Computer Jokes — most commented jokes

No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses (viri?) do:

1. They replicate quickly -- okay, Windows does that.
2. Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so -- okay, Windows does that.
3. Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk -- okay, Windows does that, too.
4. Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.
5. Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences: Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

So, Windows is not a virus.

There is a very dangerous virus going around and it is propogated through the email system. If you get an email message with the subject: "VIRUS ALERT!" do not open the mail message. If you do, the virus scrambles the second half of every text file on your system.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you do get this virus, the first thing dlkfjaiddfdjas nairb gfdq40wt yaj asdfsdg dluog av da[agj asdfajpg asdflasidffnm asd difvu asdfa vgoiae vdsofj we dasdf 9efm sd dag0 g adfjdl5gkj dkllj djf hsas9kaj kuieh nx3glkj gkdls kd li8siue ghkld hks1as dg 0vbwe ads gwefawe ads vewerwe dsf!

No no, the question is: How many USENET posters does it take to change a lightbulb?

1. Define "change"
2. How do you know the lightbulb is out?
3. Don't use the word "posters" to describe us, it's offensive to large sheets of papers with pictures on them which hang on walls.
4. That question is not appropriate for this group, please take it elsewhere.
5. I think it's perfectly appropriate, this is alt.fan.lightbulbs.
6. Well, that's because you're a twit.
7. Who are you calling a "twit"? Besides, you spelled "twit" wrong.
8. Oh? And how exactly do you spell "twit", twit?
9. Could you two take this to e-mail? Doesn't anyone want to talk about lightbulb fans instead of flaming?
10. You're a twit also, who died and made you net.cop?
11. Look, all of you, take it to alt.flame or e-mail or something.
12. Hey, USENET is an anarchy, you have no right to tell them what to post or not post.
13. Speaking of anarchists, why don't you all vote for Andre Marrou, Libertarian Party Candidate for President?
14. Because the Libertarians are all twits.
15. Waitaminit! Now we're arguing politics on alt.fan.lightbulb????
16. Stop wasting bandwidth with this stuff!
17. What "stuff" pray tell?
18. Yikes! It's dark in here!
19. Define "dark".
20. I mean the lightbulb must be out.
21. So change it.
22. Define "change"...

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of aircraft's electronic navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the airport.

The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritted sign and held it in the helicopter's window.

The sign said "WHERE AM I"? in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign an held it in a building window. The sign said, "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER".

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and determined the course to steer to SEATAC ( Seattle/Tacoma) airport and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the Microsoft building because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer".

1. Order the T-shirts for the Development team
2. Announce availability
3. Write the code
4. Write the manual
5. Hire a Product Manager
6. Spec the software (writing the specs after the code helps to ensure that the software meets the specifications)
7. Ship
8. Test (the customers are a big help here)
9. Identify bugs as potential enhancements
10. Announce the upgrade program

Programmer: A person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumberable poundings, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place.

You Decide

'But that isn't a fair comparison. People like the Etch-A-Sketch.'

After admiring the above signature I thought I'd post a comparison, similar to the other great computer wars.

Etch-A-Sketch / Mac Classic

• No. of Colours: 2 / 2
• Resolution: ~2000 × ~2000 / 512 × 342
• No. of buttons: 2 / 1
• Preemptive Multitasking: Yes / No
• Hardware line draw: Yes / No
• Price: < $20 / ~$1000
• Power Consumption: No / Yes
• Laptop: Yes / No
• Slow Operating System: No / Yes
• Non Volatile Memory: Yes / No
• Choice of Coloured box: Yes / No
• Robust design (shakeable): Yes / No

After considering the above options, I decided to buy the Etch-A-Sketch.

For all you die-hard Amiga fanatics out there rumour has it that the Etch-A-Sketch-Emulator is coming out for the Amiga, and will in fact be faster than the true E-A-S.

God's Human DNA Code

For many years molecular biologists have been mystified by the fact that very little of an organism's DNA seems to serve any useful function. I have solved the mystery. The reason why only 30% of human DNA performs any useful function is that the rest of it is comments. Once we decode a typical human genome, we see that the contents begin as follows:

/* HUMAN_DNA.H * Human Genome * Version 2.1 * (C) God */

/* Revision history: */
0000-00-01 00:00 1.0 Adam.
0000-00-02 10:00 1.1 Eve.
0000-00-03 02:11 1.2 Added penis code to male version. A bit messy -- will require a rewrite later on to make it neater.
0017-03-12 03:14 1.3 Added extra sex drive to male.h; took code from elephant-dna.c
0145-10-03 16:33 1.4 Removed tail.
1115-00-31 17:20 1.5 Shortened forearms, expanded brain case.
2091-08-20 13:56 1.6 Opposable thumbs added to hand() routine.
2501-04-09 14:04 1.7 Minor cosmetic improvements -- skin colour made darker to match my own image.
2909-07-12 02:21 1.8 Dentition inadequate; added extra 'wisdom' teeth. Must remember to make mouth bigger to compensate.
4501-12-31 14:18 1.9 Increase average height.
5533-02-12 17:09 2.0 Added gay option, triggered by high population density, to try and slow the overpopulation problem.
6004-11-04 16:11 2.1 Made forefinger narrower to fit hole in centre of CD.

/* Standard definitions */
#define SEX male
#define HEIGHT 1.84
#define MASS 68
#define RACE caucasian

/* Include inherited traits from parent DNA files. * Files must be pre-processed with MENDEL program to provide proper inheritance features. */
#include "mother.h"
#include "father.h"
#infndef FATHER
#warn("Father unknown -- guessing\n")
#include "bastard.h"
#endif

/* Set up sex-specific functions and variables */
#include

/* Kludged code -- I'll re-design this lot and re-write it as a proper library sometime soon. */
struct genitals {
#ifdef MALE
Penis *jt;
#endif
/* G_spot *g; Removed for debugging purposes */
#ifdef FEMALE
Vagina *p;
#endif
}

/* Initialization bootstrap routine -- called before DNA duplication. * Allocates buffers and sets up protein file pointers */
DNA *zygote_initialize(Sperm *, Ovum *);

/* MAIN INITIALIZATION CODE * Returns structures containing pre-processed phenotypes for the organism to display at birth. * Will be improved later to make output less ugly. */
Characteristic *lookup_phenotype(Identifier *i);

...and so on. [ Note that God uses three-space tabs ]

Just wanted to check out that you gnarly dudes are using the latest andgreatest software technology fer yer rad code to make it easy for thedudes who have to read it. The hip new way to write readable Ccode involves the use of a few simple defines.#define like {#define man ;}#define an ;#define SayBro /*#define CheckItOut */SayBro like, this is some rad program, so CheckItOutlike a = b an c = dmanSayBro , like who needs help from them compiler choads anyway?

THIS is the way to write CLEAR code. I mean really! CheckItOutlike SayBro this is ShellSort straight out of the white book, but ina readable form.

CheckItOut man#define YoDude for(#define OK )#define is =#define AND &&#define as#define Do#define long#define some#define make#define garbage#define FAROUTshell(v, n) SayBro sort v[0]...v[n-1] into increasing order CheckItOutint v[], n;like int gap, i, j, temp;YoDude gap is n/2 an as long as gap > 0 Do some garbage an make gap /=2 OK YoDude i is gap an as long as i < n Do some garbage an make i++ OK YoDude j is i - gap an as long as j >= 0 AND v[j] > v[j+gap] Do some garbage an make j -= gap OK like temp is v[j] an v[j] is v[j+gap] an v[j+gap] is temp manFAROUT manSayBro like, B there OB square! CheckItOut

Less-Known Computer Languages Basic-Fortran-Cobol... Theseprogramming languages are wellknown and (more or less) wellloved throughout the computerindustry.

There are numerous otherlanguages however that are lesswell known yet still have ardentdevotees. In fact these little-known languages generallyhave the most fanatic admirers.

For those who wish to know moreabout these obscure languages -and why they are obscure - Ipresent the following catalog.

SIMPLE ... SIMPLE is an acronymfor Sheer Idiot's Mono PurposeProgramming LingusiticEnvironment.

This language developed at theHanover College for TechnologicalMisfits was designed to make itimpossible to write code witherrors in it. The statements aretherefore confined to BEGIN-END-and STOP. No matter how youarrange the statements you can'tmake a syntax error.

Programs written in SIMPLE donothing useful.

Thus they achievethe results of programs writtenin other languages without thetedious frustrating process oftesting and debugging.

SLOBOL ... SLOBOL is best knownfor the speed or lack of it ofits compiler. Although manycompilers allow you to take acoffee break while they compileSLOBOL compilers allow you to takea trip to Bolivia to pick up thecoffee. Forty-three programmersare known to have died of boredomsitting at their terminals whilewaiting for a SLOBOL program tocompile.

Weary SLOBOL programmers often turnto a related (but infinitely faster) language...

COCAINE.

VALGOL ... (With special thanks toDan and Betsy "Moon Unit" Pfau)- From its modest beginnings insouthern California's SanFernando Valley VALGOL is enjoyinga dramatic surge of popularityacross the industry.

VALGOL commands include REALLY-LIKE - WELL and YAKNOW. Variablesare assigned with the =LIKE and=TOTALLY operators.

Other operatorsinclude the "CALIFORNIA BOOLEANS"FERSURE and NOWAY. Repetitions ofcode are handled in FOR-SURE loops.

Here is a sample VALGOL program. 14 LIKE-YAKNOW (I MEAN) START. %% IF. PI A =LIKE BITCHEN AND. 01 B =LIKE TUBULAR AND. 9 C =LIKE GRODY**MAX. 4K (FERSURE)**2. 18 THEN. 4I FOR I=LIKE 1 TO OH MAYBE 100. 86 DO WAH + (DITTY**2). 9 BARF(I) =TOTALLY GROSS(OUT). -17 SURE. 1F LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM. ? REALLY. $$ LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)VALGOL is characterized by itsunfriendly error messages. Forexample when the user makes asyntax error the interpreterdisplays the message GAG ME WITHA SPOON!

LAIDBACK ... Historically VALGOL isa derivative of LAIDBACK whichwas developed at the (now defunct)Marin County Center for T'ai ChiMellowness and ComputerProgramming as an analternative to themore intense atmosphere in nearbysilicon valley. The center wasideal for programmers who liked tosoak in hot tubs while theyworked. Unfortunately fewprogrammers could survive therefor long since the center outlawedpizza and RC Cola in favor of beancurd and Perrier.

Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACKbecause its reputation as agentle and nonthreatening language.

For example LAIDBACK responded tosyntax errors with the messageSORRY MAN I CAN'T DEAL WITH THAT.

SARTRE ... Named after the lateexistential philosopher.

SARTRE isan extremely unstructuredlanguage. Statements in SARTRE haveno purpose they are just there.

Thus SARTRE programs are left todefine their own functions.

SARTRE programmers tend to beboring and depressed and are nofun at parties.

FIFTH ... FIFTH is a precisionmathematical language in whichthe data types refer to quantity.

The data types range from CC-OUNCE-SHOT and JIGGER to FIFTH(hence the name of the language)LITER-MAGNUM and BLOTTO.

Commands refer to ingredientssuch as CHABLIS-CHARDONNAY-CABERNET-GIN-VERMOUTH-VODKA-SCOTCHand WHATEVERSAROUND.

The many versions of the FIFTHlanguage reflect the sophisticationand financial status of its users.

Commands in the ELITE dialectinclude VSOP and LAFITE whilecommands in the GUTTER dialectinclude HOOTCH and RIPPLE.

The latter is a favorite offrustrated FORTH programmers whoend up using the language.

C-...

This language was namedfor the grade received by itscreater when he submitted itas a class project in agraduate programming class.

C- is best described as a'Low Level' programminglanguage.

In fact the languagegenerally requires more C-statements than machine-codestatements to execute a giventask. In this respect itis very similar to COBOL.

LITHP ... This otherwiseunremarkable language isdistinguished by the absenceof an "s" in its character set.

Programmers and users mustsubstitute"TH". LITHP is said tobe useful in prothething lithtth.

DOGO ... Developed at theMassachussettes Institute ofObedience Training. DOGO heraldsa new era of computer literatepets. DOGO commands include SITSTAY-HEEL and ROLL OVER. Aninnovative feature of DOGO is'PUPPY GRAPHICS' in which a smallcocker spaniel occasionally leavesa deposit as he travels acrossthe screen.