Slashdot had an interesting discussion on LaTeX, a document markup and typesetting system used mainly by scientific and mathematical publications. LaTeX is complex and hard to setup but offers powerful tools (most of which do not have a reasonable substitute).
Admist the conversations (and jokes about latex verses polyurethane), was this little gem of a joke:
I asked a mathematician how to solve constipation and he said, “Work it out with a pencil.”
So I did.
I’m just glad I didn’t ask an engineer or I’d have had to use a slide rule.