Computer Quotes and Jokes

gathered by Terry L. Helser

The following are some quotations and jokes about computers and the Web I found amusing or enlightening. Sections include definitions, E-mail and lists, OS chickens and viruses, computer gender and links to poems and papers. You can also send me comments or suggestions, or return to my home page.

The following was from a Green Mountain-based webmaster.

The Vermonter's Guide to Computer Lingo

1. Log On: Makin' the wood stove hotter.
2. Log Off: Don't add wood.
3. Monitor: Keep an eye on the wood stove.
4. Download: Gettin' the firewood off the pickup.
5. Mega Hertz: When yer not carefull downloadin' (watch th' toes!)
6. Floppy Disk: Whacha get from pilin' too much firewood.
7. Disk Operating System: The equipment the Doc uses when you have a floppy disk.
8. RAM: The hydraulic thingy that makes the woodsplitter work.
9. Hard Drive: Gettin' home in mud season.
10. Prompt: What you wish the mail was in mud season.
11. Windows: What to shut when it's 30 below.
12. Screen: What you need for black fly season.
13. Byte: What black flies do.
14. Chip: What to munch on.
15. Micro Chip: What's left in the bag when the chips are gone.
16. Infrared: Where the left-over's go when Fred's around.
17. Modem: What you did to the hay fields.
18. Dot Matrix: John Matrix's wife.
19. Printer: Someone who can't write in cursive.
20. Lap Top: Where little kids feel comfy
21. Keyboard: Where you hang your keys.
22. Software: Them plastic eatin' utensils.
23. 486: One of them fancy imported cars.
24. Mouse: What eats the horses' grain in the barn.
25. Main Frame: The part of the barn that holds the roof up.
26. Port: Fancy wine.
27. Enter: C'mon in!
28. Random Access Memory: You can't remember how much that new rifle cost when your wife asks.
29. Digital: Like those numbers that flip on your alarm clock.
30. Apple: If you don't know, I ain't tellin'.
31. Program: What's on TV when there's reception.
32. CD ROM: The furriner at the bank that sells retirement accounts.
33. DIN: The noise at the barn dance.
34. Laser: Someone less ambitious than you.
35. Line In: Whatcha do when you go fishin' or whacha dry yer laundry on. _{Jon Foglein}

Learning About Programming From Mom

* Mother taught the IF ... THEN ... ELSE structure: "If it's snowing, then put your boots on before you go to school; otherwise just wear your shoes."

* Mother explained the difference between batch and transaction processing: "We'll wash the white clothes when we get enough of them to make a load, but we'll wash these socks out right now by hand because you'll need them this afternoon."

* Mother also taught me about linked lists. Once, for a birthday party, she laid out a treasure hunt of ten hidden clues, with each clue telling where to find the next one, and the last one leading to the treasure. She then gave us the first clue.

* Mother understood about parity errors. When she counted socks after doing the laundry, she expected to find an even number and groaned when only one sock of a pair emerged from the washing machine. Later she applied the principles of redundancy engineering to this problem by buying our socks three identical pairs at a time. This greatly increased the odds of being able to come up with at least one matching pair. _Unknown

You know you've been on line too long when

• You start introducing yourself as "Jim @ oneonta.edu"
• You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.
• Your phone bill is delivered in a box.
• All of your friends have an @ in their names.
• You get a tatoo that says, "This body best viewed with Netscape 4.0."
• You never have to deal with the busy signals because you never log off.
• You start tilting your head sideways whenever you smile ;-)
• Your spouse says communication is important in a marriage, so you buy another computer and install another phone line so that the two of you can chat.
• Your computer goes down and you haven't logged in for two hours. You start to tremble. You pick up the phone and dial your Internet access number. You try to mimic computer noise in order to connect. You succeed! (From the User Group Forum, AoL)

Here are net terms appropriately handled:

I've noticed several common grammatical errors in E-Mail messages lately. In the hope that it will help others avoid them, I humbly offer the following guidelines:

1. Don't use no double negatives.
2. Make sure each pronoun agree with their antecedent.
3. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
4. Verbs has to agree with their subject.
5. Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
6. Try to not split infinitives.
7. Its important to use apostrophe's correctly.
8. Proofread your writing to see if any word is out.
9. Correct spelling is esential. _Unknown
For example, this sentance has threee errors.

1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed.
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.
27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.
53 to flame the spell checkers.
156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list.
41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.
109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb
203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.
111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list.
306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.
27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.
14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs.
3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.
33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too."
12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversey.
19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.
1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.
47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for; leave it here.
143 votes for alt.lite.bulb. _{SienerthKD@vax.vmi.edu}

Here is a cautionary tale about us called The Castaways.

Here is a link to an excellent analysis of Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) by Bruce Toback.

And another to The Modern Raven by Epson Apple Poe ("Abort, Retry, Ignore").

If you want to see if you are infected with The Gullibility Virus, check here.

For a press release about IBM's new nutcracker, see here.

Finally, a list of quotations about technology from the visionaries of their time.

What gender are computers? Here are some suggestions from Ann Landers:

Men think computers should be referred to as females, just like ships, because:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative as "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, I'm certainly not going to tell you."
4. Your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
5. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

1. They have a lot of data, but they are still clueless.
2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half of the time, they ARE the problem.
3. As soon as you commit to one, you realize if you had waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.
4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
5. A big power surge will knock them out for the rest of the night. _{Creators Syndicate}

---

How did the chicken cross the road?

• NT Chicken: Will cross the road in June. No, August. September for sure.
• OS/2 Chicken: It crossed the road in style years ago, but it was so quiet that nobody noticed.
• Win 95 Chicken: You see different colored feathers while it crosses, but cook it and it still tastes like ... chicken.
• Microsoft Chicken (TM): It's already on both sides of the road. And it just bought the road.
• OOP Chicken: It doesn't need to cross the road, it just sends a message.
• Assembler Chicken: First it builds the road ...
• C Chicken: It crosses the road without looking both ways.
• C++ Chicken: The chicken wouldn't have to cross the road, you'd simply refer to him on the other side.
• VB Chicken: USHighways!TheRoad.cross (aChicken)
• Delphi Chicken: The chicken is dragged across the road and dropped on the other side.
• Java Chicken: If your road needs to be crossed by a chicken, the server will download one to the other side. (Of course, those are chicklets)
• Web Chicken: Jumps out onto the road, turns right, and just keeps on running.
• Gopher Chicken: Tried to run, but got flattened by the Web chicken.
• Newton Chicken: Can't cluck, can't fly, and can't lay eggs, but you can carry it across the road in your pocket!
• Cray Chicken: Crosses faster than any other chicken, but if you don't dip it in liquid nitrogen first, it arrives on the other side fully cooked.
• Quantum Logic Chicken: The chicken is distributed probabalistically on all sides of the road until you observe it on the side of your course.
• Lotus Chicken: Don't you *dare* try to cross the road the same way we do!
• Mac Chicken: No reasonable chicken owner would want a chicken to cross the road, so there's no way to tell it to.
• Al Gore Chicken: Waiting for completion of NCI (National Chicken-crossing Infrastructure) and will cross as soon as it's finished, assuming he's re-elected and the Republicans don't gut the program.
• COBOL Chicken: 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING.
IF NO-MORE-VEHICLES THEN
PERFORM 0010-CROSS-THE-ROAD
VARYING STEPS FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL
ON-THE-OTHER-SIDE
ELSE
GO TO 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING _{by WillMcN}

Bizarre Computer Viruses

Paul Revere Virus ~ This revolutionary virus does not horse around. It warns you of impending hard drive 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".

Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus ~ Terminates all your files, but stays resident... It'll be back.

Government Economist Virus ~ Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

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 ~ 60% of the computers infected will lose 38% of their data 14% of the time (plus or minus a 3.5% margin of error).

Congressional Virus ~ The computer locks up and the screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half, blaming the other side for the problem.

PBS Virus ~ Your programs stop every few minutes asking for money.

Star Trek Virus ~ Invades your system where no other virus has gone before.

Health Care Virus ~ Tests your most recent system upgrade for quirks and conflicts, finds nothing wrong, and then sends you a bill for $4500.

If you have questions or comments, write the:

  Author of this page: Terry Helser - helsertl@oneonta.edu
  Web Coordinator: Steve Maniscalco - maniscsj@oneonta.edu
Or return to the SUNY @ Oneonta Home Page to see where we live and work.
  Last Modified on 7/9/98