ID: 17021
Tech
Why do mathematicians like national parks?
Because of the natural logs.
ID: 17148
Tech
For those with jobs that require sitting at a computer all day who don't want to spend the money for those fancy exercise machines, here is a little secret for building arm and shoulder muscles. Three days a week is best.
Begin by standing (in your cubicle works well) with a five pound potato sack in each hand. Extend your arms straight out to your sides and hold them there as long as you can.
After a few weeks, move up to ten pound potato sacks and then fifty pound potato sacks, and finally get to where you can lift a one hundred pound potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.
Next, start putting a few potatoes in the sacks.
ID: 17780
Tech
How dod the person take over the remote?
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: 16418
Tech
How many diagonals does an N-polygon have?
N(N-3)/2.
ID: 15599
Tech
Bill Gates "Notes to self"
* Next time my wife says to buy china, she means dishes.
* When my son asks for a golf club for his birthday, he means a putter, not a golf course.
* When my wife asks for diamonds, she wants ones that will fit on a necklace.
* Don't forget to tip the valet who pushes around your cart at the grocery store.
* If someone offers you a drink, don't ask when we're eating dinner.
* When my daughter asks for an iPod, don't try to buy her the whole company.
ID: 16064
Tech
There was a mad scientist (a mad ...social... scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water - but no can opener.
A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped.
The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood:
Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
Proof: assume the opposite...
ID: 16145
Tech
The best way to accelerate Windows is through one.
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.
---------------------------------------------------------
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