Just like in our DNA...

[François Pinard]

nascheme at enme.ucalgary.ca writes:

> On Tue, Oct 05, 1999 at 02:04:45PM -0700, Michael Vanier wrote:
> > GNU/Linux: We can't lose; we're on a mission from God.

> For people who don't know, and Michael correct me if I'm wrong, this
> signature refers to a line from the classic movie "The Blues Brothers".
> It is not meant to be taken literally.

We have to be careful about cryptic humour, when on an international planet.
It goes both ways: we should avoid jokes which are very "locale", and we
should have an open mind towards what we do not understand.

Yet, sometimes, people exaggerate.  Let me tell you a little tale.  Some of
you might have known (and suffered) the "robotussin" tool, which was meant
to reformat BSD-type GNU binaries in COFF-only environments and kernels,
long before BFD was invented.  It took me years before I learned, by pure
chance, that `Robitussin' was the name of an American drug meant to heal
coughing people.  I had absolutely no chance to relate "robotussin" as being
a pun on the drug name.  I guessed the word was probably describing a small
robot, and found the name long and meaningless.  It was not evident either,
to the non-American in me, that "cough" and "COFF" were pronounced alike.

When I finally got the joke, I found it _so_ American-centric and _so_
displaced, that it was not funny at all.  These people were imposing their
non-sense on me, just for the narrow pleasure of laughing between themselves?
I very vaguely remember that children do that at the start of adolescence.
This humour was rather immature, and in my feeling, not very respectful.

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard