Scott
01-26-2006, 03:36 AM
A Texas cowboy was tending to his herd in a remote
pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of
a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a
Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL
tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy... "If
I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have
in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then
looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly
answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook
computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and
surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls
up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact
fix on his location which he then feeds to another
NASA satellite that scans the area in an
ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens
the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to
an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot
that the image has been processed and the data stored.
He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC
connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex
formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on
his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a
response. Finally, he prints out a full-color,
150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP
LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and
says,
''You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my
calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man
select one of the animals and looks on amused as the
young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can
tell you exactly what your business is, will you give
me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then
says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a consultant for the National Democratic
Party," says the cowboy. "Wow! That's correct," says
the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answered the cowboy, "You
showed up here even though nobody called you; you want
to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a
question I never asked; and you don't know anything
about my business...
Now give me back my dog."
pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of
a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a
Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL
tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy... "If
I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have
in your herd, will you give me a calf?"
The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then
looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly
answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook
computer, connects it to his AT&T cell phone, and
surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls
up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact
fix on his location which he then feeds to another
NASA satellite that scans the area in an
ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens
the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to
an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot
that the image has been processed and the data stored.
He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC
connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex
formulas. He uploads all of this data via an email on
his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a
response. Finally, he prints out a full-color,
150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP
LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and
says,
''You have exactly 1586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my
calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man
select one of the animals and looks on amused as the
young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can
tell you exactly what your business is, will you give
me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then
says, "Okay, why not?"
"You're a consultant for the National Democratic
Party," says the cowboy. "Wow! That's correct," says
the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answered the cowboy, "You
showed up here even though nobody called you; you want
to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a
question I never asked; and you don't know anything
about my business...
Now give me back my dog."