Tracing the recent rumors of a nationwide technical writers’ strike, our correspondent found himself at a shadowy table at the back of a nouvelle-tortilla parlor, interviewing a representative of a shadowy organization known as TWONKY.

Q.  Why hasn’t this upcoming strike received more publicity?

A.  We have a formidable publicity machine at work.  Posters, newspaper ads, placards, animated web banners, radio, refrigerator magnets, skywriting.

Q.  I haven’t seen anything.

A.  We decided to single-source it all in XML.  In the end we’ll save a whole lot of time.  I mean, once you’ve written the refrigerator magnet, why laboriously bang out the same thing all over again for the skywriter?  But the ramping-up is taking a little longer than we expected. 

Q. You call your organization TWONKY.  Does that mean something?

A.  Yes.  We are the Technical Writers Of Northern Kfar Yona.

Q.  Pardon my skepticism, but how many technical writers are there in Kfar Yona?

A. How many are there in Yokneam?  Geography means nothing.  The important thing is to belong to Northern Kfar Yona in spirit.  You could be anywhere.  Ramat Gan, Rosh Ha-Ayin.  Just not Southern Kfar Yona, that loony bin.

Q.  I suppose this is the more relevant question:  How many technical writers do you expect will join in the strike?

A. I think we can mobilize them all.  We’ll bring work to an Alt.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and — what are you smiling at?  We have the government over a barrel.  They’re afraid that if the nation finds out, it’ll be panic in the stock market.

Q. But I haven’t heard anyone in the government say a word about this strike.

A. That goes to prove my point.  But once we have the skywriters interfaced to the CMS, there’ll be no stopping us.  We’ll bring work to an Alt.

Q.  That’s the second time you’ve said that.  Don’t you mean you’ll bring work to a halt?

A. No, I mean an Alt.  We can’t leave our keyboards, because we have families to support.  So what we’ll do is keep typing, but instead of using the A key, we’ll use Alt+0065, instead of B we’ll use Alt+0066, get it?  And we’ll keep doing that until our grievance is addressed.

Q.  What is your grievance?

A.  Haven’t you noticed?  All over the industry, 19-inch screens are taking the place of 17-inch screens.  And we’re supposed to fill the bigger screen with work in the same amount of time, for the same pay, as ever.  Would they go to a rugmaker and say “Here’s a bigger loom.  We want as many rugs as before, for the same price”?  Would they tell a baker to make cakes in a bigger pan for the same price?

Q.  I’m not sure we’re talking about the same kind of difference.

A. Are you kidding?  It’s a big difference.  Nineteen is 11¾% bigger than seventeen, and the screen is two-dimensional, so the difference is 11¾% squared, which is 138%.  Wait, that can’t be right.  It’s 11¾ hundredths times 11¾ hundredths, which is 13.8 thousandths.  Is that all?  It can’t be.  Nineteen is the diagonal measurement, and the square of the diagonal is the sum of the squares of the height and width.  The height is three quarters of the width.  So three x squared plus four x squared equals nineteen squared, which is — the light isn’t very good here.  I’ll have to get back to you later.