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Section Editor: Dr. H.V.Ramakrishna
If you have an entry for this section, please send an e-mail to section editor by
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Proper Care of Floppy Diskettes
Follow all of these instructions carefully for error-free floppies!!
1. Never leave diskettes in the disk drive, as data can leak out of the disk and corrode the inner mechanics of the drive. Diskettes should be rolled up and stored in pencil holders.
2. Diskettes should be cleaned and waxed once a week. Microscopic metal particles can be removed by waving a powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn metallic shavings can be removed with scouring powder and soap. When waxing the diskettes, make sure the surface is even. This will allow the diskette to spin faster, resulting in better access time.
3. Do not fold diskettes unless they do not fit into the drive. "Big" diskettes may be folded and used in "little" disk drives.
4. Never insert a diskette into the drive upside down. The data can fall off the surface of the disk and jam the intricate mechanics of the drive.
5. Diskettes cannot be backed up by running them through the xerox machine. If your data is going to need to be backed up, simply insert two diskettes into the drive. Whenever you update a document, the data will be written on both diskettes.
6. Diskettes should not be inserted or removed from the drive while the red light is flashing. Doing so could result in smeared or possibly unreadable text. Occasionally the red light remains flashing in what is known as a "hung" or "hooked" state. If your system is "hooking" you will probably need to insert a few coins before being allowed access to the slot.
7. If your diskette is full and you need more storage space, remove the disk from the drive and shake vigorously for 2 minutes. This will pack the data enough (Data Compression) to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all the openings with scotch tape to prevent loss data.
8. Access time can be greatly improved by cutting more holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more simultaneous access points to the disk.
9. Diskettes may be used as coasters for beverage glasses, provided that they are properly waxed beforehand. Be sure to wipe the diskettes dry before using. (see item 2 above)
10. Never use scissors and glue to manually edit documents. The data is stored much too small for the naked eye, and you may end up with data from some other document stuck in the middle of your document. Razor blades and scotch tape may be used, however, provided the user is equipped with an electron microscope.
11. Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent system bugs from spreading.
Engineer, Manager, and Programmer
There was an engineer, manager and programmer driving down a steep mountain road. The brakes failed and the car careened down the road out of control. Half way down the driver managed to stop the car by running it against the embankment narrowing avoiding going over a cliff. They all got out, shaken by their narrow escape from death, but otherwise unharmed.
The manager said "To fix this problem we need to organize a committee, have meetings, and through a process of continuous improvement, develop a solution."
The engineer said "No that would take too long, and besides that method never worked before. I have my trusty pen knife here and will take apart the brake system, isolate the problem and correct it."
The programmer said "I think your both wrong! I think we should all push the car back up the hill and see if it happens again."
A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master.
"Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
"And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said.
"The Tao of Programming"
(Dee Dee's Loonie Bin Of Jokes http://www.norcom.mb.ca/deedee/Offcom.htm)
God calls Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates into his office and says, "The world will end in 30 days. Go back and tell your people."
So, Boris Yeltsin goes to the Russian people and says, "I have bad news and I have worse news. The bad news is that we were wrong, there is a God. The worse news is that the world will end in 30 days."
Bill Clinton goes on TV and tells the American people, "I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that the basic family values upon which we have based our lives on are right - there is a God. The bad news is that the world will end in 30 days."
Bill Gates goes to his executive committee and says, "I have great news and I have fabulous news. The great news is that God thinks I'm important. The fabulous news is that we don't have to ship Windows 95!"
(This joke appeared in the online newsletter TidBITS, issue #280, 05-Jun-95)
People - please note! The following new computer viruses have been detected in or around the Colorado Springs area. Please be alert for them when you scan your computers -- which you _ARE_ doing, I trust.
OPRAH WINFREY VIRUS
Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands back to 200MB.
AT&T VIRUS
Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.
MCI VIRUS
Every three minutes it reminds you that you're paying too much for the AT&T virus.
PAUL REVERE VIRUS
This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard disk attack---once if by LAN, twice if by C.
POLITICALLY CORRECT VIRUS
Never calls itself a "virus", but instead refers to itself as an "electronic microorganism."
RIGHT TO LIFE VIRUS
Won't allow you to delete a file, regardless of how old it is. If you attempt to erase a file, it requires you to first see a counsellor about possible alternatives.
ROSS PEROT VIRUS
Activates every component in your system, just before the whole damn thing quits.
MARIO CUOMO VIRUS
It would be a great virus, but it refuses to run.
TED TURNER VIRUS
Colorizes your monochrome monitor.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER VIRUS
Terminates and stays resident. It'll be back.
DAN QUAYLE VIRUS
Prevents your system from spawning any child process without joining into a binary network.
DAN QUAYLE VIRUS #2
Their is sumthing rong wit your komputer, ewe jsut cant figyour out watt!
GOVERNMENT ECONOMIST VIRUS
Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.
NEW WORLD ORDER VIRUS
Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really mad just thinking about it.
FEDERAL BUREAUCRAT VIRUS
Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.
GALLUP VIRUS
Sixty percent of the PCs infected will lose 38 percent of their data 14 percent of the time. (plus or minus a 3.5 percent margin of error.)
TERRY RANDLE VIRUS
Prints "Oh no you don't" whenever you choose "Abort" from the "Abort" "Retry" "Fail" message.
TEXAS VIRUS
Makes sure that it's bigger than any other file.
ADAM AND EVE VIRUS
Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.
CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS
The computer locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.
AIRLINE VIRUS
You're in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.
FREUDIAN VIRUS
Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying its own
motherboard.
PBS VIRUS
Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money.
ELVIS VIRUS
Your computer gets fat, slow and lazy, then self destructs; only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.
OLLIE NORTH VIRUS
Causes your printer to become a paper shredder.
NIKE VIRUS
Just does it.
SEARS VIRUS
Your data wont appear unless you buy new cables, power supply and a set of shocks.
JIMMY HOFFA VIRUS
Your programs can never be found again.
CONGRESSIONAL VIRUS #2
Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesnt allow the user to accomplish anything.
KEVORKIAN VIRUS
Helps your computer shut down as an act of mercy.
IMELDA MARCOS VIRUS
Sings you a song (slightly off key) on boot up, then subtracts money from your Quicken account and spends it all on expensive shoes it purchases through Prodigy.
STAR TREK VIRUS
Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.
HEALTH CARE VIRUS
Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500.
GEORGE BUSH VIRUS
It starts by boldly stating, "Read my docs....No new files!" on the screen. It proceeds to fill up all the free space on your hard drive with new files, then blames it on the Congrssional Virus.
CLEVELAND INDIANS VIRUS
Makes your 486/50 machine perform like a 286/AT.
LAPD VIRUS
It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in "self defense".
CHICAGO CUBS VIRUS
Your PC makes frequent mistakes and comes in last in the reviews, but you still love it.
ORAL ROBERTS VIRUS
Claims that if you don't send it a million dollars, it's programmer will take it back.
PAT BUCHANAN VIRUS
Your system works fine, but it complains loudly about foreign software.
COLIN POWELL VIRUS
Makes its presence known, but doesn't do anything. Secretly, you wish it would.
HILLARY CLINTON VIRUS
Files disappear, only to reappear mysteriously a year later, in another directory.
O.J. SIMPSON VIRUS
You know it's guilty of trashing your system, but you just can't prove it.
Bill Gates VS. Heaven's Operating System
Bill Gates died and, much to everyone's surprise, went to Heaven. When he got there, he had to wait in the reception area. Heaven's reception area was the size of Massachusetts. There were literally millions of people milling about, living in tents with nothing to do all day. Food and water were being distributed from the backs of trucks, while staffers with clipboards slowly worked their way through the crowd. Booze and drugs were being passed around. Fights were commonplace. Sanitation conditions were appalling. All in all, the scene looked like Woodstock gone metastatic.
Bill lived in a tent for three weeks until, finally, one of the staffers approached him. The staffer was a young man in his late teens, face scarred with acne. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with the words TEAM PETER emblazoned on it in large yellow lettering. "Hello," said the staffer in a bored voice that could have been the voice of any clerk in any overgrown bureaucracy. "My name is Gabriel and I'll be your induction coordinator." Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, I'm not the Archangel Gabriel. I'm just a guy from Philadelphia named Gabriel who died in a car wreck at the age of 17. Now give me your name, last name first, unless you were Chinese in which case it's first name first."
"Gates, Bill." Gabriel started searching though the sheaf of papers on his clipboard, looking for Bill's Record of Earthly Works. "What's going on here?" asked Bill. "Why are all these people here? Where's Saint Peter? Where are the Pearly Gates?" Gabriel ignored the questions until he located Bill's records.
Then Gabriel looked up in surprise. "It says here that you were the president of a large software company. Is that right?" "Yes." "Well then, do the math chip-head! When this Saint Peter business started, it was an easy gig. Only a hundred or so people died every day, and Peter could handle it all by himself, no problem. But now there are over five billion people on earth. Come on, when God said to 'go forth and multiply,' he didn't say 'like rabbits!' With that large a population, ten thousand people die every hour. Over a quarter-million people a day. Do you think Peter can meet them all personally?" "I guess not." "You guess right. So Peter had to franchise the operation. Now, Peter is the CEO of Team Peter Enterprises, Inc. He just sits in the corporate headquarters and sets policy. Franchisees like me handle the actual inductions."
Gabriel looked though his paperwork some more, and then continued. "Your paperwork seems to be in order. And with a background like yours, you'll be getting a plum job assignment." "Job assignment?"
"Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of eternity sitting on your ass and drinking ambrosia? Heaven is a big operation. You have to pull your weight around here!" Gabriel took out a triplicate form, had Bill sign at the bottom, and then tore out the middle copy and handed it to Bill. "Take this down to induction center #23 and meet up with your occupational orientator. His name is Abraham." Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. "No, he's not *that* Abraham."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Bill walked down a muddy trail for ten miles until he came to induction center #23. He met with Abraham after a mere six-hour wait. "Heaven is centuries behind in building its data processing infrastructure," explained Abraham. "As you've seen, we're still doing everything on paper. It takes us a week just to process new entries." "I had to wait *three* weeks?" said Bill. Abraham stared at Bill angrily, and Bill realized that he'd made a mistake. Even in Heaven, it's best not to contradict a bureaucrat. "Well," Bill offered, "maybe that Bosnia thing has you guys backed up." Abraham's look of anger faded to mere annoyance. "Your job will be to supervise Heaven's new data processing center. We're building the largest computing facility in creation. Half a million computers connected by a multi- segment fiber optic network, all running into a back-end server network with a thousand CPUs on a gigabit channel. Fully fault tolerant. Fully distributed processing. The works."
Bill could barely contain his excitement. "Wow! What a great job! This is really Heaven!" "We're just finishing construction, and we'll be starting operations soon. Would you like to go see the center now?" "You bet!"
Abraham and Bill caught the shuttle bus and went to Heaven's new data processing center. It was a truly huge facility, a hundred times bigger than the Astrodome. Workmen were crawling all over the place, getting the miles of fiber optic cables properly installed. But the center was dominated by the computers. Half a million computers, arranged neatly row- by-row, half a million ....Power PC's .... .... all running Mac/OS! Not a Intel PC in sight! Not a single byte of Microsoft code!
The thought of spending the rest of eternity using products that he had spent his whole life working to destroy was too much for Bill. "What about PCs???" he exclaimed. "What about Windows??? What about Excel??? What about Word???" "You're forgetting something," said Abraham. "What's that?" asked Bill plaintively. "This is Heaven," explained Abraham. "We need a operating system that's heavenly to use. If you want to build a data processing center based on PCs running Windows, then .... GO TO HELL!"
In case you don't know, there's a bug in the Pentium chip which results in incorrect division for certain operands. The result is correct to a few decimal places, but after that it is wrong.
Q: How many Pentium designers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 1.99904274017, but that's close enough for non-technical people.
Q: What do you get when you cross a Pentium PC with a research grant?
A: A mad scientist.
Q: What's another name for the "Intel Inside" sticker they put on Pentiums?
A1: Warning label.
A2: Truth in advertising.
Q: What do you call a series of FDIV instructions on a Pentium?
A: Successive approximations.
Q: Complete the following word analogy: Add is to Subtract as Multiply is to
1) Divide
2) ROUND
3) RANDOM
4) On a Pentium, all of the above
A: Number 4.
Q: What algorithm did Intel use in the Pentium's floating point divider?
A: "Life is like a box of chocolates." (Source: F. Gump of Intel)
Q: Why didn't Intel call the Pentium the 586?
A: Because they added 486 and 100 on the first Pentium and got 585.999983605.
Q: According to Intel, the Pentium conforms to the IEEE standards 754 and 854 for floating point arithmetic. If you fly in aircraft designed using a Pentium, what is the correct pronunciation of "IEEE"?
A: Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!
Top Ten New Intel Slogans for the Pentium
9.9999973251 It's a FLAW, Dammit, not a Bug
8.9999163362 It's Close Enough, We Say So
7.9999414610 Nearly 300 Correct Opcodes
6.9999831538 You Don't Need to Know What's Inside
5.9999835137 Redefining the PC--and Mathematics As Well
4.9999999021 We Fixed It, Really
3.9998245917 Division Considered Harmful
2.9991523619 Why Do You Think They Call It *Floating* Point?
1.9999103517 We're Looking for a Few Good Flaws
0.9999999998 The Errata Inside
The Ten Commandments of Mastering Your PC
1) Never show fear.
2) Keep a big club handy, but out of sight of your PC.
3) Never let your PC forget that you know where the power switch or outlet is.
4) Always warn your PC of your intentions before inserting diskettes into the drives, and count your fingers afterwards.
5) Make sure that the TURBO switch is off, and out of reach of any mechanical arms controlled by your PC.
6) Never swear at your PC, except when you're out of the room. If your PC is networked, make sure no other PC's are within earshot, either.
7) Never equip your PC with more memory than you yourself have.
8) Never let your PC know that you plan to give it a brain transplant upgrade someday.
9) Never install software on your PC that advertises "Let your PC take control!"
10) Promise your PC that if it is cooperative, you will let it read the jokes on the Internet HUMOR list.
Top 100 Things You Don't Want the Sysadmin to Say
100. Uh-oh.....
99. Shit!!
98. What the hell!?
97. Go get your backup tape. (You _do_ have a backup tape?)
96. That's SOOOOO bizarre.
95. Wow!! Look at this.....
94. Hey!! The suns don't do this.
93. Terminated??!
92. What software license?
91. Well, it's doing _something_.....
90. Wow....that seemed _fast_.....
89. I got a better job at Lockheed...
88. Management says...
87. Sorry, the new equipment didn't get budgetted.
86. What do you mean that wasn't a copy?
85. It didn't do that a minute ago...
84. Where's the GUI on this thing?
83. Damn, and I just bought that pop...
82. Where's the DIR command?
81. The drive ate the tape but that's OK, I brought my screwdriver.
80. I cleaned up the root partition and now there's LOTS of free space.
79. What's this "any" key I'm supposed to press?
78. Do you smell something?
77. What's that grinding sound?
76. I have never seen it do *that* before...
75. I think it should not be doing that...
74. I remember the last time I saw it do that...
73. You might as well all go home early today ...
72. My leave starts tomorrow.
71. Ooops.
70. Hmm, maybe if I do this...
69. ``Why is my "rm *.o" taking so long?''
68. Hmmm, curious...
67. Well, _my_ files were backed up.
66. What do you mean you needed that directory?
65. What do you mean /home was on that disk? I umounted it!
64. Do you really need your home directory to do any work?
63. Oracle will be down until 8pm, but you can come back in and finish your work when it comes up tonight.
62. I didn't think anybody would be doing any work at 2am, so I killed your job.
61. Yes, I chowned all the files to belong to pvcs. Is that a problem to you?
60. We're standardizing on AIX.
59. Wonder what *this* command does?
58. What did you say your (l)user name was...? ;-)
57. You did _what_ to the floppy???
56. Sorry, we deleted that package last week...
55. NO! Not _that_ button!
54. Uh huh......"nu -k $USER".. no problem....sure thing...
53. Sorry, we deleted that package last week...
52. NO! Not _that_ button!
51. Uh huh......"nu -k $USER".. no problem....sure thing...
50. [looks at workstation] "Say, what version of Dos is this running?"
49. Oops! (said in a quiet, almost surprised voice)
48. YEEEHA!!! What a CRASH!!!
47. What do you mean that could take down the whole network?
46. What's this switch for anyways...?
45. Tell me again what that '-r' option to rm does
44. Say, What does "Superblock Error" mean, anyhow?
43. If I knew it wasn't going to work, I would have tested it sooner.
42. Was that YOUR directory?
41. System coming down in 0 min....
40. The backup procedure works fine, but the restore is tricky!
39. Hey Fred, did you save that posting about restoring filesystems with vi and a toothpick? More importantly, did you print it out?
38. OH, SH*T! (as they scrabble at the keyboard for ^c).
37. The sprinkler system isn't supposed to leak is it?
36. It is only a minor upgrade, the system should be back up in a few hours. ( This is said on a monday afternoon.)
35. I think we can plug just one more thing in to this outlet strip with out triping the breaker.
34. What is all this I here about static charges destroying computers?
33. I found this rabbit program that is supposed to test system performance and I have it running now.
32. Ummm... Didn't you say you turned it off?
31. The network's down, but we're working on it. Come back after diner. (Usually said at 2200 the night before thesis deadline... )
30. Ooops. Save your work, everyone. FAST!
29. Boy, it's a lot easier when you know what you're doing.
28. I hate it when that happens.
27. And what does it mean 'rm: .o: No such file or directory'?
26. Why did it say '/bin/rm: not found'?
25. Nobody was using that file /vmunix, were they?
24. You can do this patch with the system up...
23. What happens to a Hard Disk when you drop it?
22. The only copy of Norton Utilities was on THAT disk???
21. Well, I've got a backup, but the only copy of the restore program was on THAT disk....
20. What do mean by "fired"?
19. hey, what does mkfs do?
18. where did you say those backup tapes were kept?
17. ...and if we just swap these two disc controllers like _this_...
16. don't do that, it'll crash the sys........ SHIT
15. what's this hash prompt on my terminal mean?
14. dd if=/dev/null of=/vmunix
13. find /usr2 -name nethack -exec rm -f {};
12. now it's funny you should ask that, because I don't know either
11. Any more trouble from you and your account gets moved to the 750
10. Ooohh, lovely, it runs SVR4
9. SMIT makes it all so much easier......
8. Can you get VMS for this Sparc thingy?
5. I don't care what he says, I'm _NOT_ having it on _my_ network
4. We don't support that. We _won't_ support that.
3. ...and after I patched the microcode...
2. You've got TECO. What more do you want?
1. We prefer not to change the root password, it's an nice easy one
0. Just add yourself to the password file and make a directory...
-1. This won't affect what you're doing.
-2. `We are shutting xxx down from 8.30 to 10.30 on Thursday to install a new tape drive.' The machine was up at about 2pm sans-tape drive
-3. `I just have to install these three patches. It should not take more than a few minutes.' The machine was working again about 3 hours later...
-4. Umm, did anyone have anything important in /usr?
-5. We had to format some tracks, and we seem to have hit an inode track. Half the files are still there though...
-6. Ooops, I should really have change directory before doing that chmod -R bin.bin .
-7. I just made an extra 2 meg of space in /, I stripped /vmunix. Oh, so that's why ps doesn't work.
-8. Ignore the errors. It complains too much.
-9. I got these instructions off the net. I'm going to follow them exactly. Let's see if they work.
-10. Heard at my workplace when I found emacs wouldn't run :
"Oh I took that thing off, it was huge and nobody uses it. It's
a stupid editor anyway." --Spoken by an MS-DOS programmer
-11. I don't know if this is ethical, but...
(from alt.folklore.computers)
Seven Software Companies Added to "Watch List"
People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS)
New York, NJ, Sept. 24 -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Software (PETS) announced today that seven more software companies have been added to the group's "watch list" of companies that regularly practice software testing.
"There is no need for software to be mistreated in this way so that companies like these can market new products," said Ken Granola, spokesperson for PETS. "Alternative methods of testing these products are available."
According to PETS, these companies force software to undergo lengthy and arduous tests, often without rest for hours or days at a time. Employees are assigned to "break" the software by any means necessary, and inside sources report that they often joke about "torturing" the software. "It's no joke," said Granola. "Innocent programs, from the day they are compiled, are cooped up in tiny rooms and 'crashed' for hours on end. They spend their whole lives on dirty, ill-maintained computers, and are unceremoniously deleted when they're not needed anymore." Granola said the software is kept in unsanitary conditions and is infested with bugs. "We know alternatives to this horror exist," he said, citing industry giant Microsoft Corp. as a company that has become extremely successful without resorting to software testing.
50 Ways to
Confuse, Worry, or Just Scare
the Bejeezus out of People in the Computer Lab
1. Log on, wait a sec, then get a frightened look on your face and scream "Oh my God! They've found me!" and bolt.
2. Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes & then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you.
3. When your computer is turned off, complain to the monitor on duty that you can't get the damn thing to work. After he/she's turned it on, wait 5 minutes,turn it off again, & repeat the process for a good half hour.
4. Type frantically, often stopping to look at the person next to you evilly.
5. Before anyone else is in the lab, connect each computer to different screen than the one it's set up with.
6. Write a program that plays the "Smurfs" theme song and play it at the highest volume possible over & over again.
7. Work normally for a while. Suddenly look amazingly startled by something on the screen and crawl underneath the desk.
8. Ask the person next to you if they know how to tap into top-secret Pentagon files.
9. Use Interactive Send to make passes at people you don't know.
10. Make a small ritual sacrifice to the computer before you turn it on.
11. Bring a chainsaw, but don't use it. If anyone asks why you have it, say "Just in case..." mysteriously.
12. Type on VAX for a while. Suddenly start cursing for 3 minutes at everything bad about your life. Then stop and continue typing.
13. Enter the lab,undress, and start staring at other people as if they're crazy while typing.
14. Light candles in a pentagram around your terminal before starting.
15. Ask around for a spare disk. Offer $2. Keep asking until someone agrees. Then, pull a disk out of your fly and say, "Oops, I forgot."
16. Every time you press Return and there is processing time required, pray "Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease," and scream "YES!" when it finishes.
17. "DISK FIGHT!!!"
18. Start making out with the person at the terminal next to you (It helps if you know them, but this is also a great way to make new friends).
19. Put a straw in your mouth and put your hands in your pockets. Type by hitting the keys with the straw.
20. If you're sitting in a swivel chair, spin around singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" whenever there is processing time required.
21. Draw a pictue of a woman (or man) on a piece of paper, tape it to your monitor. Try to seduce it. Act like it hates you and then complain loudly that women (men) are worthless.
22. Try to stick a Ninetendo cartridge into the 3 1/2 disc drive, when it doesn't work, get the supervisor.
23. When you are on an IBM, and when you turn it on, ask loudly where the smiling Apple face is when you turn on one of those.
24. Print out the complete works of Shakespeare, then when its all done (two days later) say that all you wanted was one line.
25. Sit and stare at the screen, biting your nails noisely. After doing this for a while, spit them out at the feet of the person next to you.
26. Stare at the screen, grind your teeth, stop, look at the person next to you. Repeat procedure, making sure you never provoke the person enough to let them blow up, as this releases tension, and it is far more effective to let them linger.
27. If you have long hair, take a typing break, look for split ends, cut them and deposit them on your neighbor's keyboard as you leave.
28. Put a large, gold-framed portrait of the British Royal Family on your desk and loudly proclaim that it inspires you.
29. Come to the lab wearing several layers of socks. Remove shoes and place them of top of the monitor. Remove socks layer by layer and drape them around the monitor. Exclaim sudden haiku about the aesthetic beauty of cotton on plastic.
30. Take the keyboard and sit under the computer. Type up your paper like this. Then go to the lab supervisor and complain about the bad working conditions.
31. Laugh hysterically, shout "You will all perish in flames!!!" and continue working.
32. Bring some dry ice & make it look like your computer is smoking.
33. Assign a musical note to every key (ie. the Delete key is A Flat, the B key is F sharp, etc.). Whenever you hit a key, hum its note loudly. Write an entire paper this way.
34. Attempt to eat your computer's mouse.
35. Borrow someone else's keyboard by reaching over, saying "Excuse me, mind if I borrow this for a sec?", unplugging the keyboard & taking it.
36. Bring in a bunch of magnets and have fun.
37. When doing calculations, pull out an abacus and say that sometimes the old ways are best.
38. Play Pong for hours on the most powerful computer in the lab.
39. Make a loud noise of hitting the same key over and over again until you see that your neighbor is noticing (You can hit the space bar so your fill isn't affected). Then look at your neighbor's keyboard. Hit his/her delete key several times, erasing an entire word. While you do this, ask: "Does *your* delete key work?" Shake your head, and resume hitting the space bar on your keyboard. Keep doing this until you've deleted about a page of your neighbor's document. Then, suddenly exclaim: "Well, whaddya know? I've been hitting the space bar this whole time. No wonder it wasn't deleting! Ha!" Print out your document and leave.
40. Remove your disk from the drive and hide it. Go to the lab monitor and complain that your computer ate your disk. (For special effects, put some Elmer's Glue on or around the disk drive. Claim that the computer is drooling.)
41. Stare at the person's next to your's screen, look really puzzled, burst out laughing, and say "You did that?" loudly. Keep laughing, grab your stuff and leave, howling as you go.
42. Point at the screen. Chant in a made up language while making elaborate hand gestures for a minute or two. Press return or the mouse, then leap back and yell "COVEEEEERRRRRR!" peek up from under the table, walk back to the computer and say. "Oh, good. It worked this time," and calmly start to type again.
43. Keep looking at invisible bugs and trying to swat them.
44. See who's online. Send a total stranger a talk request. Talk to them like you've known them all your lives. Hangup before they get a chance to figure out you're a total stranger.
45. Bring an small tape player with a tape of really absurd sound effects. Pretend it's the computer and look really lost.
46. Pull out a pencil. Start writing on the screen. Complain that the lead doesn't work.
47. Come into the computer lab wearing several endangered species of flowers in your hair. Smile incessantly. Type a sentence, then laugh happily, exclaim "You're such a marvel!!", and kiss the screen. Repeat this after every sentence. As your ecstasy mounts, also hug the keyboard. Finally, hug your neighbor, then the computer assistant, and walk out.
48. Run into the computer lab, shout "Armageddon is here!!!!!", then calmly sit down and begin to type.
49. Quietly walk into the computer lab with a Black and Decker chainsaw, rev that baby up, and then walk up to the nearest person and say, "Give me that computer or you'll be feeding my pet crocodile for the next week".
50. Two words: Tesla Coil.
Fast Facts of Real Programmers
Real programmers don't write specs -- Users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read.
Real programmers don't write application programs, they program right down on the bare metal. Application programming is for feebs who can't do systems programming.
Real programmers don't eat quiche. They eat twinkies, and szechevan food.
Real programmers programs never work right the first time. But if you throw them on the machine they can be patched into working in only a few 30-hours debugging sessions.
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 wimps who can't read the listings or the object deck.
Real programmers don't write in Pascal, or Bliss, or Ada, or any of those pinko computer science languages. Strong typing is for people with weak memories.
Real programmers know better than the users what they need.
Real programmers think structured programming is a communist plot.
Real programmers don't use schedules. Schedules are for manager's toadies. Real programmers like to keep their manager in suspense.
Real programmers think better when playing adventure.
"Real Programmers Don't Use PASCAL"
Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers.
Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions.
At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking about operating system security and how to get around it.
At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.
At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand.
At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George. And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary."
In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time.
Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal
Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTO's.
Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting confused.
Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the code more interesting.
Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.
Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious.
(DATAMATION , July 1983, pp. 263-265, Readers' Forum.)
The Real Programmer' s Natural Habitat
The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal.
Surrounding this terminal are:
Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office.
Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.
Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages.
Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969.
Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars -- the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine.
Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.
Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.)
No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night).
Real Programmers don't wear neckties.
Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.
Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].
A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table.
Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee.
Some Programming Tools NOT Used by Real Progeammers
FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of programming -- great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured programming.
Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.
Section Editor: Dr. H.V.Ramakrishna
If you have an entry for this section, please send an e-mail to section editor by
clicking on the name above.
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