Sunday, 16 December 2012

YOU HAVE TO STAND IN LINE !

During the final days at Denver's old Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was canceled.
A single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS."
The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."
The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?"
Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please?" she began, her voice bellowing throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to the gate."
With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United agent, gritted his teeth and swore "(Expletive) you."
Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to stand in line for that, too."
The man retreated as the people in the terminal applauded loudly. Although the flight was canceled and people were late, they were no longer angry at United. 

Attributed to: W Craig Trader

Saturday, 15 December 2012

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEORY & PRACTICE

In theory the difference between practice and theory is due to practical considerations that theorists find it impractical to fit into their theories.

In practice, theory uses the practice of theorising about practical matters, while not noticing that the theoretical method practically distorts the theory beyond application to practice.

Theoretically then the practical facts are that the theory is in practice good for predicting what happens in theory, but impractical as a theory with direct implications for practice, except where theory states that the practice is sufficiently close to the theory to make any difference for all practical purposes theoreticaly zero.

In practice this does not happen very often. 

Collected:

Friday, 14 December 2012

HOW TO AVOID LUNG-DISEASE

A woman arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the gates. She saw a beautiful banquet table. Sitting all around were her parents and all the other people she had loved and who had died before her.

They saw her and began calling greetings to her, "Hello - How are you! We've been waiting for you! Good to see you."

When Saint Peter came by, the woman said to him, "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?" "You have to spell a word," Saint Peter told her.

"Which word?" the woman asked.

 
"Love."

The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.

About a year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day. While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived.

"I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the multi-state lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a huge mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation in Cancun and I went water skiing today. I fell and hit my head, and here I am. What a bummer! How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word," the woman told him.

 
"Which word?" her husband asked.

"
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis", she replied.


NB: The longest word currently listed in the Oxford dictionary i which is supposed to mean lung-disease;
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico
volcanoconiosis (45 letters).
Courtesy: Martha Northrup