Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!aoki@faerie.Berkeley.EDU
From: aoki@faerie.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Where is Seymour's tongue? (was Re: A Recently Heard Story About ...)
Message-ID: <8342@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 16 Dec 88 01:24:57 GMT
References: <90@stanton.TCC.COM> <813@munmurra.mu.oz> <3093@ttrdc.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki)
Organization: Postgres Research Group, UC Berkeley
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>I don't know about now, but I've seen tongue-in-cheek stuff from Cray before.
>(The less polite would call it bullsh*tting.)  Like the way that the balance
>of the signal propagation delays in the DIGITAL LOGIC in a Cray-1 causes a
>a load with 0 power factor to be presented to the AC POWER LINE (think about
>it; think about how power supplies are implemented; and think about the semi-
>literate computer science hack who doesn't know much about electrical engi-
>neering and eats that kind of stuff up like it was from Moses).

Please, I am but a poor semi-literate computer science hack who doesn't 
know enough of electrical engineering to see the joke, can you explain it 
to me?  (Really!  Me, I *believed* all that about "presenting a purely 
resistive load to the power supply".  [ Wait, "to the power supply"? ])

Can you also explain how two slides and a minute of this bullsh*t got past a 
big crowd at LLNL in '75, and then a paper with this bullsh*t got past the 
CACM reviewers in '78 (and then past Siewiorek Bell and Newell in '82)?  Damn,
Dave Patterson never explained the joke either.  What a bunch of maroons!
----------------
Paul M. Aoki
CS Division, Dept. of EECS // UCB // Berkeley, CA 94720		(415) 642-1863
aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU					...!ucbvax!aoki
	"Guards, beat this man brutally for daring to try to confuse me!"
				_Floyd Farland, Citizen of the Future_