Rob Landley wrote in a message to Andrew Clegg:

> Actually I think it is standardised. I have read several references to PLIP
> drivers, in various different places -- they're not common but they do
> exist.

 RL> There's an RFC (really.  This sounds like a joke, and
 RL> actually it is, but it was given a real RFC number and is
 RL> published with the rest of them) on something called "avian
 RL> packet protocol", where the TCP/IP packets are printed out
 RL> in hex and transported from site to site by carrier pigeon. 
 RL> This is described in mind-numbing technical detail.

A substantial number of the RFC standards documents are actually jokes. 
Some of these may not even be immediately obvious from their titles.  RFC
1437, for example, defines the standard for transporting sentient life
forms by emcoding them into electronic mail messages.  There are some
others, but this is a pretty good sampling:

1605  I    W. Shakespeare, "SONET to Sonnet Translation", 04/01/1994.
           (Pages=3) (Format=.txt)

1438  I    A. Chapin, C. Huitema, "Internet Engineering Task Force Statements
           Of Boredom (SOBs)", 03/31/1993. (Pages=2) (Format=.txt)

1437  I    N. Borenstein, M. Linimon, "The Extension of MIME Content-Types to
           a New Medium", 03/31/1993. (Pages=6) (Format=.txt)

1313  I    C. Partridge, "Today's Programming for KRFC AM 1313  Internet Talk
           Radio", 04/01/1992. (Pages=3) (Format=.txt)

1217       V. Cerf, "Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research
           (CSCR)", 04/01/1991. (Pages=5) (Format=.txt)

1149       D. Waitzman, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on
           Avian Carriers", 04/01/1990. (Pages=2) (Format=.txt)

1097       B. Miller, "Telnet subliminal-message option", 04/01/1989.
           (Pages=3) (Format=.txt)

0748       M. Crispin, "Telnet randomly-lose option", 04/01/1978. (Pages=2)
           (Format=.txt)

 
-- Mike


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