John Young Interpretation Society

Riad S. Wahby rsw at MIT.EDU
Mon Oct 15 11:53:50 PDT 2001


Optimizzin Al-gorithm <oa at acm.org> wrote:
> 1. John Henry --look it up, american folklore/song about man vs.
> machine,
> John H. lost to a railroad-nail driving machine.  An industrial Kasparov
> vs. IBM.

Actually, he won (and it was against a steam drill, not a nailer).  He
just died from the exertion.

  "And they told the results to captain Tommy. Captain Tommy said,
  'I'll be, mmm mmm mmm. Listen here folks. John Henry and the
  machine. The machine made eleven feet, four inches, the men
  shoulder's sagged. John Henry made fourteen feet, seven inches. The
  men whooped and hollered and Captain Tommy went over to congratulate
  John Henry. But John Henry didn't see his outstretched hand. John
  Henry fell over in the dust. John Henry had hammered on the
  mountain, and his hammer was strike and fire but he drove so hard
  that he broke his poor heart, that he laid down his hammer and he
  died."

--
Riad Wahby
rsw at mit.edu
MIT VI-2/A 2002





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