Erlkönig: complex-jokes.shtml

From: rg@msel.unh.edu (Roger Gonzalez)
To: friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: How do sockets works? (Bsd, Sun, NeXT)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 91 7:35:31 EDT

> 
> >Geek joke:    Why did the plane taking off from Warsaw crash?
> >              Too many poles in the right half of the plane.
> 
>    This isn't the first time I've seen this joke.  What does the punchline
> mean?

Its a control theory joke.  If the poles of a control loop are in the
right half of the complex plane, then the system is unstable.

Awful, no?

How about this one:

you:         What do you get when you cross an elephant with a grape?
the victim:  I dunno
you:         Elephant grape sin theta.  What do you get when you cross
             an elephant with a dandelion?
the victim:  Uh..
you:         Elephant dandelion sin theta.  What do you get when you
             cross an elephant with a mountain climber?
the victim:  Wait.. uh.. elephant mountain climber sin theta?
you:         Of course not!  You can't cross an elephant with a mountain
             climber.... a mountain climber is a scaler!  (scalar.. vector
             cross products.. get it?)

-Roger