Facts, Facts, Facts

A new trend within the web seems to be the creation of satirical facts belonging to people representing special stereotypes. They tend to involve absurdly exaggerated claims about the stereotype they are mapped to.

The first facts I noticed are the ones about Chuck Norris, representing toughness, virility and heroic behaviour. Unfortunately, the website Chuck Norris Facts is down right now, so I will list my favourite facts here:

• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
• Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice.
• Chuck Norris once visited the Virgin Islands. They are now The Islands.
• Chuck Norris doesn't play "hide-and-seek." He plays "hide-and-pray-I-don't-find-you."
• When God said "Let there be light", Chuck Norris said: "say please."
• Chuck Norris can delete the Recycling Bin.

Second I have to mention the ones about Bruce Schneier (computer scientists, and especially these who are interested in cryptography und computer security know him -- the other ones will get known to him by reading his monthly newsletter). My favourite ones of the Bruce Schneier facts are:

• When Bruce Schneier observes a quantum particle, it remains in the same state until he has finished observing it.
• Bruce Schneier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret.
• Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat.
• Bruce Schneier can log into any computer just by staring down the prompt.
• Bruce Schneier's secure handshake is so strong, you won't be able to exchange keys with anyone else for days.
• Bruce Schneier writes his books and essays by generating random alphanumeric text of an appropriate length and then decrypting it.
• Bruce Schneier has built a non-deterministic Turing machine, so he doesn't care whether P=NP.
• When Bruce Schneier uses double ROT13 encryption, the ciphertext is totally unbreakable.
• Bruce Schneier doesn't need to hide data with steganography - data hides from Bruce Schneier.
• Bruce Schneier taught Chuck Norris how to divide by zero as they stood silent in an elevator.

Links:

1. Chuck Norris' Homepage
2. Top 100 Chuck Norris Facts
3. Chuck Norris' Response: On Chuck Norris 'mania' sweeping the Net
4. Article of Washington Post: Tough Love: Norris Fans Board the Chuck Wagon
5. Bruce Schneier's Homepage
6. Bruce Schneier Facts

Posted by Andreas Lenz