31 Jan
2021
31 Jan
'21
2:41 p.m.
On Jan 30, 2021, at 23:57, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
... An instructor there referred to the 3B20s as white elephants,
and explained it to me (since I didn't know):
A white elephant is something obviously rare and valuable,
but what exactly do you do with it? :-)
Actually, it's a bit worse than that:
The term white elephant refers to an extravagant,
impractical gift that cannot be easily disposed of. The phrase is said to come from the
historic practice of the King of Siam (now Thailand) giving rare albino elephants to
courtiers who had displeased him, so that they might be ruined by the animals' upkeep
costs.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange
On a related note, I recall that Dick Karpinski won an IBM (?) minicomputer at a Usenix
conference. Problem was, if he accepted it the taxes would be far more than any value it
might have for him. So, he ended up doing some sort of dance that allowed the machine to
go to someone else...
-r