Praise the Lord! A miracle has taken place in nearby Berkeley.
A fortnight ago UCB grad student Nick Weaver explained to us in some detail the deficiencies of the IA-64 architecture. He’s teaching some classes, and one caught our eye: entitled “Voyage of the Itanic”.
“Itanic describes the architecture very well,” he told us. The class, which is scheduled for next week, was going to describe how a bright idea went horribly wrong.
Only Nick has had undergone a conversion. The course web page now reads:-
“My personal apology for any confusion and offense this page may have caused. As a response to my previous public rant disparaging the IA64, I was directed to take a good look at McKinley (now called Itanium 2) as it has been vastly improved. It is.”
The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and none more so than this:-
“IA64 is an interesting architecture…the current version may have been disparagingly dubbed the Itanic, but the successor really is vastly superior.”
At this point, we fell to our knees, crucifix in hand, and blacked out for several seconds. But we came to in time for his conclusion:-
“… McKinley truly is a vast improvement.”
Hallelujah! we cried. Nick’s been cured of wicked thoughts!
But who could take credit for this miracle? Our suspicions fell upon the Church of Hewlett Packard, a denomination who long ago worshipped the “aitch-pee-jah-way” (a deity born in a garage, apparently) and whose followers’ staunch faith has seen them through difficult times in the past. And now, under the current pontiff, the controversial Cardinal Fiorina…
So we called Pastor Dirk Down, programs manager for HP, and a preacher who breathes the word that is McKinlium, and who never flinches from facing down hostile unbelievers with good humor. Did he know who had cured Nick?
“We’re not sure,” said the minister. “Jerry Huck read the article on The Register, and received the credit for turning things around. But Jerry says he never contacted him.”
Sometimes it’s best not to ask ‘how’, we agreed.
Not surprisingly, Nick didn’t want to talk about it.
“There was no pressure,” he told us. “I simply read the McKinley documentation.”
Ah! The Itanic verses… Is that all?
“Yes. I don’t want to talk about it. And I’ve got work to finish so I’d rather be getting on with that, if you don’t mind.”
Click. Bzzzzt.
One pagan Sun-worshipper mused to us yesterday:
“It’s all about academic freedom. The freedom to change your mind.”
Bootnote:
Theologians have now traced the coinage of the word “Itanic” back to this ancient Usenet posting to comp.sys.mac.advocacy
, by one Kraig Finstad on 4 October 1999. comp.arch veteran Nick Maclaren of the University of Cambridge adds:
“That now makes at least six independent inventions within the first
month – which doesn’t surprise me, given how obvious it was.”
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