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"The Adventures of Lone Wolf Scientific"

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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.

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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 <<Byte>>, 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.





                          <Finis>





>>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.'<<

