[Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish parody religion
(see also {Church of the SubGenius}, {Discordianism}). In the
mid-70s, the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU
were taught in Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and
run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named
CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the
worshiper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would
recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS,
ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five functions in the
appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the special
pronunciations /obz/ and /ark´sin/ rather than the more common /ahbz/
and /ark´si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's arrival was
{considered harmful}.
[glossary]