---------------------------------------------- "The Adventures of Lone Wolf Scientific" ------------------------------------------ An electronically syndicated series that follows the exploits of two madcap mavens of high-technology. Copyright 1991 Michy Peshota. All rights reserved. May not be distributed without accompanying WELCOME.LWS and EPISOD.LWS files. ----------------------- EPISODE #14 A Smart Bomb with a Language Parser >>>S-max attempts to thwart The Last Words Bomb's language parser, but to no avail. He discovers that program code is often more stubborn than human will.<< By M. Peshota "Whoever heard of a smart bomb with a language parser?" he heard him grumble. Austin watched his wild-haired officemate, his bull-like features creased into a scowl, hunched over stacks and stacks of thesauruses, whipping their pages, cursing bitterly. "Only a nudnik programmer would think of making a bomb verbally context-sensitive," he growled. Earlier in the evening, the computer builder had come to him, his condescending eyes moist with humility, his normally Napoleanic upper lip quivering helplessly, and begged the hollow-eyed wizard to recode Andrew.BAS's guided missile software. Specifically, he wanted him to recode it so that the computer would not screech alarms and its screen flash bright red whenever he keyed in at its screen prompt the declaration "Gus Farwick is a testosterone-less simp with eel toes for brains!" But, as much as the assembly language savant would have liked to become involved in such a worthwhile project, he was too preoccupied at the moment with his many neurotic frets, especially his fear of the possible return of the ghost of Alan Turing to his former domicile in Austin's office coat closet, to be able to do anything but gape zombie-like into the flourescent-white night air and drool down the front of his checked shirt until eventually the computer builder shuffled away. Still gaping, Austin could hear him pawing through the section of the thesaurus that listed synonyms for "testosterone-less simp." "Ninnyhead. Puddingbrain. Knucklenoggin," he recited in his nasal drone. He laboriously typed them one by one into the guided missile software, then groaned as the screen flashed red in response and the alarm bells chimed. "This is what I get for having familiarized that twit programmer with my entire range of verbal invective," he grunted, flinging open another thesaurus. He raised his head and mused, "Maybe if I tried some alternate spellings...." After some thought, he typed into the machine "Gees...Farwoook...is...a... Tusktossturoon-Mess Imp...Wif...Eeeel-Tooeys...4...Brains!" The computer responded with a long, slow gag, then flashed its screen red and chimed like a maimed pinball machine. The computer builder slammed his fist on the desk in rage. Tired, the assembly language savant nestled his head on the worn ivories of his keyboard and listened to his officemate's wild, futile linguistic manipulations until late in the night. Eventually he fell asleep. In his troubled dreams, he thought he saw the flyblown profile of the ghost who dogged him, who terrified him day and night with his incessant ravings about long-forgotten computer memory registers, the irrepressible ghost of Alan Turing, the father of programming. Turing materialized, tweed suit, shabby wingtips, cobwebbed copy of <>, battered bicycle and all, in back of the computer builder's zebra-fur cloaked chair. With a devil-may-care glower that was not unlike the computer builder's own condescending smirk, he extended shadowy hands over the latter's shoulder. He took hold of the computer builder's Hanswurst knuckles, and, with the impassioned vigor of a symphonic conductor, guided them into a manic dance across the terminal's keys. The computer builder, unaware of the ghost's presence, watched his gamboling hands, aghast. When his finger were finally still, lying in an artistically spent, twisted heap, like the hands of Beethoven on the numeric keypad, he looked at them in surpise, then glanced up at the screen. "Omigod!" he gasped. "I have done it! My genius has won out again! I have found a way to disable Andrew.BAS's kooky language parser!" He smiled with pride at the string of inscrutable algorithms marching across the screen. "Gawd, how I wish I could understand what those are," he clucked, typing into the missile software "testosterone-less simp," adding "with eel toes for brains." He pressed 'enter' and listened closely, but heard no warning bells, nor did he see the screen flash red. He smiled, "Gus Farwick, prepare to read your epitaph in the sky." The ghost nodded with approval, got on his bike, and disappeared, and the computer builder leaped from his chair and hopped from foot to foot like a wound up harlequin. >>Is trouble on the way when Dingready & Derringdo Aerospace demonstrates their latest crop of computer-guided weapons to military nabobs? Find out in the next episode of 'The Adventures of Lone Wolf Scientific.'<<