Recommended Posts

I just read this here and laughed out loud, so I thought I would share it with you guys. God, I hope this really happened...

Cookies by Douglas Adams (author: "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I'd gotten the time of the train wrong.

I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table.

I want you to picture the scene. It's very important that you get this very clear in your mind.

Here's the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There's a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase.

It didn't look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There's nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies.

You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know. . . But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do a clue in the newspaper, couldn't do anything, and thought, what am I going to do?

In the end I thought, nothing for it, I'll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, that settled him. But it hadn't because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie.

Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice . . ." I mean, it doesn't really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away.

Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies.

The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who's had the same exact story, only he doesn't have the punch line.

(Excerpted from "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time" by Douglas Adams)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/933448-joke-cookies/
Share on other sites

I love it !

Im English but deffinately would have said something like, "Erm Wanna cookie like mate?"

Then he would have said they were his, then I "no mine" etc until I found mine and laughed it off appologising feeling like an idiot, but that I had something funny to post here lol

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/933448-joke-cookies/#findComment-593102942
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • >defenders of AI-generated artworks often claim that AI is just a tool It is not. It is the inhuman artist replacement. The human writing the prompt is the employer/manager requesting the work product of the artist -- a supervisory/descriptive job that doesn't carry with it any rights to the copyright of that work product at all. And since AI is not human itself, it can't gain copyright for anything it is asked to regurgitate or hallucinate, so it can't transfer that copyright to the employer/manager/human who asked for the output. This was all legally reaffirmed last year. So, no, while there are AI tools, AI slopware generation is NOT a "tool" in the legal definition of that word.
    • As long as i get to play GTA 6 before it ends 😂😂
    • Google is opening the world's first AI museum in Los Angeles by Ivan Jenic Image via: Google Ever since AI image generators went mainstream, the debate over whether AI-generated art is real art hasn't let up. Those who don’t consider AI to be art say that if a machine does the creating and anyone can prompt it, there’s no skill involved, and therefore no art is produced. The counter-argument is equally persistent, as defenders of AI-generated artworks often claim that AI is just a tool, and that every major technological breakthrough, like the camera or the computer, was met with the same skepticism before eventually being accepted as a legitimate creative medium. Google’s position in this debate is clear. Which is no surprise, as the company is investing billions in AI infrastructure. And now, in efforts to encourage people to use its AI even more, Google is opening Dataland on June 20, which it's calling the world's first AI arts museum. Located inside The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed building in Los Angeles, the museum spans 25,000 square feet. The museum is built around a collaboration with media artist Refik Anadol, who has worked with Google since 2016. The inaugural exhibition is called Machine Dreams: Rainforest, and is powered by an AI model trained on “an extensive dataset of the natural world.” It generates 1.2 billion pixels of visuals in real time and reacts to visitors dynamically. The space also generates soundscapes, real-time emotion sensing, and algorithmically produced scents. Image via: Refik Anadol Studio / Google Google says that the museum is powered by its Gemini models, which run on Google Cloud. So, everything is generated inside one of Google’s AI data centers and is streamed to the museum. Alongside the museum opening, Google Arts & Culture is funding an AI Artist Residency, giving four artists $25,000 grants each, along with mentorship from Refik Anadol Studio and access to Google's machine learning tools. Their work will be shown at Dataland and on the Google Arts & Culture website later this year. Google’s AI museum will undoubtedly initiate a fired-up debate on social media, and we can’t wait to see the first reactions. Via: Smithsonian Magazine
    • Calling GTA 6 overhyped crap doesn’t make you edgy, it just makes you sound like someone who hasn’t enjoyed anything since the PS2 era.
    • I’m not arguing whether Rockstar likes money. Obviously, they do, they’re a business. I’m saying this isn’t new. They’ve always launched console first. This is just how Rockstar operates.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      AndreaB earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      Huge Trailer earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      Classifyskilleducation earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      eurospharma62 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      With What earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      571
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      178
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      74
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      68
    5. 5
      neufuse
      64
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!