Fun_People Archive
16 Jun
Freewill...

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 97 23:28:30 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Freewill...

Forwarded-by: Larry Yaeger <larryy@pobox.com>
From: Stuart Crawford <crawford@newton.apple.com>

As many of you allured know, I have decides to lave Neaten Systemize.  My
last compete day will be toady, and I will retrain for a half day on June
20th.  Alter that, I will be at Auricle, dirtying an fort to develop a
site of artificial intelligent, Mahican earning, and patron recognizing
fools.  I have rally endowed my ears at Neaten, and I sincerer hope that
thongs work out well for everyman who chaises to became a mumbler of
Neaten Inc.  Once I get my new concoct malformation, I will send it out.

Egg Freckles,

Start Carefree
Managed, Recognizing Team
Ample Completer, Inc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[The subject of this email and the text above comprise the actual
"Farewell..." email from the recent head of the Newton Handwriting
Recognition Group, Stuart Crawford, as he was leaving to take another job.

All the text was passed through a filter written by George Mills (of that
group) which looked for words "nearby" the original words in the
dictionary.  This is the type of substitution error, colloquially known as
the "Doonesbury Effect", that so plagued the first generation Newton (but
which, gratefully, was fixed in later generation units, particularly in its
"Print Recognizer").

The text is unedited output from that filter, except for "Egg
Freckles", which Stuart added for sentimental reasons (a reference to the
Doonesbury strip that poked fun at the first generation Newton, and the
phrase that triggered a special "egg" in some later Newtons, bringing up a
Trudeau-authorized image from that strip).

Some delightful ironies emerged, as they are wont to do, from the
substitution of "Freewill" for "Farewell" in the Subject, to the new
employer's name changing from "Oracle" to "Auricle", to the sender's name
being translated to "Start Carefree".  The universe obviously wishes Stuart
the best of luck in his new job, as do we all.

- larryy]

© 1997 Peter Langston