.oOo.

Destruction of the earth

Yeltsin, Clinton and Bill Gates were invited to have dinner with God. During dinner He told them: "I called you here because I needed three important
people to send my message out to all people: Tomorrow I will destroy the earth."

Yeltsin immediately called together his cabinet and told them: "I have two really bad news items for you:
1) God really exists and
2) Tomorrow He will destroy the earth."

Clinton called an emergency meeting of the Senate and Congress and told them: "I have good news and bad news:
1) The GOOD news is that God really does exist
2) The BAD news is, tomorrow He is going to destroy the earth."

Bill Gates went back to Microsoft and very happily announced: "I have two fantastic announcements:
1) I am one of the three most important people on earth
2) The Year 2000 problem is solved."

.oOo.

Computer messages
Volume in Drive C: TOO_LOUD!
Backup not found! A)bort, R)etry or P)anic?
Windows loaded - System in danger
Multitasking attempted - System confused
Unexplained error - Please tell us how this happened
Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
Keyboard locked - Try anything you can think of.
System crash - We are unable to figure out our own code.
Mouse not found - A mouse driver has not been installed. Please click the left mouse button to continue.

.oOo.

 Helpdesks
Austin, Texas, An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.
Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in, and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. when asked what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power switch?"
Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with Xeroxed copies of the floppies.
Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.

.oOo.

 Real programmers
Real Programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand and even harder to modify.
Real Programmers don't write in COBOL. COBOL is for wimpy applications programmers.
Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies.
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 AM, it's because they were up all night.
Real Programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC, after the age of 12.
Real Programmers don't document. Documentation is for simps who can't read the listings or the object deck.
Real Programmers are surprised when the odometers in their cars don't turn from 99999 to 9999A.

.oOo.

Comparison between Microsoft and Jennifer Gates

For the first time in a decade something from Microsoft shipped on time : Jennifer Katharine Gates, weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces when she was downloaded, eh, born on friday, april 26 at 6:11 p.m. And what do baby Gates and daddy's products have in common ?
Neither can stand on its own two feet without a lot of third party support.
Both barf all over themselves 'regulary'.
At first release they're relatively compact, but they seem to grow and grow with each year.
Although announced with great fanfare, pretty much anyone could have produced one.
They arrive in shaky condition with inadequate documentation.
No matter what, it takes several months between the announcement and the actual release.
Bill gets the credit, but someone else did most of the work.

.oOo.

Citations
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." (Tijdschrift Popular Mechanics, 1949)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, directeur van IBM, 1943)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." (Ken Olson, president, directeur en oprichter van Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"(H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we' ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet." (Steve Jobs, oprichter van Apple Corp., in zijn pogingen om Atari en HP te intereseren met zijn en Steve Wozniak’s computer)
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates, 1981)
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." (Ferdinand Foch, Professor in de strategie en opperbevelhebber geallieerden WOI)

.oOo.

The plane

One night, a Delta twin-engined puddle jumper was flying somewhere above New Jersey. There were five people on board; the pilot, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, The Dalai Lama, and a hippie. Suddenly, an illegal oxygen generator exploded loudly in the luggage compartment, and the passenger cabin began to fill with smoke. The cockpit door opened, and the pilot burst into the compartment.

"Gentlemen," he began, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're about to crash in New Jersey. The good news is that there are four parachutes, and I have one of them!" With that, the pilot threw open the door and jumped from the plane.

Michael Jordan was on his feet in a flash. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am the world's greatest athlete. The world needs great athletes. I think the world's greatest athlete should have a parachute!" With these words, he grabbed one of the remaining parachutes, and hurtled through the door and into the night.

Bill Gates rose and said, "Gentlemen, I am the world's smartest man. The world needs smart men. I think the world's smartest man should have parachute, too." He grabbed one, and out he jumped.

The Dalai Lama and the hippie looked at one another. Finally, the Dalai Lama spoke. "My son," he said, "I have lived a satisfying life and have known the bliss of True Enlightenment. You have your life ahead of you- You take a parachute, and I will go down with the plane."

The hippie smiled slowly and said, "Hey, don't worry, pop. The world's smartest man just jumped out wearing my backpack."

.oOo.

The Beatles computer songs

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.
Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.
I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.
Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.


Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby
Sits at the keyboard
And waits for a line on the screen
Lives in a dream
Waits for a signal
Finding some code
That will make the machine do some more.
What is it for?
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Guru MacKenzie
Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
Isn't it fun?
Look at him working,
Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
It takes a while...
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
Eleanor Rigby
Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
Feels like a jerk.
Guru MacKenzie
Wiping the crumbs off the keys as he types in the code;
Nothing will load.
All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
All the lonely users, why does it take so long?


Unix Man (Nowhere man)

He's a real UNIX Man
Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX plans
For nobody.
Knows the blocksize from du(1)
Cares not where /dev/null goes to
Isn't he a bit like you
And me?
UNIX Man, please listen(2)
My lpd(8) is missin'
UNIX Man
The wo-o-o-orld is at(1) your command.
He's as wise as he can be Uses lex and yacc and C
UNIX Man, can you help me At all?
UNIX Man, don't worry
Test with time(1), don't hurry UNIX Man
The new kernel boots, just like you had planned.
He's a real UNIX Man Sitting in his UNIX LAN
Making all his UNIX .plans For nobody ...
Making all his UNIX .plans For nobody.


Write in C (Let it Be)

When I find my code in tons of trouble,
Friends and colleagues come to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
"Write in C."
As the deadline fast approaches,
And bugs are all that I can see,
Somewhere, someone whispers:
"Write in C."
Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
LOGO's dead and buried,
Write in C.
I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
For science it worked flawlessly.
Try using it for graphics
Write in C.
If you've just spent nearly 30 hours,
Debugging some assembly, Soon you will be glad to
Write in C.
Write in C, Write in C,
Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
BASIC's not the answer.
Write in C.
Write in C, Write in C
Write in C, oh, Write in C.
Pascal won't quite cut it.
Write in C.


Something

Something in the way it fails,
Defies the algorithm's logic
Something in the way it coredumps...
I don't want to leave it now
I'll fix this problem somehow
Somewhere in the memory I know,
A pointer's got to be corrupted.
Stepping in the debugger will show me...
I don't want to leave it now
I'm too close to leave it now
You're asking me can this code go?
I don't know, I don't know...
What sequence causes it to blow?
I don't know, I don't know...
Something in the initializing code?
And all I have to do is think of it
Something in the listing will show me...
I don't want to leave it now
I'll fix this tonight I vow

.oOo.

Hot air balloon

A man is flying in a hot air balloon ad realizes that he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:

"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist.


"I do," says the man, "how did you know?"

"Well everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says "you must work in Management."

"I do," says the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

.oOo.

The end...