RE: Fortune Cookies & Easter Eggs

Subject: RE: Fortune Cookies & Easter Eggs
From: <Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:12:25 -0700

This automotive repair information company I work for has produced a
mind-numbingly vast amount of data since it was created sometime in the
early 50s. So, of course, a certain amount of "rebel creativity" is
bound to slip through the filters. At one time there existed a file (an
actual physical folder) containing the various "easter eggs" (both
intentional and not) that have made it into published volumes.
Unfortunately, the file most likely left with some old-timer who's no
longer around. I haven't seen it in many years.

But some of things I remember are:

- An illustration used to help explain how to fix a glove-compartment
squeak contained the image of a mouse, in the compartment, with a
callout labeled "squeak".

- An illustration dealing with a radiator core had small, mostly eaten
apple sitting on the radiator, labeled "core".

Also, a couple of in-house comments that didn't quite get commented-out:

- "Please see Chuck if you have a problem with this - x.6540."
And yes, some of our customers who've called asking for Chuck (or
extension 6540) were serious.

- "How stupid do you have to be to need this information?!"
That was back in the days when we actually left out material deemed too
rudimentary for professional mechanics.

I wish I could remember more.

Brian Henderson
Mitchell 1
http://www.mitchell1.com


-----Original Message----- From: Bill Swallow

Smart CEO. Sometimes little gems like that do a lot to give a company or
a product a human face.

On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Sarah Stegall<sstegall -at- bivio -dot- net>
wrote:
> In the late 90s I was working for a small start-up, where I had a lot
> of trouble getting reviews back from programmers and engineers. This
> was especially true of the "warnings" section. So one day, I slipped
> in a
> warning: Do not run with scissors. I was trying to see how many of my
> readers actually read the stuff they were signing off on (very few, as
> it turned out). When it came time for the final draft, of course I
took
> that "warning" out.
>
> A message came back from the President/CEO ordering me to put it back
> in.

--
Bill Swallow

Twitter: @techcommdood
Blog: http://techcommdood.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/techcommdood

Available for contract and full time opportunities.

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2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

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References:
Re: Fortune cookies: From: Bill Swallow

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