Collage 373: Computer Humour
Posted: 8/26/2000 3:04:09 PMBy: Comfortably Anonymous
Times Read: 1,822
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Topic: Humor
Collage 373 H u m o u r N e t 17 Oct 1997
Excuses, excuses ...
Another week passes, and still no time to put together the Annual
Unsubscription Fee(tMS) Collage. Be patient; it's coming ...
(And the longer I procras^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wait, the more material I
collect!)
However, I haven't been *entirely* quiet on the mailing list front;
this past week, I launched a new list dedicated to news, information,
lies, rumors, libel, and spirited discussion of Apple's soon-to-be-
released* Rhapsody operating system.
If you are interested in the Rhapsody operating system, you are
welcome to join us on the discussion list (yes, there is a digest
mode available, as well). Take your pick of subscription methods:
Web:
E-mail:
In subject line or body: subscribe rhapsody your_name
* "Soon": Sometime before the Cassini space probe (which failed
miserably in its mission to irradiate the inhabitants of the Earth
this past week#) reaches Alpha Centauri.
# So much for blithering-idiot hype.
And since this has been yet another GeekWeek(tMS) for me, it's time
for -- you guessed it! -- yet another Computer Humour Collage!
Alan in Columbus, Georgia, starts this one off with the utterly
hysterical "AT&T Customer Service Memorandum" (you Unix geeks will
appreciate this one);
Kevin in the U.K. takes credit for "A Glossary of Your PC's
Messages";
Bill K. sends us "No Wonder They Call[ed] It 'Wow!'";
St. John in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, follows up the piece in
Collage 324 entitled "A Compiler With A Sense of Humor" with his
additions in "More Geek Humour From Apple";
John in Virginia continues the Collage 324 follow-ups with "Fast
Guns: The Adventure Continues";
Lee in Federal Way, Washington, pursues the Collage 324 theme
a little farther with "Fast Guns: The Adventure Drags On";
Danny, somewhere in or near College Park, Maryland, brings us yet
another programming language synopsis with "Continuing the
Programming Language Survey: INTERCAL";
and Martz in London, England, brings us "Macceleration," one of the
best jabs at the Mac since "Most Applications Crash; If Not, The
Operating System Hangs." (Collage 209)
A huge "THANKS!" to our contributors for some really good material
in this Collage.
Happy bytes!
- Vince Sabio
HumourNet Moderator
HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
Opener (above) Copyright 1997 by Vincent Sabio
Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________
SUBJ: AT&T Customer Service Memorandum
Please stop submitting complaints. This is our system. We designed
it, we built it, and we use it more than you do. Forget about your
silly problem; instead, let's take a look at some of the *features*
of your AT&T computer system:
* Options
We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you would need two
strong people to carry around the documentation if we had bothered
to write it. So many that even we don't know what most of them do.
If you don't like it, call Technologies. They'll tell you to see
Figure 1.
* Integrated Voice and Data
What the heck is integrated voice and data? All it means is that you
can talk on the phone while you are typing on your terminal. So what
if the terminal and the phone aren't integrated; that's not what we
advertise. Besides, you probably can't even walk and chew gum at the
same time, much less talk and type. If you can, see Figure 1.
* Unix
We invented it; it's perfect, and we're the only ones who do it
right. We're so happy with it, we put it on every kind of computer
we make. If you want a computer with a stable file system, get a
VAX. Another thing: Those nerds from Berkeley are just troublemaking
hackers who have a productivity complex. They took our operating
system and made it useful, so we told them to see Figure 1.
* Applications Software
We give you MS-word; what else do you want? So what if it is a
clumsy port from another operating system, it works doesn't it?
Well, okay, it sort of works. If you want applications software, get
a Macintosh. We spoke with our applications software people about
this, and they think a lot like we do; they said "see Figure 1."
* Shells
We have two shells; one we sell and one we use. The Bourne shell is
plenty good for trivial little hacks, which is all you do anyway.
Don't ask for the Korn shell either. It's great, everybody at AT&T
has a copy, but we won't give it to you. Besides, if you want to do
anything important, write it in C. We told our shell programmers to
see Figure 1 a long time ago.
* The C Programming Language
We like it so much we named a book after it. You can do anything our
machines can do, which is not very much. Where else can you put so
much unreadable code in such a small space? Besides, you probably
should be programming in the shell anyway; C is too hard for you.
We've already told all our C programmers to see Figure 1.
* Support
We have thousands of service people out there, but most of them are
busy. If your computer breaks, you will just have to wait. Our techs
are rehashed phone installers, so don't expect them to be very
helpful unless it involves tip and ring. If you need real support,
see Figure 1.
In conclusion, stuff your complaint. Love your AT&T computer or
leave it, but don't complain to us. We don't care. We don't have to.
We're the phone company. If you don't like it, you know what to do.
[Editor's Note: "Figure 1," which appears at the bottom in the
original text, is a "universally-recognized hand signal." ;-) ]
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: A Glossary of Your PC's Messages
By Kevin Pease
It says: "Press Any Key"
It means: "Press any key you like but I'm not moving."
It says: "Press A Key"
(This one's a programmers joke. Nothing happens unless you press the
"A" key.)
It says: "Fatal Error. Please contact technical support quoting
error no. 1A4-2546512430E"
It means: "... where you will be kept on hold for 10 minutes, only
to be told that it's a hardware problem."
It says: "Installing program to C:\...."
It means: "... And I'll also be writing a few files into c:\windows
and c:\windows\system where you'll NEVER find them."
It says: "Please insert disk 11"
It means: "Because I know darn well there are only 10 disks."
It says: "Not enough memory"
It means: "I don't CARE if you've got 64MB of RAM, I want to use the
bit below 640K."
It says: "Cannot read from drive D:...."
It means: "... However, if you put the CD in right side up..."
It says: "Please Wait...."
It means: "... Indefinitely."
It says: "Directory does not exist...."
It means: ".... any more. Whoops."
It says: "The application caused an error. Choose Ignore or Close."
It means: "....Makes no difference to me, you're still not getting
your work back."
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: No Wonder They Call[ed] It "Wow!"
I'd had WOW!(tm) from Compuserve(tm) for about two or three months,
when all of a sudden my e-mail stopped working. I decided to wait a
week or two before calling WOW(tm)'s tech support, just to see if it
would get fixed soon. Finally, I called tech support and told them
what was happening.
Their rep asked how much RAM I had; I told her 16 meg. Then she
asked how much was free. I was wondering, "Now how the ..?"
When she realized I didn't know how to do that she said, "Okay here,
I'll walk you through this. I have a sheet of instructions. First:
open MY COMPUTER, then click the hard drive once. Look at the part
at the bottom of the window ... what does it say under free space?"
WOW! NOW I HAVE 750 MEG OF FREE RAM! Woo-Hoo!
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: More Geek Humour From Apple
Excerpted from the Newton Programmer's Guide:
pp. 10-4, 10-5: Creating Sound Frames Procedurally: The samples slot
in a sound frame as returned by the functions GetSound or GetSound11
does not contain the binary sample data itself. It actually contains
a pointer to this data in your application package. You cannot write
to this slot because in doing so you are actually trying to write to
read-only package data. Do not do this; it wastes your time and
annoys the ROM.
pg. 12-43: The Target Slot: The target slot contains the soup entry
with which the user is working, such as the current card, note, or
caffeine record to be filed.
Of course Apple has always had the most joke-laden manuals. I
remember the boot code in the Apple II's ROM, which was generously
listed in the old spiral-bound manuals. One comment read "Code
from this point on is sacred. It should not be changed." (The 6502
took a little extra time to cross a page boundary, if anyone's
interested.) A little later a comment read "Code from this point on
is no longer sacred. It may be perverted in any manner by any
pervert." There are others, but I've forgotten them over the years.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Fast Guns: The Adventure Continues
Java:
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, everyone else can shoot
you in the foot, too.
JavaScript:
You can point the gun at your foot, and pull the trigger, but you
don't have access to the bullets.
HTML (W3 standard):
HTML (NS Extension):
CALIBER=.357
BULLET_TYPE=HOLLOWPOINT
TARGET="#foot"
Ouchie! My foot!
(Of course, to shoot someone else in the foot,
TARGET="http://www.appendage.com/Vince/Foot"
and the owner of TARGET must have a compatible browser.)
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Fast Guns: The Adventure Drags On
Java: Creating a class Gun will allow you to shoot your foot in a
leisurely manner on machines running the MacOS, Solaris, Linux,
Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Shooting your foot on a Windows 3.x machine clicks on an empty
chamber.
Shooting your foot in Internet Explorer results in a hole in your
head.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Continuing the Programming Language Survey: INTERCAL
Intercal combines the succinctness of assembly language, the
syntactic rigor of SNOBOL, the readability of FORTRAN, the
input/output model of LISP, line numbers from BASIC ... in short,
all the worst features of computer languages.
From Don Woods's Intercal manual:
INTERCAL's main advantage over other programming languages is its
strict simplicity. It has few capabilities, and thus there are few
restrictions to be kept in mind. Since it is an exceedingly easy
language to learn, one might expect it would be a good language for
initiating novice programmers. Perhaps surprising, than, is the fact
that it would be more likely to initiate a novice into a search for
another line of work. As it turns out, INTERCAL is more useful
(which isn't saying much) as a challenge to professional
programmers.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Macceleration
Q: What's the best way to accelerate a Mac?
A: 9.81 m/s^2
********************************************************************
Anyone Without a Sense of Humor Is At The Mercy of The Rest of Us.
********************************************************************
Excuses, excuses ...
Another week passes, and still no time to put together the Annual
Unsubscription Fee(tMS) Collage. Be patient; it's coming ...
(And the longer I procras^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wait, the more material I
collect!)
However, I haven't been *entirely* quiet on the mailing list front;
this past week, I launched a new list dedicated to news, information,
lies, rumors, libel, and spirited discussion of Apple's soon-to-be-
released* Rhapsody operating system.
If you are interested in the Rhapsody operating system, you are
welcome to join us on the discussion list (yes, there is a digest
mode available, as well). Take your pick of subscription methods:
Web:
E-mail:
In subject line or body: subscribe rhapsody your_name
* "Soon": Sometime before the Cassini space probe (which failed
miserably in its mission to irradiate the inhabitants of the Earth
this past week#) reaches Alpha Centauri.
# So much for blithering-idiot hype.
And since this has been yet another GeekWeek(tMS) for me, it's time
for -- you guessed it! -- yet another Computer Humour Collage!
Alan in Columbus, Georgia, starts this one off with the utterly
hysterical "AT&T Customer Service Memorandum" (you Unix geeks will
appreciate this one);
Kevin in the U.K. takes credit for "A Glossary of Your PC's
Messages";
Bill K. sends us "No Wonder They Call[ed] It 'Wow!'";
St. John in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, follows up the piece in
Collage 324 entitled "A Compiler With A Sense of Humor" with his
additions in "More Geek Humour From Apple";
John in Virginia continues the Collage 324 follow-ups with "Fast
Guns: The Adventure Continues";
Lee in Federal Way, Washington, pursues the Collage 324 theme
a little farther with "Fast Guns: The Adventure Drags On";
Danny, somewhere in or near College Park, Maryland, brings us yet
another programming language synopsis with "Continuing the
Programming Language Survey: INTERCAL";
and Martz in London, England, brings us "Macceleration," one of the
best jabs at the Mac since "Most Applications Crash; If Not, The
Operating System Hangs." (Collage 209)
A huge "THANKS!" to our contributors for some really good material
in this Collage.
Happy bytes!
- Vince Sabio
HumourNet Moderator
HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
Opener (above) Copyright 1997 by Vincent Sabio
Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________
SUBJ: AT&T Customer Service Memorandum
Please stop submitting complaints. This is our system. We designed
it, we built it, and we use it more than you do. Forget about your
silly problem; instead, let's take a look at some of the *features*
of your AT&T computer system:
* Options
We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you would need two
strong people to carry around the documentation if we had bothered
to write it. So many that even we don't know what most of them do.
If you don't like it, call Technologies. They'll tell you to see
Figure 1.
* Integrated Voice and Data
What the heck is integrated voice and data? All it means is that you
can talk on the phone while you are typing on your terminal. So what
if the terminal and the phone aren't integrated; that's not what we
advertise. Besides, you probably can't even walk and chew gum at the
same time, much less talk and type. If you can, see Figure 1.
* Unix
We invented it; it's perfect, and we're the only ones who do it
right. We're so happy with it, we put it on every kind of computer
we make. If you want a computer with a stable file system, get a
VAX. Another thing: Those nerds from Berkeley are just troublemaking
hackers who have a productivity complex. They took our operating
system and made it useful, so we told them to see Figure 1.
* Applications Software
We give you MS-word; what else do you want? So what if it is a
clumsy port from another operating system, it works doesn't it?
Well, okay, it sort of works. If you want applications software, get
a Macintosh. We spoke with our applications software people about
this, and they think a lot like we do; they said "see Figure 1."
* Shells
We have two shells; one we sell and one we use. The Bourne shell is
plenty good for trivial little hacks, which is all you do anyway.
Don't ask for the Korn shell either. It's great, everybody at AT&T
has a copy, but we won't give it to you. Besides, if you want to do
anything important, write it in C. We told our shell programmers to
see Figure 1 a long time ago.
* The C Programming Language
We like it so much we named a book after it. You can do anything our
machines can do, which is not very much. Where else can you put so
much unreadable code in such a small space? Besides, you probably
should be programming in the shell anyway; C is too hard for you.
We've already told all our C programmers to see Figure 1.
* Support
We have thousands of service people out there, but most of them are
busy. If your computer breaks, you will just have to wait. Our techs
are rehashed phone installers, so don't expect them to be very
helpful unless it involves tip and ring. If you need real support,
see Figure 1.
In conclusion, stuff your complaint. Love your AT&T computer or
leave it, but don't complain to us. We don't care. We don't have to.
We're the phone company. If you don't like it, you know what to do.
[Editor's Note: "Figure 1," which appears at the bottom in the
original text, is a "universally-recognized hand signal." ;-) ]
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: A Glossary of Your PC's Messages
By Kevin Pease
It says: "Press Any Key"
It means: "Press any key you like but I'm not moving."
It says: "Press A Key"
(This one's a programmers joke. Nothing happens unless you press the
"A" key.)
It says: "Fatal Error. Please contact technical support quoting
error no. 1A4-2546512430E"
It means: "... where you will be kept on hold for 10 minutes, only
to be told that it's a hardware problem."
It says: "Installing program to C:\
It means: "... And I'll also be writing a few files into c:\windows
and c:\windows\system where you'll NEVER find them."
It says: "Please insert disk 11"
It means: "Because I know darn well there are only 10 disks."
It says: "Not enough memory"
It means: "I don't CARE if you've got 64MB of RAM, I want to use the
bit below 640K."
It says: "Cannot read from drive D:...."
It means: "... However, if you put the CD in right side up..."
It says: "Please Wait...."
It means: "... Indefinitely."
It says: "Directory does not exist...."
It means: ".... any more. Whoops."
It says: "The application caused an error. Choose Ignore or Close."
It means: "....Makes no difference to me, you're still not getting
your work back."
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: No Wonder They Call[ed] It "Wow!"
I'd had WOW!(tm) from Compuserve(tm) for about two or three months,
when all of a sudden my e-mail stopped working. I decided to wait a
week or two before calling WOW(tm)'s tech support, just to see if it
would get fixed soon. Finally, I called tech support and told them
what was happening.
Their rep asked how much RAM I had; I told her 16 meg. Then she
asked how much was free. I was wondering, "Now how the ..?"
When she realized I didn't know how to do that she said, "Okay here,
I'll walk you through this. I have a sheet of instructions. First:
open MY COMPUTER, then click the hard drive once. Look at the part
at the bottom of the window ... what does it say under free space?"
WOW! NOW I HAVE 750 MEG OF FREE RAM! Woo-Hoo!
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: More Geek Humour From Apple
Excerpted from the Newton Programmer's Guide:
pp. 10-4, 10-5: Creating Sound Frames Procedurally: The samples slot
in a sound frame as returned by the functions GetSound or GetSound11
does not contain the binary sample data itself. It actually contains
a pointer to this data in your application package. You cannot write
to this slot because in doing so you are actually trying to write to
read-only package data. Do not do this; it wastes your time and
annoys the ROM.
pg. 12-43: The Target Slot: The target slot contains the soup entry
with which the user is working, such as the current card, note, or
caffeine record to be filed.
Of course Apple has always had the most joke-laden manuals. I
remember the boot code in the Apple II's ROM, which was generously
listed in the old spiral-bound manuals. One comment read "Code
from this point on is sacred. It should not be changed." (The 6502
took a little extra time to cross a page boundary, if anyone's
interested.) A little later a comment read "Code from this point on
is no longer sacred. It may be perverted in any manner by any
pervert." There are others, but I've forgotten them over the years.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Fast Guns: The Adventure Continues
Java:
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, everyone else can shoot
you in the foot, too.
JavaScript:
You can point the gun at your foot, and pull the trigger, but you
don't have access to the bullets.
HTML (W3 standard):
HTML (NS Extension):
BULLET_TYPE=HOLLOWPOINT
TARGET="#foot"
(Of course, to shoot someone else in the foot,
TARGET="http://www.appendage.com/Vince/Foot"
and the owner of TARGET must have a compatible browser.)
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Fast Guns: The Adventure Drags On
Java: Creating a class Gun will allow you to shoot your foot in a
leisurely manner on machines running the MacOS, Solaris, Linux,
Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Shooting your foot on a Windows 3.x machine clicks on an empty
chamber.
Shooting your foot in Internet Explorer results in a hole in your
head.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Continuing the Programming Language Survey: INTERCAL
Intercal combines the succinctness of assembly language, the
syntactic rigor of SNOBOL, the readability of FORTRAN, the
input/output model of LISP, line numbers from BASIC ... in short,
all the worst features of computer languages.
From Don Woods's Intercal manual:
INTERCAL's main advantage over other programming languages is its
strict simplicity. It has few capabilities, and thus there are few
restrictions to be kept in mind. Since it is an exceedingly easy
language to learn, one might expect it would be a good language for
initiating novice programmers. Perhaps surprising, than, is the fact
that it would be more likely to initiate a novice into a search for
another line of work. As it turns out, INTERCAL is more useful
(which isn't saying much) as a challenge to professional
programmers.
========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================
SUBJ: Macceleration
Q: What's the best way to accelerate a Mac?
A: 9.81 m/s^2
********************************************************************
Anyone Without a Sense of Humor Is At The Mercy of The Rest of Us.
********************************************************************
Rating: (You must be logged in to vote)