A journalist once went to stay at a monastery. On the first evening he joined them for dinner. The meal started in silence. As the plates from the starter were being cleared, a young monk shouted out "Eighty-four" and everyone rolled around laughing. The journalist was confused, but just smiled politely. Part way through the main course an ageing bearded monk yelled "Forty-nine", and once again everyone broke in to hysterics.
This time the journalist couldn't help himself. Once everyone had calmed down he lent close to his neighbour and asked, "Why does everyone find these numbers so funny?", "Well," the young man replied, "we only have one joke book in the monastery, and everyone knows every single joke so well that we no longer say them in full. We just shout the number and everyone knows which joke we mean." "Right" thought the journalist, I'm going to try and bond with them. As dessert was being served he shouted out "Twenty-two!", but nobody laughed. After he had overcome the embarrasment he lent back to his neighbour and asked "why did nobody laugh?" The young monk replied "It's the way that you tell them." Boom boom. In a similar vein I think that one day all online communication will consist of people typing the number of the xkcd that is most appropriate to the situation. In this particular case it would be 327. Thanks, James -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
