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Tag Archives: computer
A High Tech Prayer
As I boot up my PC,
my modem dailing next to me,
I ask the Lord, give me a sign….
Will I ever get on-line?
If you’d kindly let me through,
I’ll byte no more than I can chew.
I’ll surf the waves amid the Net,
with my mouse, my loyal pet.
And through each window I will see
the websites that are offered me.
Resisting any chat room’s lure,
I’ll download only what is pure.
If system errors don’t prevail,
I vow to read all my e-mail.
If you save me from a crash,
I’ll dump my games into the trash.
And please don’t take my CD-ROM!
Thank you Lord, God Bless.com
High Tech Outlaws
- Son of SIMM: His random acts of murder (RAM) are some of the most shocking in recent memory. Hates his motherboard.
- Billy the CAD: Fastest drawing program in the West.
- Pretty eBay Floyd: Modern-day Robin Hood auctions faux antiques to the rich and donates the spoils to failing dot-coms.
- Bugsy C++-gul: A good coder gone bad.
- Ted Bondi Blue: Set out to write a virus to attack Power Macs and iMacs but switched to PCs when he discovered VBScript.
- James URL Ray: Assassinated the leader of the 32-bit color coalition.
- Hack the Ripper: Brutally rips MP3s and burns them to CDs. Displays total disregard for copyright laws.
- SCSI Borden: Gave her mother 40 Macs.
- John Dellinger: Escaped from prison brandishing a Latitude carved from soap.
- John WAN Gacy: Your child’s worst nightmare: A network administrator, a basement, and a clown suit.
- Baby FaceBook Nelson: Worst criminal of them all. Well known for stealing time and identities. Wields a lethal Poke.
Hacker Tarot Cards
a manager using a SPARCStation 413,1432 to run a screensaver.
a hacker with a Mac, a Pentium box, a Sparc, and a Cray on the table in front of him — all running the same program with the same GUI. An infinity sign is over his head.
a woman holding the Documentation, closed and concealed. The crescent moon is showing on an Indigo behind her.
Steve Jobs sitting on a NeXT cube, holding an optical disk vertically in his hand.
A secretary with a NeXT Machine.
Bill Gates with two flunkies kneeling before him, their faces averted, offering him floppy disks. He wears a laptop computer on his head.
a PowerMAC and an IBM Power PC exchanging software as an angel bathed in glory regards them.
A man in a chariot, hurtling up an exponential curve, drawn by the twin sphinxes of Technology (black) and Culture (white).
A woman holding the entire design and implementation of Microsoft Excel in her mind as she corrects the final error. An infinity sign is over her head.
An old hacker, white-bearded, burns the midnight oil; its Star-of-David flame illuminates his keyboard.
A rotating wheel. Cray is on the side going down, despite its good technology; Smalltalk is opposite it, and C++ is sitting on top. Four winged beings — a mouse, a turtle, a dog-cow, and a human — look on.
A cold-faced woman holds a calculator in one hand and a delete- key in the other.
A programmer is tied by his ankle to a cable duct. His phase is completely shifted: he awakens at sunset, he sleeps at dawn. His monitor is reverse-video. He programs on, flawlessly, oblivious to his circumstances.
A skeleton weilding a scythe surveys a field, on which are scattered PDP-11s, Apple ][‘s, IBM 360/91’s, Xerox Alto’s, and many other machines.
An angel stands with one foot on her chair and one on the floor, as she copies files from one disk to another. A cursor blinks from her chest.
The goat-headed Lord of the Pit stands on a pile of Windows manuals, holding an inverted torch in one hand. Two humans, male and female, are in chains at his feet.
An ivory tower is struck by a bolt of lightning. Two robed figures, denied tenure, are hurled to the ground.
A Mac is running its `warp’ screen saver, in a transient fragile moment of peace.
A wolf and a jackal are typing at two PC’s. A crayfish crawls out of a pool, offering suggestions that may ultimately prove deadly. The moon shines through a window.
A naked child riding a winged rocking horse programs clever applications on a high-quality workstation.
An angel blows a trumpet; all over the net, web pages arise, to be rated Cool or not.
A woman dances on the clouds, unclothed, unencumbered, in a ring of clouds, a 3-d mouse in each hand. The four winged beings from the Wheel of Fortune surround her.
Ten Signs Your Co-Worker is a Computer Hacker
- You ticked him off once and your next phone bill was for $20,000.
- He’s won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes 3 years running.
- When asked for his phone number, he gives it in hex.
- Seems strangely calm whenever the office LAN goes down.
- Somehow gets HBO on his PC at work.
- Mumbled, “Oh, puh-leeez” 95 times during the movie “The Net”.
- Massive 401k contribution made in half-cent increments.
- His video dating profile lists “public-key encryption” among turn-ons.
- For his welcome voice on AOL, you hear, “Good Morning, Mr. President”.
- You hear him murmur, “Let’s see you use that Visa now, Professor-Don’t-Give-A’s-In-Computer-Science!”
Yorn uh Goood O’l Boy Ifin…
Yorn uh goood O’l Boy ifin yah tink tha follin:
- LOG ON: Makin a wood stove hotter.
- LOG OFF: Don’t add no more wood.
- MONITOR: Keepin an eye on the wood stove.
- DOWNLOAD: Gettin the farwood off the truk.
- MEGA HERTZ: When yer not kerful gettin the farwood.
- FLOPPY DISC: Whatcha git from tryin to carry too much farwood.
- RAM: That thar thing whut splits the farwood.
- HARD DRIVE: Gettin home in the winter time.
- PROMPT: Whut the mail ain’t in the winter time.
- WINDOWS: Whut to shut wen it’s cold outside.
- SCREEN: Whut to shut wen it’s blak fly season.
- BYTE: Whut them flys do.
- CHIP: Munchies fer the TV.
- MICRO CHIP: Whut’s in the bottom of the munchie bag.
- MODEM: Whut cha did to the hay fields.
- DOT MATRIX: Old Dan Matrix’s wife.
- LAP TOP: Whar the kitty sleeps.
- KEYBOARD: Whar ya hang the keys.
- SOFTWARE: Them plastic forks and knifs.
- MOUSE: Whut eats the grain in the barn.
- MAINFRAME: Holds up the barn roof.
- PORT: Fancy Flatlander wine
- ENTER: Northerner talk fer “C’mon in y’all”
- RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: Wen ya cain’t ‘member whut ya paid fer the rifle when yore wife asks.
- MOUSE PAD: That hippie talk fer the rat hole.
Going Outside
Face it, you’re gonna have to go outside eventually. Sure, Amazon.com will deliver right to your door and now even Taco Bell does deliveries, but, mark my words: some day you’re going to HAVE to push away from the computer and go … OUTSIDE!!! Here’s a guide:
- Wear pants
Countless attempts to better oneself have been cut tragically short by leaving the house without proper attire. - Use your real name
Sorry, but nobody will be impressed if you go by the name “2HOT4U”, “Monarch” or “SATAN666.” Names like “Steve” or “Greg” are just fine. - The telephone is your friend
Hear that ringing sound? Pick up the phone. Now speak into it. - If your car crashes, you cannot simply reboot it.
- Do not be surprised that nobody looks like Gillian Anderson or Emma Stone.
- Do not flame people
Comparing everyone you disagree with to unclean primates will not win you friends. In fact, you may get into a physical fight. If so, the next tip may be of help. - That Red Stuff is Called Blood
Not to be confused with ketchup, blood is what keeps you alive. If you are leaking, the real world offers human tech support in the form of doctors and hospitals.
God and IBM
In the beginning, there was chaos and the Universe was without form and void. The Lord looked upon His domain and decided to declare His presence. “I be” he said, then to correct his grammar added “am.” If the Lord had decided to work on irregular verb conjugation first, this wouldn’t have happened. God would later curse the English language for its part, but in that moment IBM came into being. The Lord looked out upon the IBM He had created and said “This is good.” That’s what He said, but He shook his head, wondered what the boys at the User Group would say, split the light from the dark and went to bed. Thus passed the Beginning and the end of the first day.
On the second day, the Lord summoned IBM unto His presence. “There is chaos out there, and the Universe is without form and void. I must correct this and I can use your help. Is there anything you can do for me?”
“I can take care of form,” IBM replied. “Put me in charge of computers and I will take care of form for you.”
The Lord thought that this was good and said “Let there be computers. Let IBM have my powers of creation that pertain to computers and form.” Thus saying, the Lord went off to His second day’s work while IBM created the 1401.
On the third day, while the Lord was out, IBM decided to subdivide the assgined task. “Let there be systems that make the computer work and let them be called Operating Systems. Let there also be systems that make use of the computer and let them be called Application Systems.” Thus, there came into being both Operating Systems and Application Systems, but there were no programmers.
The next morning IBM had to give the Lord a status report.
“What did you do yesterday?” the Lord asked.
“I invented the operating system” IBM replied.
“You did?” the Lord shuddered. “Oh dear.”
“Yes I did,” IBM confirmed, “but I find I need something you alone can provide.”
“And what is that?”
“I need programmers to use my computers, to operate my operating system and to apply my applications.”
“That can’t be done now,” said the Lord. “This is only the fourth day and there won’t be people until the sixth day.”
“I need programmers and I need them now. If they can’t be people they can’t be people, but we have to work this out today.”
“Give me some specifications and I’ll see what I can do.” IBM hastily worked up specs for programmers (are specs ever anything other than hasty) and the Lord reviewed them. The Lord knew the specs weren’t sufficient but followed them anyway. He also made some programmers that did just what programmers were supposed to do, just to spite IBM. The programmers and IBM spent the rest of the day creating the Assembler and FORTRAN. On the morning of the fifth day, IBM reported to the Lord once again.
“The programmers you created for me have a problem. They want a programming language that is easy to use and similar to English. I told them you had cursed English, though I still don’t know why. They wanted me to ask your indulgence on this.”
The Lord had cursed English for good reason, but didn’t want to explain this to IBM. He said “let there be COBOL” and that was that.
On the status report of the next day IBM announced that computers had gone forth and multiplied. Unfortunately, the computers still weren’t big enough or fast enough to do what the programmers wanted. The Lord liked the idea of going forth multiplying, and used the line Himself later on that day. This sixth day being particularly busy, He declared “Let there be MVS” and there was MVS.
On the seventh day God had finished creation and computers had COBOL and MVS. The Lord and IBM took the day off to go fishing. IBM hung a sign on the door to help programmers in his absence.
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED,
TRY, TRY AGAIN –
AND HAVE THE FOLLOWING READY
BEFORE CALLING IBM.
On the start of the second week the programmers went over IBM’s cathode ray tube directly to God. “We have a horrible problem,” they complained. “Our users want systems that perform according to their expectations.”
“USERS!” the Lord bellowed. “Who said that you should have users! Users are the difference between good and bad applications, a function I have reserved unto myself! Who authorized you to have users?”
“Well, IBM…”
“IBM!! You!! You did this to my programmers! You gave them the knowledge of good and evil. For that you shall suffer through eternity! Let there be competition. Let it be called Anacom, and Burroughs, and CDC.” The Lord went through the alphabet several times. “With all this competition you shall still suffer the pain of antitrust legislation all the days of your existence.”
This was the start of the second week, and it seems an appropriate place to conclude our report. In case you missed something, a summary of key points follows.
- Users and their needs are and always have been a subject of dispute.
- Nobody can learn English because it is cursed by God. IBM manuals are doubly cursed and therefore twice as hard to understand.
- Of the programming languages, only COBOL can claim divine origin.
- People are people, but programmers are something else.
- Computers may be a gift from heaven, but there’s no divine help in getting them to work.
- Because of IBM’s initial assignment, there are more forms than anyone knows what to do with.
- Finally, chaos was part of the original state of the Universe and not a product of the data processing industry.
About That Glass Next to the Keyboard
I’m sure you’ve heard the old story referring to optimism and pessimism that is determined by whther you think the glass is half-empty or half-full. Here are the reactions when somebody leaves a half glass of milk next to the keyboard.
- Optimist:
The glass is half full. - Pessimist:
The glass is half empty. - Apple Computer:
You guys really oughta be drinking Perrier. - Assembly programmers:
No thanks; I drink straight from the cow. - Basic programmers:
No thanks; I’m still breast feeding. - Bill Gates:
Not enough market share to be Microsoft Milk. - C Programmers:
No thanks; I drink straight from the jug. - CIA:
What makes you think that’s milk? - National news media:
Hey, we wanted OJ! - Non-procedural language programmers:
I drank it when nobody was looking. - NSA:
We know what it really is. - Paranoid:
Here is a glass just sitting here. Why? Who put it here?
WHY WHY WHY!!! SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!! - Pascal programmers:
Well, what type of milk is it? - Pentium users:
I drank Glass * .49999999 . . . but don’t hold me to that. - Prolog programmers:
I know I drank it – just don’t ask me how. - Copy protection crazies:
Somebody drank half my milk and didn’t pay for it! - Faith-healer:
If we worship it, it will feel better. - Feminist:
How come HIS glass is bigger than MINE? - Free Software Foundation:
That milk is the cow’s contribution to all mankind! - Futurist:
The milk’s in the wrong half of the glass. - Fuzzy logic guys:
I may or may not have drunk some part of that milk. - IBM:
Rent the glass from us and we’ll fill it with something we know is
good for you. - Idealist:
In a decent world, this glass would be filled to the brim and big
enough for everyone to enjoy. - IRS:
Thanks for getting your milk witholding correct this year. - Mac users:
Where’s my pump? - MIS:
I’LL DRINK IT IF YOU CAN GIVE ME UNTIL NEXT YEAR. - Schroedinger:
That stupid cat got into the milk again! - Security consultant:
Where’d the rest of the milk go? - Shareware game author:
That glass is free; the next one you have to pay for. - UI designers:
What’s that crap in my glass? - UNIX users:
Nahh … too easy. - Windows users:
Where’s my straw?
Gifts for the Computer Addict
Are you having a hard time finding the right gift for the computer addict whose PC has everything? Not another Dilbert necktie, or King’s Quest XLVIII. Try one of these.
- CD-ROM rewinder. (For blondes only.)
- Virtual reality beer.
- NoseBlaster smell card — the latest in multi-media technology. The deluxe version comes with direct-feed nostril tubes for the ultimate in virtual olfactory experience.
- True-Type font modeled on their handwriting. The last word in non-reversible encryption. (May not be exported from the country.)
- 72-inch monitor.
- 20-foot mouse extension cord – a must for the 72-inch monitor.
- Michael Jackson-to-Michael Jackson Morph screen saver — endless variations.
- Bedpan — Why leave your computer just for that? (Not for use with NoseBlaster.)