Re: 2 critical vulns and the clock isticking..[Fwd:[EEYEB-2000801]]

[Drsolly <drsollyp () drsolly com>]

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006, Nick FitzGerald wrote:

> Drsolly to Valdis:
>
> > > My IBM 029 card punch can beat up your HP2114's paper tape
> > > reader/punch.... :)
> >
> > Newbie
> >
> > My Chambers book of seven figure logarithms beats your card punch.
>
> I call you a newbie and raise you an abacus...
 
I got myself talked into a contest against an abacus once. This was when I
was in Japan, on a business visit. At the office I visited, one of the
people was using an abacus at her desk, and I expressed polite surprise.  
"Oh yes," they said, "a good abacus user is much faster than someone using
a calculator."

Well, I knew that I was supposed to reply to this, so I expressed polite
scepticism. And I saw them looking at each other, grinning, as in "Another
foreigner needs a lesson". "OK," they said, "we'll have a little contest.
Here's a calculator you can use, you can race her at adding up this column
of two digit numbers."

Naturally I accpeted, the Honour of the British Empire was at stake.

So, someone said "Go", and her fingers fairly twinkled over the abacus. 
Flick, flick, flick-flick-flick. Wow. A blur.

After a little while, I announced the total, then she did, and we agreed. 
And then they turned to me with polite surprise, "How did you do it? An 
abacus is always faster than a calculator!"

So I explained. "I cheated. I didn't use the calculator."

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