ID: 2390
Tech
486 - The average IQ needed to understand a PC.
State-of-the-art - Any computer you can't afford.
Obsolete - Any computer you own.
Microsecond - The time it takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.
G3 - Apple's new Macs that make you say "Gee, three times faster than the computer I bought for the same price a Microsecond ago."
Syntax Error - Walking into a computer store and saying, "Hi, I want to buy a computer and money is no object."
Hard Drive - The sales technique employed by computer salesmen, esp. after a Syntax Error.
GUI - What your computer becomes after spilling your coffee on it. (pronounced "gooey")
Keyboard - The standard way to generate computer errors.
Mouse - An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.
Floppy - The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.
Portable Computer - A device invented to force businessmen to work at home, on vacation, and on business trips.
Disk Crash - A typical computer response to any critical deadline.
Power User - Anyone who can format a disk from DOS.
System Update - A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.
ID: 16624
Tech
The Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... starts with two 1's, and each term afterward is the sum of its two predecessors.
Which one of the ten digits is the last to appear in the units position of a number in the Fibonacci sequence?
Just write out their units digits, and mark the digits that appear for the first time.
(1), 1, (2), (3), (5), (8), 3, 1, (4), 5, (9), 4, 3, (7), (0), ...
Therefore, 6 is the last to appear.
ID: 16119
Tech
In an open interview between our correspondant and world genius and sex machine Bill Gates, the following rather illuminating answers were provided.
Q: Is it true that Microsoft wants to destroy all other software makers everywhere?
A: Yes. Some think not, because if Apple & IBM quit, Microsoft would have no one to copy from. In fact, if Mac and OS/2 were gone we would never have to update Windows again anyway, and we wouldn't even have to pay for a programming staff to rearrange pirated code.
Q: Windows machines use the same monitors as everyone else. Why does Windows look so crude and blocky and ugly?
A: Good graphics take a lot of work. Designed with pride, they add greatly to the user experience. How often have you seen garbagemen washing and waxing their truck? On the inside? In January?
Q: I'm a programmer and I'd like to join Microsoft and help shape the future of personal computing. How do I apply?
A: Send in your resume. Mark the envelope Attention: Unskilled Labor Pool. If you're invited to an interview, remember that any trace of integrity or self respect will disqualify you. Pray loudly to any dollar bills you see, and be prepared to kiss the ass of a small, geeky looking man in glasses at any time.
ID: 15207
Tech
We regret to inform you, but by opening this email, you have just received the 'Idiot Computer Virus'.
Since our staff does not have any programming experience, this virus works on the honor system.
Please delete all files from your hard drive immediately, then manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list.
Thank You
ID: 13771
Tech
All of these are legitimate companies dealing in regular products and services, but they (obviously) didn't think their domain names through.
Some of them are prime candidates for the "What was I thinking?" Award....
ALL these websites actually exist, selling something totally benign (and work-safe, in case you're wondering).
1. A site called 'Who Represents' where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name is: www.whorepresents.com
2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:
www.expertsexchange.com
3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at:
www.penisland.net
4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at:
www.therapistfinder.com
5. Then of course, there's the Italian Power Generator company: www.powergenitalia.com
6. We have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com
7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always: www.ipanywhere.com
8. Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church and their website: www.cummingfirst.com
9. Then of course, there's these brainless art designers at Speed of Art and their whacky website: www.speedofart.com
10. Want to go on holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website at: www.gotahoe.com
ID: 16213
Tech
A pilot's flying a small, single-engined charter plane with a couple of really important execs on board. He's coming into Seattle airport, only there is thick fog, less than 10ft of visibility, and his instruments are out. So he circles around looking for a landmark. After an hour or so, he's pretty low on fuel and the passengers are getting very nervous. At last, in a small opening in the fog, he sees a tall building with one guy working alone on the fifth floor.
The pilot banks the plane around and winds down the window and shouts to the guy, "Hi! Where am I?", to which the solitary office worker replies, "You're in a plane". The pilot winds up the window, executes a 275 degree turn and proceeds to execute a perfect blind landing on the runway of the airport 5 miles away. Just as the plane stops, so does the engine as the fuel has run out.
The passengers are amazed and one asks how he did it. "Simple," replies the pilot. "The answer he gave me was 100% correct, but absolutely useless; therefore, that must be Microsoft's Support Office and from there the airport is just 5 miles away on a course of 87 degrees! Any questions?"
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: 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: 16129
Tech
Focus Magazine Interview with Bill Gates
Microsoft Code Has No Bugs (that Microsoft cares about)
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In an interview for German weekly magazine Focus (nr.43, October 23, 1995, pages 206-212), Microsoft`s Mr. Bill Gates has made some tements about software quality of MS products. After lengthy inquiries about how PCs should and could be used (including some angry comments on some questions which Mr. Gates evidently did not like), the interviewer comes to storage requirements of MS products; it ends with the following dispute:
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FOCUS: Every new release of a software which has less bugs than the older one is also more complex and has more features...
Gates: No, only if that is what'll sell!
FOCUS: But...
Gates: Only if that is what'll sell! We've never done a piece of software unless we thought it would sell. That's why everything we do in software ...it's really amazing: We do it because we think that's what customers want. That's why we do what we do.
FOCUS: But on the other hand, you would say: Okay, folks, if you don't like these new features, stay with the old version, and keep the bugs?
Gates: No! We have lots and lots of competitors. The new version, it's not there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version.
FOCUS: But there are bugs an any version which people would really like to have fixed.
Gates: No! There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed.
FOCUS: Oh, my God. I always get mad at my computer if MS Word swallows the page numbers of a document which I printed a couple of times with page numbers. If I complain to anybody they say "Well, upgrade from version 5.11 to 6.0".
Gates: No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug. Maybe you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that?
FOCUS: Yeah, I did...
Gates: It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so you should look into that. The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a new version I ever heard. When we do a new version we put in lots of new things that people are asking for, and so, in no sense, is stability a reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason.
FOCUS: How come I keep being told by computer vendors, "Well, we know about this bug, wait till the next version is there, it'll be fixed"? I hear this all the time. How come? If you're telling me there are no significant bugs in software and there is no reason to do a new version?
Gates: No. I'm saying: We don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't. Not enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using Microsoft Word. Call them up and say, "Would you buy a new version because of bugs?"
You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs. We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis.
FOCUS: Probably you have other contacts to your software developers. But if Mister Anybody, like me, calls up a store or a support line and says, "Hey listen, there's a bug" ... 90 percent of the time I get the answer "Oh, well, yeah, that's not too bad, wait to the next version and it'll be fixed". That's how the system works.
Gates: Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year.
FOCUS: Hm, a couple of million dollars?
Gates: 500 million dollars a year. We take every one of these phone calls and classify them. That's the input we use to do the next version. So it's like the worlds biggest feedback loop. People call in, we decide what to do on it. Do you want to know what percentage of those phonecalls relates to bugs in the software? Less than one percent.
FOCUS: So people call in to say "Hey listen, I would love to have this and that feature"?
Gates: Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get advice on how to do a certain thing with the software. That's the primary thing. We could have you sit and listen to these phone calls. There are millions and millions of them. It really isn't statistically significant. Sit in and listen to Win 95 calls, sit in and listen to Word calls, and wait, just wait for weeks and weeks for someone to call in and say "Oh, I found a bug in this thing"....
FOCUS: So where does this common feeling of frustration come from that unites all the PC users? Everybody experiences it every day that these things simply don't work like they should.
Gates: Because it's cool. It's like, "Yeah, been there done that. Oh, yeah, I know that bug." I can understand that phenomenon sociologically, not technically.
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So:
* Bug reports are statistically, therefore actually, unimportant;
* If you want a bug fixed, you are (by definition) in the minority;
* Microsoft doesn't fix bugs because bug fixes are not a significant source of revenue;
* If you think you found a bug, you are wrong, because really it only means you're incompetent; and
* People only complain about bugs to show how cool they are, not because bugs cause any real problems.
+10,000 Jokes