{"thread":{"id":"2395","subject":"_Almost_Totally_ Off Topic Story (*)","startedAt":"2005-11-08T04:08:26Z","lastAt":"2005-11-08T04:08:26Z","messageCount":1,"participants":["Jon Loeliger"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"11302","messageId":"E1EZKmY-0002vm-Gu@jdl.com","threadId":"2395","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"_Almost_Totally_ Off Topic Story (*)","fromName":"Jon Loeliger","fromEmail":"jdl@freescale.com","sentAt":"2005-11-08T04:08:26Z","receivedAt":"2005-11-08T04:08:26Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jdl@jdl.com","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/75ce9a10b151acd2c28ec4ab2136dba7b2ff1634530bd04b155981a749d08a64?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"\nSo, last week I get hornswaggled into picking my kid\nup from school.  I arrive a bit early, so I actually\npark the car and wander into the classroom just before\nit all lets out.\n\nNow this is a private school for special needs kids,\nso painting and staining gourds with pictures of Bono\nburn etched into them wasn't unusual behavior.\n\nWhat _is_ unusual, though, is the set of names on\nthe side of the whiteboard, about 20 of them:\n\n    William Shakespeare\n    Albert Einstein\n    Zeus\n    Edgar Allan Poe\n    George Washington\n    Richard Feynman\n    Linus Torvalds\n    Isaac Newton\n    Marie Curie\n    Earnest Hemmingway\n    Hamlet\n    ...\n\nNaturally, the questions:  \"Uh, what do these people have\nin common?  Or why _these_ people?  And *wait*, one of\nthose people is still alive!\"\n\nSo, it turns out they were producing a list of names for\nthe set of computers that were recently donated to the school!\n\njdl\n\n[ (*) Sorry.  I just know Linus is reading over here these days. ]\n"}]}