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It's funny. Laugh. Science

Six Monkeys And An Old Saw 360

Posted by timothy from the hard-to-disprove-the-infinite dept.
Sayten241 writes "They say that an infinite amount of monkeys typing at an infinite amount of typewriters will produce literature greater than Shakespeare. Well, it has been proven that six monkeys and one computer will produce a computer that has been smashed with a rock, urinated upon, and four pages worth of the letter 's.' The end of the article states that scientifically this does prove that monkeys are more complex than random generators."
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Six Monkeys And An Old Saw More

Six Monkeys And An Old Saw

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  • sounds familiar (Score:5, Funny)

    by bearl ( 589272 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:20PM (#5928214)
    That sounds remarkably like a development team I worked with once.

    (easy joke, but necessary)

  • monkeys (Score:3, Funny)

    by jlechem ( 613317 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:22PM (#5928222) Homepage Journal
    You don't even need 6 monkeys to get some of the comments that you get here on slashdot.

  • True but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Codex The Sloth ( 93427 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:22PM (#5928223)
    produce a computer that has been smashed with a rock, urinated upon, and four pages worth of the letter 's.'

    Still more intelligent than the average slashdot poster...
    • The monkeys have also left a computer better condition than some that I've had to work on in tech support.

    • The problem (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xombo ( 628858 ) *
      What if they were given more simple tasks, like somthing for someone who can't see well, see if they can learn simple things, like using the mouse, clikcing buttons, etc, communicate them where they can understand things without reading it. In conclusion: I would have done a better experiment, and if they copy my idea and don't give me gobs of $$, They should contact me todo so :D preston at moderngeek dot com

    • [Re:True but...] Far better than I (Score:5, Funny)

      by LiberalApplication ( 570878 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:43PM (#5928561)
      Far more intelligent than I.

      The other day at work, I tried to defecate on my workstation, but I couldn't figure out how to undo my belt buckle. I wound up with an unpleasant package to tote home. My project manager was so displeased that she threw her feces at me, screamed, and beat at her chest before jumping into a tree and vanishing.

      Then the president of our company came, shot us all with tranqulizer darts, and when I awoke, I found that had been neutered.

      Oh the pitiful life of a software developer.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:22PM (#5928225)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:monkeys and typewriters (Score:5, Funny)

      by kent_eh ( 543303 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:31PM (#5928271)
      Found years ago on somewhere on usenet

      "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will

      eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the
      Internet, we know this is not true."

      Robert Wilensky, University of California

      • Well, this definitly explains why my computer returned to my front porch covered with crap this morning...

        "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

        Yeah... Well, not quite... Just a bunch of corny fanfics and furry slash fiction. Ew.

      • "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will
        eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the
        Internet, we know this is not true."

        You have to give them enough time. Some monkeys have done it. [ibiblio.org] That quote is hilarious anyway.
      • Hmmm... but a million monkeys *would* explain some of the strangely-typed spam I get...

    • Re:monkeys and typewriters (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lommer ( 566164 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:37PM (#5928301)
      I think the researchers actually went about this the wrong way. A computer is not a typewriter: there are important differences that I think would make a typewriter work better than a computer (for the purposes of producing random text anyways):
      a) If you hold down a key on a typewriter, it doesn't fill 6 pages with that one character.
      b) I would imagine that the mechanical action of the typewriter is more appealing to primates than silent techno-wizardry (more sensory feedback as a response to manipulating the typewriter)
      c) While it might be neccesary to simplify the typewriter (think carriage returns), it's easier than simplifying and bomb-proofing a computer
      d) and the list goes on...

      • Re:monkeys and typewriters (Score:5, Interesting)

        by vadim_t ( 324782 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:21PM (#5928479) Homepage
        True, but it still leaves you with the randomness problem. Here's my theory on why this is very unlikely:

        Since monkeys aren't random almost certainly nothing that makes sense will be typed. They'll find some way of having fun with say, the carriage return or jamming the typewriter. And since the distribution of QWERTY doesn't really match the usage frequency of the letters the usual "random" typing people do wouldn't make good text. For example, I'll "randomly" type something: lgkljadthglbkads. Now look at it, and you'll see pretty much all of it is in the middle row. If you try better you'll almost certainly be pressing the keys under your hands, in a not completely random order, and moving the hands around the keyboard not very randomly either. Humans don't type randomly, monkeys probably wouldn't either.

        • Re:monkeys and typewriters (Score:4, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:52PM (#5929060)
          Monkeys without typewriters searching for food and shelter randomly evolved into spear chucking primates who eventually freed up enough time that their decendants could specialize in pursuits not related to gathering food, one of whom was named William Shakespear. The experiment has been run sans typewriters, and confirmed. But we already knew that.
      • "a) If you hold down a key on a typewriter, it doesn't fill 6 pages with that one character.
        b) I would imagine that the mechanical action of the typewriter is more appealing to primates than silent techno-wizardry (more sensory feedback as a response to manipulating the typewriter)
        c) While it might be neccesary to simplify the typewriter (think carriage returns), it's easier than simplifying and bomb-proofing a computer
        d) and the list goes on... "

        also the monkeys were not givin an infinit amount of time.

  • What OS? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:22PM (#5928226)
    Maybe they were just expressing their opinion?

  • I don't know... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by TwistedSquare ( 650445 )
    Four pages of the letter s would probably be modern art if the right artist had done it... Still it won't take them too long to type /. will it
  • ssssssss sssssssssss sss

  • Maybe not better then shakespeare, but..... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 1nsane0ne ( 607735 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:24PM (#5928243) Journal
    They say that an infinite amount of monkeys typing at an infinite amount of typewriters will produce literature greater than Shakespeare.

    Well it looks like it wasn't better writing then shakespeare's but I'm guessing it could qualify as code better then Microsoft's.

    • Re:Maybe not better then shakespeare, but..... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10, 2003 @09:06PM (#5928624)
      HAHAHAHA LOLROTFLHAHA!1111 I MAKE JOKE SI TEH MICROSOFT! I SI TEH FUNNAY!11!

      Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
    • We're comparing the work of SIX monkeys with the potential work of ALL monkeys (forever never ending) and we can't see just how amazing the accomplishment of those Six was? Six monkeys as compared to infinite monkeys is pretty damned close to NO MONKEYS AT ALL!!! Wow! Those few monkeys probably came up with the monkey equivalent of the human Romance Novel. Shakespeare it is not, but a hell of a start for practically no monkeys at all. Someone should be funding a "Computers in Zoos and Rain Forests" ini

  • This is not news. (Score:5, Funny)

    by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:24PM (#5928244)
    Anyone who's ever had to provide tech support for a large number of college students could have described most of this behavior. The only thing missing is beer spilled on the keyboard the night before a big essay is due.

  • Original BBC story, more links (Score:5, Informative)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:25PM (#5928252) Journal
    This was research carried out by the University of Plymouth [plym.ac.uk] (that's Plymouth in the UK, not in the US) at the nearby Paignton Zoo. [paigntonzoo.org.uk]

    And here's [bbc.co.uk] the original BBC News story.

    I'm not sure I see any real value in their research, but I am concerned about their methodology - that's an awfully small data set (only six monkeys, and only over one month) from which to draw any concrete conclusions...

  • Six monkeys = rubbish. Twelve = end of the world (Score:5, Funny)

    by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:27PM (#5928259) Journal
    Didn't they learn anything from Terry Gilliam?

    • Original idea (Score:3, Informative)

      by sunaj ( 655412 )
      If I'm not mistaken the original idea was:

      An infinate number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards for an infinite amount of time will produce the complete works of Shakespeare in the correct order! It is used to help people to gain some concept of infinity. In a universe that is infinite in space and time, anything can and will happen. An amazing concept when you think about it!
      • But, as another saying goes, you can have an infinite number of apples and no oranges. In other words, just because you have an infinite number of things, you don't necessarily have everything that could happen.

        • Re:Original idea (Score:4, Informative)

          by Violet Null ( 452694 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @12:27AM (#5929348)
          Hrmmmm...no, technically, if something has a non-zero probability of ocurring, and there are an infinite number of chances for it to occur, it will eventually occur (and will, in fact, occur an infinite number of times, seeing as how x% * infinity is still an infinite number).

          If your chance of getting an orange is 0, you will get an infinite number of apples and 0 oranges. But if it's anything greater than 0 -- anything at all -- you will end up with an infinite number of apples and an infinite number of oranges. By definition.

      • Re:Original idea (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bmwm3nut ( 556681 )
        The one thing that has always bothered me about this quote is that it's not necessarly true. The monkeys could just keep typing 's' all the time forever. Here's an example that I once read about in an astrophysics book, I found it quite interesting:

        Assuming that the universe is infinitely big and there are an infinite number of planets, does there necessarly have to be a planet like Earth that exists.

        Initially I thought that it makes sence that given an infiniately large universe, there has to be a
        • Well, the difference is in probability. If the probability of something is zero, then the chance is still zero... but if it's anything above that then that chance approaches 100%.

        • Re:Original idea (Score:2, Insightful)

          by sunaj ( 655412 )
          Yes these are valid points, except that you are talking about a specific set (even number set), having an infinite number of items (the actual even numbers). But in a truly infinite universe, there is an infinite number of sets with infinite items in each, so therefor you can and will find anything you can think of! And an infinite number of monkeys will keep typing 's' forever, but an equal infinite number will produce the works of Shakespeare in correct chronilogical order, over and over again, forever. W
          • Even better than that though, is that the infinite number of monkeys typing "sssssssssssssssssssssssss..." will likely be a bigger number than the infinite number typing the works of Shakespear(e). And the biggest infinite group, while still being just as infinite, will be random letters in a random order, or shit-covered keyboards.

            Whether computer keyboards or typewriters is irrelevant (from previous posts) as they were just the available things at the time of the original statement.

            It all comes down to

        • Re:Original idea (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:51PM (#5928583) Journal

          Initially I thought that it makes sence that given an infiniately large universe, there has to be a planet like Earth, but this is not true. The example given to me was the set of odd numbers. This set is infinite, but no matter how hard you look in that set you'll never find the number 2.

          I'm not a math wiz, but I think your two examples mixes apples and oranges.

          Think of Set theory. You have a 'universe', and I don't mean the universe in your example, but the 'universe' as in the set of all possible values that can exist. Your number example *by definition* excluded the number '2' from the universe, which was the set of odd numbers. The probability of an event not in the universe occuring is always 0.

          On the other hand, Earth is a planet, therefore we know that it is in the universal set of planets.

        • Re:Original idea (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Knife_Edge ( 582068 )
          This is a wonderful insight. However, I have always heard arguments like this applied not simply to the existence of planets like Earth, but further extended as proof of the existence of intelligent life elsewhere. I would like to restate your point, which is that given an infinitely large set of possible circumstances, it is not required that a particular set of possibilities exist, especially if these possibilities are excluded by the definition of the set. Therefore infinity alone is not sufficient ev
  • They just didn't wait long enough... The theory is basically trying to say, if you wait long enough, everything MUST happen. How this "experiment" addresses that theory at all is beyond me. And yes, it WAS a waste of money.
  • *reads something on slashdot*
    Hey, that's pretty cool, I think I'll post it on slashdot!

  • I bet I know who's running Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:31PM (#5928274) Journal
    Duplicate articles, server crashes, misspellings...

    Educated monkeys.

    It still isn't Shakespeare.

  • I think if you took enough Monkeys... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dWhisper ( 318846 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:32PM (#5928277) Homepage Journal
    I've always wanted to see how many monkeys and computers it would take to get one to produce Duke Nukem Forever. My guess is that the old Shakespear Rule would get us farther than 3D Realms have.

    It's always interesting to see how science proves what probably anyone could have told you would happen if you put monkeys in a room with computers.

  • "They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."

    Honestly, while it's all fun and games, did this bit of science learn us anything new?

  • Just goes to show.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CausticWindow ( 632215 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:36PM (#5928296)

    that it's possible to get research funds for just about anything.

    I think I'm going to apply for a science grant. I'll investigate the global effects of a butterfly flapping it's wings in Syria. My hope is to finally prove Lorentz conjecture, while at the same time cash in on the imminent war in the region. I'll sell t-shirts with "I invaded Syria, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt with a butterfly on it".

  • What's next, putting a cat in a box to see if Schrodinger was right?

    (and yeah, I probably spelt both "gedanken" and Schrodinger wrong. Sue me.)

  • Monkey business (Score:5, Funny)

    by magnesius666 ( 672431 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:42PM (#5928326)
    Who are we to judge poignant primates literature? They most certainly tried to write "Sleep dwell upon thy eyes, peace in thy breast.." but the "S" got stuck on the urine infested keyboard. I can only imagine their frustration.
  • Is here [vivaria.net]. It is a slow server and will get slashdotted quickly, so someone mirror the pdf of the monkey's output if you can.

    The abc news article [go.com] says that it was intended more as performance art then as a real experiment.
  • If they were anything like these [thinkgeek.com] monkeys, I wouldn't be surprised.

    Code monkeys have feelings, too!

  • Ascent of Man (Score:3, Funny)

    by Guppy ( 12314 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:47PM (#5928354)
    "that six monkeys and one computer will produce a computer that has been smashed with a rock, urinated upon, and four pages worth of the letter 's.'"

    So, it took six monkeys an entire month to accomplish the above.

    I've seen some users that could probably do all that in the space of a few minutes -- obviously we're the more advanced species.

    • Re:Ascent of Man (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LouisZepher ( 643097 )
      ...Not exactly, it could mean that monkeys are more civilized than humans. Any creature can destroy something if given enough time, humans are savage enough to get the job done quicker.
      Monkeys and other primates have been on this planet for a good long time, and humans a mere fraction of that time, and look what we've done in less time.

  • But it has already been proved in the affirmative (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pretzalzz ( 577309 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:48PM (#5928356)
    I did this little experiment. A hundred million years ago I started with a couple of million monkeys, and I let them go to see what would happen. They got off to a slow start and didn't do much for a long time except have sex and eat and sleep. But then, after waiting long enough, one of these monkey's descendents had a kid named William Shakespeare and he sat down and produced the complete works of William Shakespeare. Thereby proving my theorem, an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite amount a time, will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. And I didn't even need an infinite amount of either monkeys or time.

  • You are All Wrong... (Score:5, Funny)

    by efuseekay ( 138418 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:51PM (#5928365)
    The stupid researchers gave us a lousy computer, waaaaaaay outdated to do anything. For example, one of my concubine wants to play the game Quake3, but that damned thing does not even have a GUI! Pffft..

    So what are we suppose to do? We did what any human would do : we shit on it. Because, adding pieces of shit to a piece of shit is not going to make it look any less bad than it already is.

    Btw, I posted this using lynx and a stupid 14.4 modem that my resident science chimp had managed to hook together (Thanks Baba!). We tried for First Post, but some idiot beat us to it.

    Yours,
    Able,

    Alpha Male Monkey,
    Plymouth.

  • And in a related story... (Score:5, Funny)

    by General_Specific ( 672447 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @07:51PM (#5928366)
    But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter "s". ... And the RIAA is now investigating to see if the monkeys have traded any copyrighted music files.

  • I wonder how long.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Trikenstein ( 571493 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:04PM (#5928420)
    It'll take for that computer to show up on ebay....

  • neologism (Score:3, Funny)

    by miu ( 626917 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:05PM (#5928426) Homepage Journal
    In a project intended more as performance art than scientific experiment

    Performance science? Art experiment?

  • Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (Score:5, Funny)

    by cant_get_a_good_nick ( 172131 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:07PM (#5928434)
    RFC2795 [ietf.org]

    Also, bad redneck joke:
    If you took an infinite number of rednecks and an infinite number of STOP signs and had them shoot at them with an infinite number of shotguns, would you eventually get a work of Shakespeare in Braille?

  • Yes though (Score:5, Funny)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:15PM (#5928461)
    Well, it has been proven that six monkeys and one computer will produce a computer that has been smashed with a rock, urinated upon, and four pages worth of the letter 's.'

    The computer was never actually hacked... hmm cracked... err broken into... was not taken over by a human remote attacker with their own computer trying to gain unauthorized privaleges on the machine! So we have conclusivly proven that six monkeys are more effective than MSCAs at keeping a computer intact^H^H^Hsecure!

  • Slashdot only needs one monkey (Score:4, Redundant)

    by Dolphinzilla ( 199489 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:16PM (#5928464) Journal
    To post duplicate stories at a prodigious rate

  • I think it was meant metaphorically. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Samir Gupta ( 623651 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:17PM (#5928467) Homepage
    I don't think the "monkeys" saying was a real scientific hypothesis, but rather a literary illustration.

    In any truly random numeric sequence with a uniform distribution, it can be mathematically proven (among other things) this implies that any finite length string must eventually appear (so, the works of Shakespeare would eventually pop up). But, it's quite difficult to prove that anything is random by a strict mathematical definition, btw, although there are quite a few randomness conjectures that seem to be true at this point, such as that the digits of pi are "random".

    Living things and biological or even mechanical processes in general are notoriously non-random -- even though they may not be completely deterministic (I'll leave that one up to the philosophers and theologians to debate). For instance, if you asked a human to generate a random sequence, he/she would have a bias against generating repeated ("11111111111...") or seemingly orderly sequences ("123456..."), so this bias would cause the human sequence to be inherently non-random.

    The best random sequence generators have been natural background noise or radioactive decay, and you can actually get hardware that uses such natural processes to generate what seems to be random... so perhaps the monkeys should be replaced with radioisotopes, and maybe you will get that Shakespeare!

  • Wrong monkeys... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by curious.corn ( 167387 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:17PM (#5928468)
    Primates aren't all the same crop. I'm not shure why they chose sulawesi crested macaques but I'd like to see how bonobo would have performed. Their behaviour is often described as particularly elaborate and are able to learn languages and make use of tools. Especially intriguing is that they require a lot of parental care before becoming independent individuals. Similarly to humans, these primates require long training to have a successful adult life and therefore maintain 'infant' traits for quite a time much like us, naked apes.
  • With back orifice installed on the machine. Would have to have timed it right, when no one would notice, but something like this...

    Day 1: That stupid zookeeper really pisses me off, giving us a machine running windows. Sure, we're a few million years slow in evolving, but goddammed, we're not *that* stupid. And on a Packerd Bell, no less.

    Day 2: From our cage, I could just barely see the zookeeper molesting the goats in the petting zoo again. Sick.

    Day 3: Was afraid that they might catch on to me, but seems they are illiterate. The animal feeder must have pissed on the keyboard again, and you know damn well we'll get blamed for that one. Oh well, I managed to pick his pocket and grab the Visa card. Won't his wife be shocked when she sees the 12,000UKP bill for www.hotmansex.co.uk.

    Day 4: Managed to scrounge up some weapons grade plutonium, but this machine isn't fast enough to simulate the H compression in the elliptical chamber. May have to do the math in the dirt with a piece of twig. Next on list: Think of a way to frame some arabs for the detonation.

  • Another report... (Score:4, Funny)

    by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:26PM (#5928502) Homepage
    Thanks to Phoenix quicksearch, I was able to type "news monkey computer" into my location bar, and got this from Google news.

    http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/05/09/monkey_typist s030509 [www.cbc.ca]

    My favorite lines:
    "The first thing they did was to bring a large stone and try to smash up the computer," said Mike Phillips, director of the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technology. "But I think that can be seen as a very definite act of creativity."


    [...]

    And even if there was little an editor could do with the results, the monkeys have found a publisher. Their collected works will be printed as Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

  • Randomicity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chester K ( 145560 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:30PM (#5928515) Homepage
    four pages worth of the letter 's.'

    The problem with truly random data is that you can't really be sure. That four pages of the letter 's' could very well be what starts out the "monkey at a computer" random stream.

  • test is flawed (Score:3)

    by newsdee ( 629448 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @08:39PM (#5928542) Homepage Journal
    Any human would do the same thing if they were not taught how to write and how to fire up an FPE (First Person Eater).

    I really wonder how a monkey would react to a videogame. Not a very complex one, of course...

  • I think it rather proves that they are really bad at generating random numbers.

  • SSSS (Score:2, Funny)

    by identity0 ( 77976 )
    SSaSS SSfaSss SSS
    sfssSa SfSSa SsSssSsSSS
    SSs SSSSfS sSSSs sssSs aSSsf
    SsaSs sSsgSSsrs SSreS aSSssSShS S
    SSsSSsS

    first monkey post!
  • And you have the beginings of the Longhorn development project.
  • It been a few years, and I still think this is the funniest story I've ever read [redhat.com]. To this day, I cannot read this, or even think about it, without laughing out loud in a really embarrassing way.
  • So they beat this thing with a rock, then pissed on it, and it still worked well enough to run a word processor? I want one of those. I looked an mine funny once and the hard drive exploded.

  • Obvious isnt it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jamesjw ( 213986 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @09:39PM (#5928770) Homepage

    The dominant monkey obviously saw the threat of technology, they saw what it'd done to the more advanced "hairless" apes, they just didnt want to expose themeselves to Itnernet sweepstakes, deals on sharp kitchen knives, penis growth shams etc..

    We can learn something from this Monkey.. only problem is a basic rock would do little damage to the IBM Model M keyboard im using..

    Damnit IBM, damnit all to hell!!

  • They say that an infinite amount of monkeys typing at an infinite amount of typewriters will produce literature greater than Shakespeare.

    One thing's for sure - an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce Strunk and White's The Elements of Style

  • Born to kill (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nate nice ( 672391 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:38PM (#5928984) Journal
    They mentioned that the lead monkey started bashing the computer with a rock as the monkey's first action with this computer. It's amazing how survial is encoded in everything like that...something foreign comes into a domain and fear is the first instinct brought upon it. You can expect that from a monkey, but humans have this reaction as well often. In a way it depresses me that we are not far from monkeys in this respect.

    It should be noted I liked how the leader monkey was first to approach the computer...if only the worlds leaders would be the first in combat I'm sure we would have a lot less fighting.

  • Awesome keyboard ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by TimmyDC ( 672469 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:41PM (#5928998)
    "Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies. Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.
    Wow .... Water/Urine-proof keyboard ! I wonder if that's what Microsoft use in iLoo [slashdot.org]

  • And this is news? (Score:3, Funny)

    by MbM ( 7065 ) on Saturday May 10, 2003 @10:56PM (#5929070) Homepage
    If you look up the infinite monkey theorem in the jargon file you'll run across this quote:
    Other hackers maintain that the Infinite-Monkey Theorem cannot be

    true - otherwise the exponenntial expansion of AOL would have
    reproduced the entire canon of great literature by now.

  • We wantssssssssss it.....it's oursssssssss.....our precioussssssssss......

  • not yet proven... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by revividus ( 643168 )
    it has been proven that 6 monkeys and 1 computer...

    No, no, this isn't proof. We need to at least take another six monkeys and another computer and see if this happens again.

    Although, I've always had the nagging suspicion that an infinite number of monkeys typing at an infinite number of typewriters would produce an infinite number of broken typewriters...

  • Anyway, out of curiosity, has anyone ever hooked up a computer to a random background noise monitor with a tie to an ascii set for representation and turned it loose to see what happend ?

  • Meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) * on Sunday May 11, 2003 @12:00AM (#5929264) Homepage
    Clearly the author has no concept of infinity.

    Heck, give six Elizabethans quills and ink and they'll probably make a mess too. The point is that if one of the six managed to type even two characters, then an infinite number could probably write shakespeare.

    More to the point, when dealing with infinities, even probabilistic modifiers like 'probably' are meaningless. If it's at all feasable, then one of an infinite number would do it, even if they had to evolve out of the trees, invent tragedy and comedy, conquer England, and live in London to do so.
  • ... but it's Saturday night, I'm tired, and had too much beer... so I'll type these random keypresses and hope I'm saying something intelligent. After I post this I think I will bang on the keyboard with a rock and then piss on it.

    Greetings from typing monkeys everywhere.

  • Obviously they were playing nethack. "repeated s s s sssssss..." just means they were searching for a long time, waiting for monsters to come.

  • Windows Paper Clip (Score:5, Funny)

    by jonv ( 2423 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @01:01AM (#5929443)
    Shame Microsoft clippy wasn't there to help them. "It looks like your writing the complete works of shakespeare"

  • slashdotting monkeys (Score:4, Funny)

    by axxackall ( 579006 ) on Sunday May 11, 2003 @06:54AM (#5930219) Homepage Journal
    They forgot to connect that computer to Internet. Otherwise:
    • they would slashdot down many random servers, including Google with all its caches;
    • here, on Slashdot, we would see many fresh, smart, intelegent posts, although often with some smelling we would not like;

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