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From: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,rec.humor.d,rec.humor
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <6285@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 9 Feb 89 04:09:14 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <768@ur-cc.UUCP> <1012@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM> <380@frksyv.UUCP> <7754@netnews.upenn.edu> <7129@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
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Reply-To: haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes)
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In article <7129@pucc.Princeton.EDU> BVAUGHAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:
>In 1972, I was assigned the task of writing an interactive user
>interface for a statistical analysis program written in FORTRAN IV.
>I was told that the users were "MBA types; not very quantitative and
>with little background in statistics." 

That reminded me of a story in Norbert Wiener's autobiography.  During
World War II he was in charge of a group of people who ran desk calculators
to solve ballistics problems.  The people were called "computers".  
He always had trouble getting enough computers to handle the workload,
what with the military manpower situation.  Once when the Army couldn't
get scientific computers they sent him a bunch of accountants.  He
said these would carry out every calculation to two decimal places
and no more! (They thought only in dollars and cents.)
haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu
haynes@ucscc.bitnet
..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes

"Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an Art."
        Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle