From the first pages of the late great David Rakoff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable:
LONDON, May 9—Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess. Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that monkeys left alone with a computer failed to produce a single word. “They pressed a lot of S’s,” said Mike Phillips, a researcher in the project which was paid for by the Arts Council. The researchers left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then they waited. Eventually, the monkeys produced only five pages of text, primarily filled with the letter S. At the end, a few A’s, J’s, L’s and M’s were struck. “Another thing they were interested in was defecating and urinating all over the keyboard,” Mr. Phillips added.
-Associated Press