, and
> keep *all* the money?  Of course not.

Nope.  What they do is sell the house off to a friend of theirs for
$10,000.

That's not completely true, they usually hold auctions -- but these
items are usually bought for a price *well* under what it would be
worth on the open market.  The poor sucker that defaulted looses the
difference plus all that interest he's paid.

It used to be commonplace in my home town for a trustee of the bank to
move into a foreclosed-on house, and often how fast the bank moved to
foreclose had to do with whether or not a bank official or friend of
such would like to live in it.  The new owner got a real deal on the
house and the defaultee got screwed.(*)

That kind of thing pretty much stopped for two reasons: all of the
local banks got bought by the big multistate banks (which are less
interested in keeping particular local people happy), then the bottom
fell out of the NH economy and anyone with money could get a deal on
just about any house they wanted.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com

(*) I don't know if this practice was legal, although from reading
different kinds of loan papers I suspect it is -- the lender can
pretty much do whatever it wants to recover the rest of the loan.
From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Man Shot In Head Survives!
Date: 29 Jul 92 16:37:30 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Reply-To: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

People survive getting shot in the head sometimes; the remarkable
(and folkloric) stories concern freaky circumstances, such as "The
next time it happened the bullet bounced off the steel plate they
put in the first time...".  

You can get along without a surprising amount of certain parts of your 
brain, as long as major blood vessels don't get holed in the process. 
This can be observed intuitively by thinking about brain tumors, lobo-
tomies, and so forth. Depending on the damage and the therapy 
afterwards and the phase of the moon, the victim might even resume some 
approximation of his or her previous lifestyle.

'Tis said that knowledgeable and craftsmanlike suicides put the 
muzzle in the mouth, which not only gives a greater chance of
hitting mission-critical portions of the brain but also misses the
thick, hard parts of the skull.  (Small caliber rounds might, under
some circumstances, fail to penetrate the skull.)  Putting the gun
to your head, even at the temple, is theatrical but suboptimal.

Of course, you or I could accidentally shoot ourselves in the butt
with a .22, blow out an artery, and exsanguinate right there on the
range before the ambulance arrives.  But there are also people who
go on living, at some level ranging from pale-but-wiser to vegetable,
after botched attempts at homicide or suicide involving head shots.
Both physiology and luck have a lot to do with it, though when you get 
shot, your luck starts out bad by definition and tends to get worse.

Joe "Kids, don't try this at home" Chew
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: cc2x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (Jeff Luszcz)
Subject: Re: Man Shot In Head Survives!
Followup-To: alt.folklore.urban
Organization: Cornell University
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:26:46 GMT

> I heard several people last month (who didn't know each other) say
> that some guy got shot in the head with a crossbow and lived
> through it - even to the point of taking the thing away from his
> assailant who was about to fire a second one.  It was supposedly
> his roommate (probably his ex-roommate, by now).
> 
> He could see the point of the arrow pushing on the skin of the
> inside of his forehead, supposedly.
> 
> It sounds too bizarre to be true, but if it was in the paper, several
> people saw it and believed it.
> 
> Dave "if it's in the Enquirer, it must be true" Bushong

  I saw this article, complete with picture, not a very pretty sight,
though it didn't look like the crossbow bolt went THROUGH his head but
more like along the skin inside the scalp. Yum.  It was his roommate who
did the shooting. He must have been drinking his juice...

---
   Jeffrey Luszcz                   Internet Address
   210 Linden Ave Apt#3                cc2x@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
   Ithaca,NY                        Bitnet Address
     14850                             cc2x@crnlvax5
                                    Tel:(607)273-6888
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan P Barrett)
Subject: N times more
Organization: Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 15:58:24 GMT

[Newsgroups: line pruned mercilessly]

In article <1992Jul26.232745.23523@news.columbia.edu>,
lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> Or the fact that there's a difference between "N times as much" and
> "N times more".  Anybody got any more "off by one" or "one vital
> contingency slopped over" examples?

Percentages.

In general, "x percent more" should mean "(1 + x/100) times as much" and
"x percent less" should mean "(1 - x/100) times as much" (which is the
same as "(-x) percent more").  For small values of x, almost everybody
gets this right; "1 percent more" and "1 percent less" seem to be
universally used with the correct meanings of "1.01 times as much" and
"0.99 times as much".

On the "more" side, for large values of x, people often incorrectly use
"x percent more" to mean "(x/100) times as much"; for example, "300
percent more" when it would be correct to say "200 percent more" or "300
percent as much" or "3 times as much".

On the "less" side, for large values of x, people often use "x percent
less" to mean "(100/x) times as much"; for example, "500 percent less"
is often incorrectly used where it would be correct to say "one fifth as
much" or "0.2 times as much" or "80 percent less".  This seems to arise
from the incorrect usage of "x percent more" to mean "x percent as
much", combined with the mistaken impression that "A is x percent more
than B" implies "B is x percent less than A"

--apb (Alan Barrett)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Banks + Short Term Car Loans = Scam?
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:50:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul21.125611.6496@scifi.uucp>, njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas
J. Simicich) writes:

|>In article <1992Jul20.144905.16811@PA.dec.com>
|>mikkelson@breakr.enet.dec.com (snopes) writes:
|>
|>>That's all beside the point.  If the bank sells off your car below
|>market value
|>>in order to recover only the amount owed them, they're not making a
|>profit,
|>>and thus they have no reason to repossess your car rather than
|>allowing you to
|>>pay off your loan.
|>
|>Conjecture: A bank follows the legal minimums in terms of advertising
|>the vehicle, and *suprise* they are the only bidder at the legally
|>required public auction.  They bid what you owe on the car and thus
|>they are now the legal owner of the car, and owe you no money.  Now
|>they own the car free and clear, and can sell it through normal
|>channels and make a profit on it.
|>
|>Or they bid even less than the amount you owe, and now you owe the
|>difference (unsecured) and auctioneers fees and the like.
|>
|>I heard someone relating this as happening to a friend of a friend,
|>honest!

The employees of the company might run that sort of scam, but nobody
would pull it for the company when they could pull it for themselves. 

This would count as fraud.

I do know of a quite frequent fraud that estate agents tend to pull.
Little old lady dies, Relatives put house on market, have no real idea
of value. Estate agents give low estimate and con seller into selling to
some front man who then promptly resells at the true price. But it is
the individuals who run it, not the agency.


Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Kilroy
From: kilroy@acme.gen.nz (earthbound misfit, I)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 12:17:03 GMT
 <MePSc4a00VogJF_n9B@andrew.cmu.edu> <1992Jul23.170226.486@geovision.gvc.com>
Organization: ACME BBS - Public Access Usenet, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Wow, immortalised in an afu thread and nobody told me! See what happens when
you let the Real World get too distracting?!

pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:

> Mary Rose Campbell <mc3d+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
> 
> >ian@pharaoh.cyborg.bt.co.uk (Speed Freak) writes:
> 
> >>Does anybody know where the phrase 'Kilroy was here' originated ?  I have
> 
> >Actually, the phrase originated in 1983 when Styx released the album
> >"Kilroy was Here."  
> 
> Actually, it's a corruption of the well known phrase "Kibo was here".

It definitely isn't. Bl**dy K*bo gets the bl**dy credit for everything.

Anyway, the way I heard it (nb: this is after I started using it as my
std alias for everything many years ago) was that a "someone" Kilroy (it was
either Robert or James) was a ship inspector of some kind during WWII. He
would perform physical inspections of ships being built and write "Kilroy
was here" inside them. The markings were of course scene by hundreds of
thousands of allied troops all over the world and hence entered common
usage.

The annoying thing is that I definitely remember reading about it in a
publication of some kind somewhere (well *that* narrows it down!). Very
possibly a Reader's Digest, so it's most likely bogus (the above paragraph
looks like the most completely bogus thing I've ever written) but at least
it might give us some references to try and verify.

						- k
-- 
Craig Harding            kilroy@acme.gen.nz             ACME BBS +64 63 3551342
"Jub'f Xvob?"
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.urban:19907 alt.folklore.college:2056
From: jjm30@diag.amdahl.com (Jeff Marr)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.folklore.college
Subject: Re: UL Sighted
Keywords: n
Date: 27 Jul 92 18:53:21 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale  CA

In article <BryG3s.Mw4@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, phil@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Phil Gustafson) writes:
|> In article <967mb12l@csv.warwick.ac.uk> csuah@warwick.ac.uk (~WISP at CU~) writes:
|> >
|> >The Sultanate of Brunei,
|> >a devout moslem country, apparently, destroyed loads of Mitsubishi tyres (I
|> >thought they made Zeros...) on the grounds that the tread pattern was the same
|> >as a verse of the Koran written in the local language. Same sort of thing
|> >has been going on in Bradford, UK, with some local shoe company, to do with
|> >the pattern on the soles of one of the shoes they make. Walking on the words
|> >of the Prophet is considered an insult to islam...
|> >

The way it showed up in the San Jose (CA,USA) Mercury News is that the tires
are made by Yoshihama (?) Tires and that the tread pattern spelled "Allah".
The tire company said that the pattern was computer generated and that they
were unaware of the similarity to Arabic Characters, let alone that it 
spelled something.
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
| Jeff Marr | Amdahl Corp | Disclaimer: I don't represent Amdahl    |
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban