Bani-Bangou (Sjef for makulering)
En stolt Sjef forMakulering,
Bani-Bangou
Starring Bani-Bangou the Azawakh and Emi the Cairn
Matmor har tidligere tatt kontakt med Sporveiene for å få en logisk forklaring på hvorfor det
koster så mye for meg å kjøre kollektivt i Oslo.
Her kan du lese svaret hun fikk:
Betaling for hund Vi har mottatt og registrert din henvendelse vedrørende betaling for hund på våre kollektivlinjer. Spørsmålet om riktig betaling for hund har vært en rik kilde for diskusjon og uenighet i alle de år vi har hatt kollektivtransport. Hunder finnes jo i alle fasonger og størrelser, og vekker svært forskjellige følelser hos folk. Sporveien, (nå Ruter as), hadde for mange år siden - som så mange andre ruteselskaper - en regel om at taksten for hund var som for voksen, men små hunder som ble holdt på fanget fikk reise gratis. Denne regelen var etter hvert så vanskelig å håndheve og forårsaket så mye diskusjon mellom personale og hundeeiere at selskapet løste den "gordiske knute" ved å innføre barnetakst for alle hunder. Uenigheten dreide seg naturlig nok om hvor grensen går mellom små og store hunder, og hva med en stor hund som sitter på fanget eller en liten hund som ikke sitter på fanget (f.eks. fordi eier ikke får sitteplass), og av den grunn ble det bestemt at det skulle betales barnetakst for alle hunder. Med vennlig hilsen Anne Hildeng Ruters kundesenter
Dette er utdrag fra hva matmor svarte:
Takk for svar,
så da begrunnes det til slutt med uenighet i om størrelse er viktig og ender med en uferdig løsning fordi diskusjonen er vanskelig?
På deres hjemmesider står det følgende:
Barnevogn, ski og kjelke: Gratis
Hund og sykkel: Barnebillett
Jeg må virkelig si at her finnes det ingen logikk for meg.
Av: Kalle
La meg illustrere.
Jeg har tretti pølser med Vom og hundemat i fryseren. (Fryser er fint, for da tror leieboerene mine at de har kontroll på når jeg skal spise, og da blir de så glade. Veldig avhengige av rutiner og den slags, mennesker.) Det kommer en kjøter, la oss si nabo-Labradoren, og vil låne en kilospølse. Jeg skal få tre kilo tilbake, påstår han. Siden han er en fillebikkje og spiser kattebæsj, avslår jeg. Enkelte kan man ikke stole på.
I menneskenes verden er det ikke fullt så enkelt. Der kan det dukke opp en fyr, selge deg et slags papir der det står at du skal få tretti kilo i løpet av neste år, om du kjøper papiret for ti kilo. Slår du til, er du en bank, som får renter, sant? Problemet for amerikanerne er, at han fyren med papiret har lånt ut Vom og hundemat i hytt og gevær, både til den døve King Charles Spanielen, den gale schæferen rundt hjørnet, den overvektige dalmatineren ved parken og gud vet hva annet pakk. Sub-prime er fornavnet. Så papiret du har kjøpt, er ikke garantert av mannen. Du er prisgitt de upålitelige kjøterene, og deres betalingsevne.
Nå, i menneskeøkonomisk forstand kan man ta risikoen ved å låne ut så mye, fordi ikke alle trenger å betale tilbake alt for at du skal gå i null, eller ende med gevinst. Problemene dukker virkelig opp, når du som bank har lånt kilosvis andre steder, og skal betale gjeld og renter med tilbakebetalte kilo fra kjøterne i nabolaget. Du bare vet at den dalmatineren kommer til å stikke av. En annen kommer med sutrehistorier om dyrlegeregninger og gjeld som ikke kan betjenes. Den labradoren er selvsagt så distrahert av en eller annen pipeleke at han glemmer betalingsfrister. Når tilbakebetalingene ikke kommer, får du heller ikke betalt det du skylder. Da må eieren din, i menneskeland kalt regjering, hjelpe deg i en storstilt bail-out. Det sure er selvfølgelig at den hundematen eieren kjøper deg ut med, nå forsvinner rett over gjerdet, du vet, der gresset er grønnere, og eieren har mindre penger til godbiter og fine leker. So long investeringseventyr.
Snipp, snapp, snute- det er best og gå til sultestreik og spare på maten. Legg den i fryseren.
For Aza-what: Sultestreikende, alderskvotert sofasynser, Esther.
Man, Bytes, Dog, by James Gorman
The following essay, gently poking fun at technology, was written over twenty years ago. It is still one of the funniest pieces of work I have ever read, and the profusion of new technology in the intervening period has hardly dated it at all. I have tried in vain to contact the author, James Gorman, for permission to republish it here, so I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it with a new generation of readers.
Man, Bytes, Dog, by James Gorman
Many people have asked me about the Cairn Terrier. How about memory, they want to know. Is it IBM-compatible? Why didn't I get the IBM itself, or a Kaypro, Compaq, or Macintosh? I think the best way to answer these questions is to look at the Macintosh and the Cairn head on. I almost did buy the Macintosh. It has terrific graphics, good word-processing capabilities, and the mouse. But in the end I decided on the Cairn, and I think I made the right decision.
Let's start out with the basics:
Macintosh:
Weight (without printer): 20lbs
Memory (RAM): 128 K
Price (with printer): $3,090
Cairn Terrier:
Weight (without printer): l4lbs
Memory (RAM): Some
Price (without printer): $250
Just on the basis of price and weight, the choice is obvious. Another plus is that the Cairn Terrier comes in one unit. No printer is necessary, or useful. And - this was a big attraction to me - there is no user's manual. Here are some of the other qualities I found put the Cairn way out ahead of the Macintosh:
* PORTABILITY:
To give you a better idea of size, Toto in "The Wizard of Oz" was a Cairn Terrier. So you can see that if the young Judy Garland wss able to carry Toto around in that little picnic basket, you will have no trouble at all moving your Cairn from place to place. For short trips it will move under its own power. The Macintosh will not.
* RELIABILITY:
In five to ten years, I am sure, the Macintosh will be superseded by a new model, like the Delicious or the Granny Smith. The Cairn Terrier, on the other hand, has held its share of the market with only minor modifications for hundreds of years. In the short term, Cairns seldom need servicing, apart from shots and the odd worming, and most function without interruption during electrical storms.
* COMPATIBILITY:
Cairn Terriers get along with everyone. And for communications with any other dog, of any breed, within a radius of three miles, no additional hardware is necessary. All dogs share a common operating system.
* SOFTWARE:
The Cairn will run three standard programs, SIT, COME and NO, and whatever else you create. It is true that, being microcanine, the Cairn is limited here, but it does load the programs instantaneously. No disk drives. No tapes.
Admittedly, these are peripheral advantages. The real comparison has to be on the basis of capabilities. What can the Macintosh and the Cairn do? Let's start on the Macintosh's turf- income-tax preparation, recipe storage, graphics, and astrophysics problems:
Taxes Recipes Graphics Astrophysics Macintosh yes yes yes yes Cairn no no no no
At first glance it looks bad for the Cairn. But it's important to look beneath the surface with this kind of chart. If you yourself are leaning toward the Macintosh, ask yourself these questions: Do you want to do your own income taxes? Do you want to type all your recipes into a computer? In your graph, what would you put on the x axis? The y axis? Do you have any astrophysics problems you want solved?
Then consider the Cairn's specialities: playing fetch and tug-of-war, licking your face, and chasing foxes out of rock cairns (eponymously). Note that no software is necessary. All these functions are part of the operating system:
Fetch Tug-of-war Face Foxes Macintosh no no no no Cairn yes yes yes yes
Another point to keep in mind is that computers, even the Macintosh, only do what you tell them to do. Cairns perform their functions all on their own. Here are some of the additional capabilities that I discovered once I got the Cairn home and housebroken:
* WORD PROCESSING: Remarkably the Cairn seems to understand every word I say. He has a nice way of pricking up his ears at words like "out" or "ball". He also has highly tuned voice-recognition.
* EDUCATION: The Cairn provides children with hands-on experience at an early age, contributing to social interaction, crawling ability, and language skills. At age one, my daughter could say "Sit", "Come" and "No".
* CLEANING: This function was a pleasant surprise. But of course cleaning up around the cave is one of the reasons dogs were developed in the first place. Users with young (below age two) children will still find this function useful. The Cairn Terrier cleans the floor, spoons, bib and baby, and has an unerring ability to distinguish strained peas from ears, nose and fingers.
* PSYCHOTHERAPY: Here the Cairn really shines. And remember, therapy is something that computers have tried. There is a program that makes the computer ask you questions when you tell it your problems. You say, "I'm afraid of foxes". The computer says, "You're afraid of foxes?"
The Cairn won't give you that kind of echo. Like Freudian analysts, Cairns are mercifully silent; unlike Freudians, they are infinitely sympathetic. I've found that the Cairn will share, in a non-judgemental fashion, disappointments, joys and frustrations.
* And you don't have to know BASIC.
This last capability is related to the Cairn's strongest point, which was the final deciding factor in my decision against the Macintosh - user-friendliness. On this criterion, there is simply no comparison. The Cairn Terrier is the essence of user-friendliness. It has fur, it doesn't flicker when you look at it, and it wags its tail.