G R A D U A T E S T U D E N T S

The upgrade path to the most powerful and satisfying computer:
* Pocket calculator
* Commodore Pet / Apple II / TRS 80 / Commodore 64 / Timex Sinclair(Choose any of the above)
* IBM PC
* Apple Macintosh
* Fastest workstation of the time (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
* Minicomputer (HP, DEC, IBM, SGI: your choice)
* Mainframe (IBM, Cray, DEC: your choice)
And then you reach the pinnacle of modern computing facilities:
**************************************************************** G R A D U A T E S T U D E N T S *****************************************************************
Yes, you just sit back and do all of your computing through lowlygraduate students. Imagine the advantages:
* Multi-processing, with as many processes as you havestudents. You can easily add more power by promising moredesperate undergrads that they can indeed escape collegethrough your guidance. Special student units can evenhandle several tasks *on*their*own*!
* Full voice recognition interface. Never touch a keyboard ormouse again. Just mumble commands and they *will* beunderstood (or else!).
* No hardware upgrades and no installation required. Everystudent comes complete with all hardware necessary. Neveragain fry a chip or $10,000 board by improper installation!Just sit that sniveling student at a desk, give it writingutensils (making sure to point out which is the dangerousend) and off it goes.
* Low maintenance. Remember when that hard disk crashed inyour Beta 9900, causing all of your work to go the great bitbucket in the sky? This won't happen with grad. students.All that is required is that you give them a good *whack!*upside the head when they are acting up, and they will rungood as new.
* Abuse module. Imagine yelling expletives at your computer.Doesn't work too well, because your machine just sits thereand ignores you. Through the grad student abuse module youcan put the fear of god in them, and get results to boot!
* Built-in lifetime. Remember that awful feeling two yearsafter you bought your GigaPlutz mainframe when the newfaculty member on the block sneered at you because hisFeelyWup workstation could compute rings around yourdinosaur? This doesn't happen with grad. students. Whenthey start wearing and losing productivity, simply give themthe PhD and boot them out onto the street to fend forthemselves. Out of sight, out of mind!
* Cheap fuel: students run on Coca Cola (or the high-octaneequivalent -- Jolt Cola) and typically consume hot spicychinese dishes, cheap taco substitutes, or completelysynthetic macaroni replacements. It is entirely unnecessaryto plug the student into the wall socket (although this doesget them going a little faster from time to time).
* Expansion options. If your grad. students don't seem to beperforming too well, consider adding a handy system manageror software engineer upgrade. These guys are guaranteed torequire even less than a student, and typically establishpermanent residence in the computer room. You'll never knowthey are around! (Which you certainly can't say for anAXZ3000-69 150gigahertz space-heater sitting on your deskwith its ten noisy fans....) [Note however that theengineering department still hasn't worked out some of theidiosyncratic bugs in these expansion options, such asincessant muttering at nobody in particular, occasionalyscreaming at your grad. students, and posting ridiculousmessages on world-wide bulletin boards.]
So forget your Babbage Engines and abacuses (abaci?) and PortaBooksand DEK 666-3D's and all that other silicon garbage. The wave of thefuture is in wetware, so invest in graduate students today! You'll nevergo back!