Q: How long does it take a DEC repairman to change a light bulb?
A: It depends on how many burnt out light bulbs he brought with him.

Q. What do you get when you cross a mountain-climber with a house-fly?
A. Nothing. You can't cross a scaler and a vector!

Coming soon: "WhoCarez", the world's first
Taoist programming language! See for yourself:
DO WHILE YOU FEEL IT'S WORTHWHILE
ADD X TO Y
OR
SUBTRACT X FROM Y
OR
WHATEVER
CALL DisregardResults
CALL ItIsn'tImportantAnyway
CALL PonderUniversalTruths
ASSIGN CosmicBalance = YES
OR
PERHAPS NOT
END DO (UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT TO)

(original page)

If you had a Klingon coder working on your team (but wait, there's more...):

1. "This code is a piece of crap! You have no honor!"
2. "A TRUE Klingon warrior does not comment his code!"
3. "By filing this bug you have questioned my family honor. Prepare to die!"
4. "You question the worthiness of my Code?! I should kill you where you stand!"
5. "Our competitors are without honor!"
6. "Specs are for the weak and timid!"
7. "This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!"
8. "Perhaps it IS a good day to Die! I say we ship it!"
9. "My program has just dumped Stova Core!"
10. "Behold, the keyboard of Kalis! The greatest Klingon code warrior that ever lived!"

But I disagree. Klingons prefer hand-to-hand combat to Phasers. You just know that they'd want to use a Z80 for real-time image processing.

So here is my list of things you might hear from the Klingon in the cube next to yours. (see original page).

1. "I have challenged the entire ISO-9000 review team to a round of Bat-Leth practice on the holodeck. They will not concern us again."
2. "C++? That is for children. A Klingon Warrior uses only machine code, keyed in on the front panel switches in raw binary."
3. "Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user."
4. "Defensive programming? Never! Klingon programs are always on the offense. Yes, Offensive programming is what we do best."
5. "Klingon programs don't do accountancy. For that, you need a Farengi programmer."
6. "Klingon multitasking systems do not support "time-sharing". When a Klingon program wants to run, it challenges the scheduler in hand-to-hand combat and owns the machine."
7. "Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM."
8. "You humans call this thing a 'cursor' and you move it with 'mouse'! Bah! A Klingon would not use such a device. We have a Karaghht-Gnot - which is best translated as "An Aiming Daggar of 16x16 pixels" and we move it using a Gshnarrrf which is a creature from the Klingon homeworld which posesses just one, (disproportionately large) testicle...which it rubs along the ground.....uh do we really need to talk about this?"
9. "I am without honor...my children are without honor... My father coded at the Battle of Kittimer...and...and...he...
   HE ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE MICROMANAGED."
10. "Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes'. Typically leaving a trail of wounded programmers in it's wake."
11. "Microsoft is actually a secret Farengi-Klingon alliance designed to cripple the Federation. The Farengi are doing the marketing and the Klingons are writing the code."
12. "Klingons do not believe in indentation - except perhaps in the skulls of their program managers."
13. "You can't truly appreciate Dilbert unless you read it in the original Klingon."

The boy is smoking and leaving smoke rings into the air.
The girl gets irritated with the smoke and says to her lover: "Can't you see the warning written on the cigarettes packet, smoking is injurious to health!"

The boy replies back: "Darling, I am a programmer. We don't worry about warnings, we only worry about errors."

Two geeks are talking over lunch. The first guy says "You wouldn't believe what happened this morning. A girl rode up to me on her bike, took off all her clothes, and said 'Take whatever you want!' ... So I took the bike". The second guy says "Good choice, her clothes probably wouldn't have fit you."

Programmer Brains

A man was walking past butcher's window and noticed a display detailing
the following:

Unix Programmer's Brains: $2.25/Kg
OS/2 Programmer's Brains: $4.50/Kg
Windows Programmer's Brains: $14.95/Kg

The man entered the shop and enquired as to why the cost of the Windows
programmers brains were so high.
The butcher replied: "Do you know how many Windows programmers we have to
go through to get 1 kilo's worth of brains????"

-Chris

WarpSpeed Computers - The Graham Utilities for OS/2.
Voice: +61-3-9307-0611 PO Box 212 FidoNet: 3:632/344
FAX: +61-3-9307-0633 Brunswick Internet: chrisg@warpspeed.com.au
BBS: +61-3-9307-0644 VIC 3056 CompuServe: 100250,1645
300-28,800 N,8,1 ANSI Australia Web Pages:
http://www.warpspeed.com.au
http://www.netins.net/showcase/spectre

The following was sent to the Linux Journal Editor by an anonymous contributor.

Torvalds, Linus- ... historians generally agree was an actual person and completed a large portion of the programming used to develop the positronic brain sometime before the earliest recorded history. A number of programs have been copied from active positronic memory and have been proven to be based on the galactic standard programming language VM (vit-min) C. The memory patterns include references to the genetic programmer Linus (la-news) Pauling and have revealed where Torvalds named the earliest cores of the positronic brain for the VM C language. Torvalds is universally regarded by historians as the greatest linguist of the core development project. Torvalds was known to have mastered all of the known languages of the time while working in an advanced development laboratory called the Swiss (s-weex) Patent Office of Pari (par-ee) and selected the VM C core in preference to the previous Finn language from predecessors Norway (Turbo-C) and Sweden (ANSI-C). Torvald's mastery of the language in the VM C core is regarded galaxy wide as the reason for the estimated 100,000 year uptime for the original positronic brains. The X Law of Robotics burned into all positronic brains has been found still undecoded in currently functioning examples of the oldest portion of the memory used by the LinuX kerning (coy-nah). Historians are unanimous in identifying Torvalds as the most ingenious programmer in galactic history.

A grade school teacher was asking his pupils what their parents did for a living. "Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?"
Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."
"That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?"
Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."
"Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?"
Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."

The teacher was aghast and went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy's father answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said and demanded an explanation. Billy's dad said, "I'm actually a system programmer specializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. How can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"

Proper Diskette Care and Usage

(1) Never leave diskettes in the drive, as the 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 may be removed by waving a powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn metal shavings can be removed with scouring powder and steel wool. When waxing a diskette, 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" 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 a photo copy machine. If your data is going to need to be backed up, simply insert TWO diskettes into your drive. Whenever you update a document, the data will be written onto both disks. A handy tip for more legible backup copies: Keep a container of iron filings at your desk. When you need to make two copies, sprinkle iron filings liberally between the diskettes before inserting them into the drive.

(6) Diskettes should not be removed or inserted from the drive while the red light is on or 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 to access the slot.

(7) If your diskette is full and needs more storage space, remove the disk from the drive and shake vigourously for two minutes. This will pack the data enough (data compression) to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all openings with scotch tape to prevent loss of data.

(8) Data access time may be greatly improved by cutting more holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more simultaneous access points to the disk.

(9) Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent system bugs from spreading.....

(10) You can keep your data fresh by storing disks in the vegetable compartment of your refrigerator. Disks may be frozen, but remember to un thaw by microwaving or briefly immersing in boiling water.

(11) "Little" diskettes must be removed from their box prior to use. These containers are childproof to prevent tampering by unknowledgeable youngsters.

(12) You can recover data from a damaged disk by using the DOS command: FORMAT /U or alternatively by scratching new sector marks on the disk with a nail file.

(13) Diskettes become "hard" with age. It's important to back up your "hard" disks before they become too brittle to use.

(14) Make sure you label your data. Staples are a good way to permanently affix labels to your disks.