ID: 16744
Tech
As part of a class project, the teacher had every student create a model rocket. When she was teaching them about how the rockets lift into the air, some kids seemed to be confused. She scolded them yelling, "It's not that hard! It's not rocket science!"
ID: 14375
Tech
A plain computer illeterate SARDAR rings tech support to report that his computer is faulty.
Tech: What's the problem?
Sardaar: There is smoke coming out of the power supply.
Tech: You'll need a new power supply.
Sardaar: No, I don't! I just need to change the startup files.
Tech: Sir, the power supply is faulty. You'll need to replace it.
Sardaar: No way! Someone told me that I just needed to change the startup and it will fix the problem! All I need is for you to tell me the command.
10 minutes later, the Sardaar is still adamant that he is right. The tech is frustrated and fed up.
Tech: Sorry, Sir. We don't normally tell our customers this, but there is an undocumented DOS command that will fix the problem.
Sardaar: I knew it!
Tech: Just add the line LOAD NOSMOKE.COM at the end of the CONFIG.SYS. Le me know how it goes.
10 minutes later.
Sardaar: It didn't work. The power supply is still smoking.
Tech: Well, what version of DOS are you using?
Sardaar: MS-DOS 6.22.
Tech: That's your problem there. That version of DOS didn't come with NOSMOKE. Contact Microsoft and ask them for a patch that will give you the file. Let me know how it goes.
1 hour later.
Sardaar: I need a new power supply.
Tech: How did you come to that conclusion?
Sardaar: Well, I rang Microsoft and told him about what you said, and he started asking questions about the make of power supply.
Tech: Then what did he say?
Sardaar: He told me that my power supply isn't compatible with NOSMOKE.COM
ID: 14766
Tech
There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand.
This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely.
If you should come into contact with WORK, put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.
You should forward this warning to five friends. If you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.
ID: 13438
Tech
Google Products We'll Never See
11. Google Hitman Assistant - Find, schedule, and collect on all your assassinations with this suite of products.
10. Googlearchy - Tired of democracy? Install the government that everyone loves without annoying pop-up ads.
9. Google Smite - An extension of Google Earth uses laser beams attached to the satellites to exact revenge or just have some fun for paid subscribers.
8. Google Carnage - Use real-time satellite images to zoom in and see car, train, or plane crashes and other disasters.
7. Google Ogle - The hottest unsecured webcams on the Internet.
6. Googlebator - Used with Google Ogle, it's our first attempt at hardware.
5. Google Alibi - Paid service that will provide you with a credible account for your whereabouts.
4. Google Telegraph - Dash-Dot, Dash-Dash-Dash, Dash.
3. Google Gaggle - The only search engine for geese.
2. Google Invading Force - Some pesky third world country got you down? Send in the troops with Google's new troop management tool.
1. Gogoel - Search, for dyslexics.
ID: 16131
Tech
Beyond the Hype (Guardian, August 25, 1995)
Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, argues Windows 95 does not cross any frontiers.
What on Earth is going on? Have we found intelligent life on other planets? Abolished war and famine? Found Elvis? Have we even devised a new and better way of using computers? No. All that's happened is that Microsoft has remodelled its operating system so that it's now more like the Macintosh.
This may well be a cause for rejoicing among Windows users but it's hardly a giant leap for mankind and doesn't warrant this sense that we're all supposed to celebrate early and avoid the millennium rush.
As part of this billion-dollar festival of smoke and mirrors, Bill Gates has apparently paid the Rolling Stones 8 million pounds for the right to use Start Me Up, the song which is better known for its catchy refrain "You make a grown man cry".
This is a phrase you may hear a lot of over the next few days as millions of people start trying to install Windows 95. Even the best designed systems can be a nightmare to upgrade, but whatever things Microsoft may be famous for - the wealth of its founder, the icy grip he exerts on what is arguably the most important industry on this planet - good systems design is not, as it happens, one of them.
Let's dispel a few myths. There's one which says that the original PC operating system was a brilliant feat of programming by boy genius Bill Gates. It wasn't brilliant and Gates didn't write it. He acquired it, "shrewdly", from the Seattle Computer Company and then immediately licensed it on to another, larger, outfit called IBM. When the IBM PC was launched into a market which had hitherto been serviced by garage companies named after bits of fruit, it carried the impimatur of a world-renowned name and sold a zillion, making Gates' operating system a world standard. IBM had failed to realise that any fool could make the boxes, but the hand that owned the software ruled the world. Big Blue had given the kid Gates a free ride into the stratosphere and then, astoundingly, found itself starting to fall away like a discarded booster rocket.
Sadly this new world software standard was actually a piece of crap.
MS-DOS, as Gates called it, had started life as QDOS-86 or the Quick & Dirty Operating System, which told you all you needed to know about it. A whole generation of people doggedly learned to run their businesses on a system that was written as a quick lash-up for hobbyists and hackers. Was there anything better around? Of course.
In the 1970's, Xerox had funded a team of the world's top computer scientists to research the man/machine interface. They devised a graphical system, using windows, icons and mice. Their key insight was that a lot of needless complications could be cut short by harnessing people's intuitive and gestural skills. Oddly, Xerox failed to follow this up, and the research was taken up and brought to the market by Apple Computer as the Macintosh. After a shaky, underpowered start, this machine matured into a well-integrated system which was not only very powerful, but a real pleasure to use. Mac users tend to have an almost fanatical devotion to their machines.
The Microsoft line on all this was that Windows was for wimps. The truth was that plain old MS-DOS couldn't actually do them. Graphics, mice, networking, and a whole lot else, had to be added to the basic core of QDOS as one afterthought after another, which is why Wintel computers are so fiendishly complicated to set up and maintain.
Gates, however, had always known which way the future lay, and for years Microsoft managed the awkward juggling act of rubbishing Apple's user interface while simultaneously trying to devise something like it that would fit on top of the bloated clutter that MS-DOS had become.
BYTE magazine said recently: "It would not be an exaggeration to describe the history of the computer in the past decade as a massive effort to keep up with Apple." However, the Macintosh is not the last word on interface design, and if Microsoft had been the innovative company that it calls itself, it would have taken the opportunity to take a radical leap beyond the Mac, instead of producing a feeble, me-too, implementation.
An awful lot of people who try to install Windows 95 will end up having to spend so much money buying extra RAM and upgrading their peripherals to get features that Mac users have enjoyed for years, that they might as well give up and buy the real thing.
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place.
ID: 15725
Tech
A grandfather bought a hobby-horse by mail order as a Christmas present for his granddaughter. The toy arrived in 189 pieces. The instructions said that it could be put together in an hour; however, it took the old man two days to assemble the toy.
Finally, when it was all put together, he wrote a check, cut it into 189 pieces and mailed it to the company.
ID: 15209
Tech
The Ultimate Computer stood at the end of the Ultimate Computer Company's production line.
When the guided tour arrived, a salesman stepped forward to give his prepared demo. "This baby here," he said, "is the Ultimate Computer. Ask it any question you wish and it will give you an intelligent answer."
A smartass stepped forward and asked the computer, "Where is my father?"
Immediately, the electronic gears went to work. Lights flashed, wheels buzzed and within seconds, a small card popped out. The card read, "Fishing Off Florida."
"Ha!" laughed the smartass. "Actually, my father is dead! That was a trick question."
The quick thinking salesman immediately replied that he was sorry the answer was unsatisfactory, but as the Ultimate Computer was precise, perhaps he might like to try rephrasing his question and try again.
"Ok," the smartass said, "where is my mother's husband?"
Again there was a buzzing of wheels and flashing lights until a small card popped out. The card read, "Dead - and your father is still fishing off Florida."
ID: 16118
Tech
In the beginning, there was nothing but Apple. And the PC was without form and void, and the darkness was on the face of its hard drive. And Bill said, Let there be DOS: And there was DOS. And Bill looked upon it, and it was good, and with it the PC slew the Apple. And DOS grew and grew, until its number was legion if you counted the decimal points, and still it was good.
And Bill grew large with ambition, and he decreed there should be a processor of words; and lo, there was Word. And Bill sayeth, Let there be a thingy for the crunching of numbers, and lo, there was Excel, and did his kingdom grow apace.
But there had arisen in the land the thing called Macintosh, sprung from the intransigent Apple-men, and Bill looked upon it, and it was better.
Rapidly did he decree that Word should be made to run upon it, and after that Excel, and then all the other fruits of his efforts, but still he was wrathful.
So Bill did order his minions to come forth with Windows, and when they did, he looked upon it, and it was bad.
So he sent them back to try again, assuring all the world they would get it right this time, yet they did not.
Unrelenting, Bill forced yet a third mighty blow, and when it came forth, Bill did order his trumpets to blow, and his chorus to sing, and his criers to cry, until the din could be heard throughout the land; and when he looked upon this third version of Windows, he saw it was not all that great, but like hotcakes did it sell.
And thus did Bill gloat, for the world proclaimed he had matched the lowly Macintosh, and his praises were sung throughout the land.
And so he ordered another, mightier, more magnificient version made, and his henchmen and henchwomen did labor hard.
Still it was not forthcoming in the year promised, nor the year promised next, and rumors did abound, and magazines did overflow with secret peeks, and columnists did heap their scorn upon it. And came the minions of the Justice Department, bent upon proving Bill monopolous, yet before his wrath did they quail, and proclaim him innocent, mostly.
And that which was once called Chicago became known as Windows 95, and the suspense built throughout the land, and Bill, remembering what had gone before, set about building a great Hype.
Into his Hype he put the greatest mouths of the land, and scattered the fruits of his profits so heavily that he bought hosts of angels to sing, and Rolling Stones songs, and trumpets and horns and drums without number. As the time of birthing grew nigh, he purchased television time without end, and appeared thereon himself, and bought entire editions of newspapers to give away unto the faithful, and traveling circuses to visit each great city.
And so when Windows 95 was born did hysteria rule the land, as the choirs sang and the trumpets and horns did blare and the televisions and the newspapers charge their followers to go forth and buy.
Heeding this, the populace did rush to the marketplace at the stroke of midnight, when even the cock doth sleep, and did push and shove and come even to blows the better to secure their own copies lest they be thought ignorant, or uncool, or hamsters in the eyes of Bill.
And Bill looked upon what he had wrought, and he giggled, and rubbeth his hands together, and even in the moment of his triumph, began to think of Next Time.
ID: 16042
Tech
Is zero a 1-digit number or a 0-digit number, or neither?
You may think that 0 is a 1-digit number. However, this will make 00 a 2-digit number, 000 a 3-digit number, and so on. Leading zeros do not count towards the digits, and 0 itself is a leading zero.
If you think that 0 is a 0-digit number, you're still wrong. 100 is a 3-digit number, 10 is a 2-digit number, 1 is a 1-digit number, and therefore, .1 is a 0-digit number, .01 is a -1-digit number, and so on. Therefore, the number of digits of a real number x is 1+int(lgx). Since lg0 is meaningless, the number of digits of 0 can't be defined.
+10,000 Jokes