Computer Jokes — most commented jokes

The checkout line at the hardware store was getting longer and longer as the clerk labored to get the new cash register to cooperate.

At one point she wailed "Oh no, NOW what do I do ? It just rang up sixty-four thousand, five hundered seventy four dollars in sales tax on a ten-dollar sale !"

Suprisingly, the customers in front of me didn't seem too upset by the delay.

Some even chuckled sympathetically. It wasn't until I got near the front of the line that I saw the neatly hand-lettered sign in front of the register: WE ARE CURRENTLY DOING BATTLE WITH OUR NEW COMPUTER FOR CONTROL OF THE STORE---WE APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE.

Newsflash

Microsoft today announced that it will be changing its name to "Moft" -- which will clear up space on user's hard disks. It is estimated that a typical Windows 95 installation contains about 2,800,000 copies of the word "Microsoft", in copyright notices, end-user licence agreements, 'About' screens, etc. So, after the change, a user will have about 14 MBytes more disk space. Stock prices of hard-disk manufacturers dipped slightly after the announcement.

"Well, the programs will take up less space on the user's disk," said Bill Gates, CEO of Moft. "But we have never cared about that. The change will allow us to ship Windows 95 on 13 disks instead of 14, thus saving about $50 million a year in media costs. We are also looking at shortening the names of some of our software products; for instance 'The Microsoft Exchange' may be changed to 'The Moft Pit'."

Gates added that the junior programmer who discovered the potential savings has been rewarded with a free copy of 'Moft Off for Moft Win 95'.

If Microsoft Ran The IRS

"Government should be run like a business." We've all heard that chestnut. Here is how the Internal Revenue Service (nobody's favorite government agency) would be like, if only it were run like Microsoft Corp. (a successful private enterprise).

• The IRS, as always, announces new tax forms will be mailed the week before the new year. However it will follow Microsoft's example and actually ship them the following May.
• Responding to pressure from some large corporations and a users' group, some early copies of the tax forms will actually be released in March. The recipients must sign non-disclosure agreements.
• In June, the forms will be recalled because the IRS loses a suit for appropriating some other country's intellectual property.
• When you move, the IRS will continue to send mail to your previous address forevermore, just like Microsoft sends its product upgrade notices.
• When you upgrade from form 1040 EZ to 1040 A, and then to 1040, you will pay an upgrade fee each time. Also you need to send in a new registration card and get a new Social Security Number. In order to upgrade, you have to submit the original first page of your previous year's form.
• Like Microsoft, when you file a late or amended tax return the IRS will reject it on the grounds that the prior year is no longer supported.
• The IRS telephone help will remain similar to Microsoft's, staffed by ill-trained, high-turnover personnel who sometimes give a correct answer, but the IRS will have to discontinue using a toll-free phone number.
• After struggling with reams of dense documentation of complex options and rules, you discover that you will need publication 3297, with a ten-word-long title, in order to answer (you hope) a single obscure question. The IRS, like Microsoft, will charge a minimum of $40 for that publication.
• The IRS, like Microsoft, will continue to issue immense volumes of bug fixes, interpretations, and clarifications. However the tax-rule updates should be neither easily searchable nor well-indexed.
• Instead of three-ring binders containing complete sets of tax code bugs and interpretations, IRS rulings will be promulgated in a haphazard fashion by individual taxpayers via BBS, Usenet, and Compuserve. A for-profit publishing subsidiary would also be nice.
• The new all-powerful (and eccentric) Commissioner of Internal Revenue will jet around the country giving speeches and granting numerous interviews, but only to sycophantic reporters. Changes to the tax code will be at the whim of the Commissioner and largely kept secret until they are published.

For the first bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
See if they can do it again.

For the second bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the third bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the fourth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the fifth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the sixth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the seventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the eighth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the ninth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the tenth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the eleventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Say it's not supported
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

For the twelfth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me
Tell them it's a feature
Say it's not supported
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.

Costello calls Abbott with some questions about UNIX.

- Costello: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?

- Abbott: Yes, that's correct.

- Costello: No, what is it?

- Abbott: Yes.

- Costello: So, which is the one?

- Abbott: No. 'which' is used to find the program.

- Costello: Stop this. Who are you?

- Abbott: Use 'who am i' not 'who r yoo'. You can also 'finger yoo' to get information about 'yoo'.

- Costello: All I want to know is what finds the revision code?

- Abbott: Use 'what'.

- Costello: That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true?

- Abbott: No. 'true' gives you 0.

- Costello: Which one?

- Abbott: 'true' gives you 0. 'which programname'

- Costello: Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

- Abbott: Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program' to get the revision code.

- Costello: I want to find the revision code.

- Abbott: You can't 'find revisioncode', you must use 'what program'.

- Costello: Which command will do what I need?

- Abbott: No. 'which command' will find 'command'.

- Costello: I think I understand. Let me write that.

- Abbott: You can 'write that' only if 'that' is a user on your system.

- Costello: Write what?

- Abbott: No. 'write that'. 'what program'.

- Costello: Cut that out!

- Abbott: Yes. those are valid files for 'cut'. Don't forget the options.

- Costello: Do you always do this?

- Abbott: 'du' will give you disk usage.

- Costello: HELP!

- Abbott: 'help' is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).

- Costello: You make me angry.

- Abbott: No, I don't 'make me' angry but I did 'make programname' when I was upset once.

- Costello: I don't want to make trouble, so no more.

- Abbott: No 'more'? 'which' will help you find 'more'. Every system has 'more'.

- Costello: Nice help! I'm confused more now!

- Abbott: Understand that since 'help' is such a small program, it is better not to 'nice help'. and 'more now' is not allowed but 'at now' is. Unless of course 'now' is a file name.

- Costello: This is almost as confusing as my PC.

- Abbott: I didn't know you needed help with 'pc'. Let me get you to the Pascal compiler team.

10. New seats would require everyone to have the same body size.
11. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft Gas.
12. The U.S. government would get subsidies from an automaker--a first.
13. The oil, alternator, gas, and engine warning lights would be replaced by a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
14. Sun Motorsystems would make a car that was solar-powered, twice as reliable, five times as fast, but ran on only 5% of the roads.
15. You would be constantly pressured to upgrade your car.
16. You could have only one person in the car at a time, unless you bought Car 95 or CarNT - but then you would have to buy more seats.
17. Occasionally your car would die for no apparent reason and you would have to restart it. Strangely, you would just accept this as normal.
18. Every time the lines on the road were repainted, you'd have to buy a new car.
19. People would get excited about the new features of Microsoft cars, forgetting that the same features had been available from other carmakers for years.

CORPORATE DIRECTIVE NUMBER 88-570471

In order to increase the security of all company computing facilities, and to avoid the possibility of unauthorized use of these facilities, new rules are being put into effect concerning the selection of passwords. All users of computing facilities are instructed to change their passwords to conform to these rules immediately.

RULES FOR THE SELECTION OF PASSWORDS:

1. A password must be at least six characters long, and must not contain two occurrences of a character in a row, or a sequence of two or more characters from the alphabet in forward or reverse order. Example: HGQQXP is an invalid password. GFEDCB is an invalid password.
2. A password may not contain two or more letters in the same position as any previous password. Example: If a previous password was GKPWTZ, then NRPWHS would be invalid because PW occurs in the same position in both passwords.
3. A password may not contain the name of a month or an abbreviation for a month. Example: MARCHBC is an invalid password. VWMARBC is an invalid password.
4. A password may not contain the numeric representation of a month. Therefore, a password containing any number except zero is invalid. Example: WKBH3LG is invalid because it contains the numeric representation for the month of March.
5. A password may not contain any words from any language. Thus, a password may not contain the letters A, or I, or sequences such as AT, ME, or TO because these are all words.
6. A password may not contain sequences of two or more characters which are adjacent to each other on a keyboard in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction. Example: QWERTY is an invalid password. GHNLWT is an invalid password because G and H are horizontally adjacent to each other. HUKWVM is an invalid password because H and U are diagonally adjacent to each other.
7. A password may not contain the name of a person, place, or thing. Example: JOHNBOY is an invalid password.

Because of the complexity of the password selection rules, there is actually only one password which passes all the tests. To make the selection of this password simpler for the user, it will be distributed to all supervisors. All users are instructed to obtain this password from his or her supervisor and begin using it immediately.

10. The monitor is up on blocks.
11. Outgoing faxes have tobacco stains on them.
12. The six front keys have rotted out.
13. The extra RAM slots have truck parts installed in them.
14. The numeric keypad only goes up to six.
15. The password is "Huntin".
16. The CPU has a gun rack mount.
17. There is a Skoal can in the CD-ROM drive.
18. The keyboard is camouflaged.
19. The mouse is referred to as a "critter".

ORIGAMI
Art of paper folding. In order to obtain a nice and effectiveness result, put the floppy in the disk drive after folding it several times in different directions. With a little luck, you should be able to get it jammed. Now, ask yourself. How can your disk get damaged if you can't even get it out of the drive?

SMOKE
Use cigarettes or anything that could be burnt. When you are smoking, blow directly to your disk. In that way, you will be able to destroy it soon, and if you are lucky, damage the drive as well.

PIRANHAS
If you don't have any at home, you can use a stapler, a clip, or simply write down on the disk label with a hard point pencil or pen. This wonderful method of "caring" for disks also often gives you a pretty bite-like design on the remaining pieces of the disk.

MAGNETS
They are wonderful. You can find them in the telephone, in some paper weights, and stuck on the frige door. If you can't find any, you can leave the floppies on the printer or on your display for a while, making sure that they are on.

MAIL
Put a disk in an envelope and don't write any warning on it; then mail it to someone, and that's all.

MAGIC TOUCH
Touch your floppy. As much as you can. If you have marmelade or butter in your fingers, better. Your floppy will acknowledge it.

DON'T USE ANY ENVELOPE
Archive them wihtout their envelope, piled under a lot of papers and manuals.

DON'T MAKE BACKUPS
Of course, if you don't have any security copy, you won't have to worry about how to destroy them once you have lost the original.

SUPREME STUPIDITY
It is the best way of destroying floppies. If you practice it regularly, you'll find new methods to add to this list.

Are you a tehcnical geek?

Do you have a problem with overdoing your technical activities? Many do. Take the following test to see if you are compulsive. If you can relate to 2 of the items, you may have a problem with Techno-Dweeb. If you relate to 3 or more, you are definitely a Techno-Dweeb. Do not despair! There is help! You are not alone! Whenever you feel the urge to code in Assembler, call the number in the white pages of your phone book, and we will send somebody right over to cut out paper dolls with you until the feeling passes.

You know you are a tehcnical geek when . . .

• When your friend tells you all about his Cressida V6 and you reply "Yeah, I had V5, and it was full of bugs!"
• When driving you see a license plate with the letters DSR, and you feel compelled to touch your bumper to the other car to see if you can raise CD.
• When you are counting objects "0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D...".
• When you lay down in the afternoon for a short rest, end up sleeping 4 hours, and call it a "mega-nap".
• When your friend is going to Essex for vacation and you tell her, "You really should go for the DX, it has the built in co-processor."
• When you dream in 256 pallettes of 256 colors.
• When asked about a bus schedule, you wonder if it is 16 or 32 bits.
• When you convince yourself that Tetris really does improve eye-hand coordination.
• When the radio traffic reporter talks about a backup caused by a crash, and you correct her that a backup is good protection in case of a crash.
• When floppy drive applies more to your love life, and hard drive to your machines.
• When you call "*.*" star-dot-star.
• When you can do hexadecimal arithmatic in your head.
• When your wife goes to the market for some macintosh apples, and you correct her, "No, dear, it's 'Apple Macintosh'."
• When your wife says "If you don't turn off that stupid machine and come to bed, then I am going to divorce you!", and you chastise her for for omitting the else clause.