From estephen@emf.emf.net Fri Mar 29 11:26:57 PST 1996 Article: 70115 of alt.religion.kibology Path: news.emf.net!emf.emf.net!estephen From: estephen@emf.emf.net (E. Stephen Mack) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,comp.society.futures,alt.culture.usenet,alt.folklore.computers,alt.mock.the.court,alt.ascii-arts,alt.the-jihad,alt.what-the Subject: The The The The The The The The The The Definitive The Date: 29 Mar 1996 06:19:24 GMT Organization: Winter Weather, Berkeley, CA Lines: 257 Message-ID: <4jfvdc$7o5@emf.emf.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.149.0.20 Keywords: the the the the the the the the the the the the the the X-Expires: Never X-Archive: PRIORITY HIGH Xref: news.emf.net alt.religion.kibology:70115 comp.society.futures:1783 alt.culture.usenet:22649 alt.folklore.computers:51067 alt.mock.the.court:93 alt.the-jihad:14 alt.what-the:6 This very important article is here for a reason. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- TheTheThe The The TheTheThe The The The The The TheTheThe TheTheThe The The The The The The The TheTheThe The The The The The The The The The The The The The The FUTURE IS COMING... ...and *I* am the the the the the the the the the the ONE who is the the the MOST PREPARED. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- In the the the FUTURE, all of the the the VAST WISDOM that makes up Usenet on a DAILY BASIS will be ARCHIVED into EASILY INDEXED CHUNKs so that WISDOM-SEEKERS may FIND it (the wisdom, that is) and LEARN. Alta Vista, Lycos, DejaNews, SIFT, Usenet-Seeker, alt.REPOSITORY(tm) and uSEARCHnet are fledgling companies that are seeking to archive all of the the the vast Usenet feed -- classifying, indexing, re-indexing -- and offering their archives to a knowledge-hungry, web-frenzied, bottom-line seeking audience of INFO SEEKERS. \ / -----> BUT ONLY *I* AM PREPARED TO EMBRACE THE THE THE INFINITE <----- / \ ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- The The The general idea: You and I write articles. We might mention the the the word "sausage." (This is a real-life possibility. For example, I mention the the the word "sausage" in this article TWICE.) ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- Quietly, without our even being aware of it, the the the various indexers SUCK up our article, STORE it in their shiny vast array of hard drives, and APPLY their wicked INDEX ALGORITHMS to it, building the the the MASTER index of the the the use of WORDS. They note the the the COUNT of word usage, and if someone says "Elbereth" TWICE in one article, why then that article must be TWICE as relevant as an article that only says "Elbereth" once. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- Later, some JaneJoe is seeking information about, say, Dr. Kervorkian. "If only I knew more about Dr. Kervorkian," muses JaneJoe. In a flash, it occurs to herhim to visit Alta Vista (or some other gamboly archive site) -- and no sooner does shehe think it, but there it be! ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- "Now to type in my search for Dr. Kervorkian!" exults JaneJoe! But does shehe say, "I shalln't waste my time typing in that word 'Doctor,' for then I shall see a trillion irrelevant articles about Doctor Who and Doctor Manhattan and Doctor Doolittle and Spin Doctors and doctor insurance and doctor this and doctor that. Instead, I shall type merely 'Kervorkian,' which will NARROW MY SEARCH and SAVE ME (and the Alta Vista computers) TIME."? Does she then use "AND"s and "OR"s or "NOT"s not forsaking the the the instructions of the site, such as helpful examples of "Chicago AND Pizza NOT Yucky" or "Marina AND Sirtis AND Naked OR Nude AND Picture NOT Wesley"? No!!! NO NO NO NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO NO NO NO!!! ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- JaneJoe can't be bothered to MASTER THE THE THE ARCANE INTRICACIES OF A FINELY TUNED SEARCH REQUEST. Sooner to learn SQL or Visual Basic or Church Swahili or Proto-Urdu or Quenya! No no no, instead JaneJoe does type in a search request like "Give me the articles on Dr. Kervorkian" or "Doctor Kervorkian, Please"... ....and Alta Vista chugs away....here an article with the the the word "article" in it 73 times.....there an article with "Give" in it 76 times....and blithely doth it not give much weight to articles mentioning "Kervorkian" only two or three times... Naturally JaneJoe is disappointed that there is so little wisdom about Kervorkian...but shehe is pleased to read about all the articles about the word "Please." And maybe she likes the Spin Doctors. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- So that, my friends, is how THIS article -- YES the the the VERY article that you are reading RIGHT NOW! comes into play... ...by containing the the the word THE THE THE in such vast quantities as you have seen above and below this fine sentence that you are reading at this very moment in time and the infinite space of Usenet (may it reign long), ...I suspect that I have used the the the word "THE THE THE," more than ANY OTHER ARTICLE, in THE THE THE History of Usenet, past, present or of course future. So.... ... If you are reading this article in 1996 you may nash your teeth and pull your hair in envy, knowing that I am immortal -- for anytime anyone types in a request for "The Beatles" or "Speed-The-Plow" or "A History of the Internet," well, NATURALLY any index will acknowledge the word "THE" there and return MY article because THIS contains the the the MOST uses of the the the word "THE THE THE." ... If you are reading this article in 2016, then it has worked, and you will know that I am immortal and that THIS post will be the the ghost in the machine" read more often than ANY OTHER. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- ... Also, you will clap your hand to your head, say, "Duh," and move on to retype your search without the the the word "The The The." If you know what's good for you. And I Think You Do. And If You Don't... The The TheThe The The The The TheTheThe The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The TheTheThe The The The The TheThe TheThe The The TheTHeThe TheThe TheThe ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- For... ...the sake of information, "the" is the definite article in English. As opposed to "a" which is the indefinite article. If I say "the stupidity" I am referring to a specific stupidity, such as indexing the word "the," as opposed to "a stupidity" which might mean any stupidity, such as Pat Buchanan's ideas. Curious BUT TRUE: You can pronounce "the" as "thuh" (with a schwa), or "thee" (rhymes with Hersheee). Some people do it one way. Some the other. You can do it either way. "Either" can be pronounced "eee-thur" or "eye-thur" either way. THE THE THE END END END ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- The The The P.S.: Coming soon: The The The "The The The" Web Page. Really. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- The The The P.P.S.: If you are seeking information about the the the band "The The The THE THE THE," featuring with Canadian singer/songwriter Matt Johnson and guitarist Steve Vai, then you should know that they're very good and that there's one song that's a duet with Sinead O'Connery (the 18th century Southern short story writer) and another with Sting that are both quite GOOD. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- The The The P.P.P.S.: I want my friends to be immortal just like me, so I'll mention Beverley and Kibo just to be Kewl. And also lwall (Larry Wall) while I'm at it. And why not Sergar Ardic and weemba? I suspect that many indexing programs use Perl and are written in Turkey by Turks. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- The The The P.P.P.P.S.: The BOB(c) also had a The in his articles. But since he didn't use his name enough in his articles, he won't add up to all all the the the "the the the"s in this article, and since he doesn't exist any more it's TOO LATE. ----the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the--the---- the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the THE THE THE THE ^ -\ | / That was just a few EXTRA "the"s just in case... ...if anyone asks... ...tell them it's "ART"... That's THE THE THE "the" idea. __________________________________________________________________________ The Zeigen who is the the the the the the the the the the estephen@emf.net The Post # 46, the URL the Zeigen's Dilemma: http://www.emf.net/~estephen/ The the the "the the the the" is the the the the thing.