"As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.
"What has happened?" the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby-carriage along the sidewalk.
"Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty -- as you ought to know very well," replied the man; "and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City."
"Hm!" said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. "If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?"
"I really do not know," replied the man, with a deep sigh. "Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.""
- L. Frank Baum, "The Land of Oz"
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
There is a discussion of the typewriting monkey issue at Cafe Hayek, citing a wikipedia article on the subject:
In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Sulawesi Crested Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website. One researcher, Mike Phillips, defended the expenditure as being cheaper than reality TV and still "very stimulating and fascinating viewing".[24]
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages[25] consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by "bashing the hell out of" the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it. The zoo's scientific officer remarked that the experiment had "little scientific value, except to show that the 'infinite monkey' theory is flawed".
On a totally unrelated subject-- how is that novel coming along, Jared?
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Comments on "Monkeys at the Typewriter":
3. roy
- 05/09/2007 7:32 pm CDT
'bout time somebody spent some real moola on that theory. What we got is data. I think it's gonna take a lot more typewriters (and a bit of cleaning), but even then I don't expect folks to give up on the idea those monks will eventually produce one of Shakespere's plays.
Constipation comes to mind.