computer – Page 2 – The Joke Shop

Redneck Computer Terms

Backup – What you do when you sight a skunk in the woods.

Bar code – Them’s the fight’n rules down da local tavern (no Symbol LS2208 here).

Bug – The reason you is a giv’n for calling in sick.

Byte – What yer pit bull dun to cusin Jethro.

Cache – Needed when you go to da store.

Chip – Yer cusin’s uncle’s mother’s boyfriend’s name.

Terminal – Time to call da undertaker.

Crash – When you go to Junior’s party uninvited.

Digital – The art of counting on your fingers.

Diskette – A female Disco dancer.

Hacker – Uncle Leroy after thirty years of smoking.

Hardcopy – Picture looked at when selecting tattoos.

Internet – Where cafeteria workers put their hair.

Keyboard – Where you hang the keys to the John Deere.

Mac – Big Bob’s favorite fast food.

Megahertz – How your head feels after seventeen beers.

Modem – What ya did when the grass and weeds got too tall.

Mouse pad – Where Mickey and Minnie live.

Network – Scoop’n up a big fish before it breaks the line.

Online – Where to stay when taking the sobriety test.

Rom – Where the pope lives.

Screen – Helps keep the skeeters off the porch.

Serial port – A red wine you drink with breakfast.

Superconductor – Amtrak‘s Employee of the year.

Scsi – What you call your week-old underwear.

Back in the 70s, disk drives were about the size of washing machines. One type had two disk platters: one was embedded and could not be removed except by a technician, and the other was in a large plastic shell and was easily removable. Each platter held five megabytes. Yes, that’s right: five whole megabytes, an insignificant amount of space now but humongous then.

Many used this dual platter drive to keep their operating system and database on the embedded one, and at the end of the day they’d copy it to the removable one. Then they would open the disk drive, take out the removable disk, store it in a safe, insert a new removable disk, and close the drive. Then they’d be ready for business the next day.

We got a call one morning from a customer when I used to work for an Orange County computer support firm. He couldn’t boot. One of the techs went over to have a look and found that the embedded disk had a bad sector. It would need to be replaced.

Technician: “The embedded disk is bad. Are you backed up?”
Customer: “Yes!”

So the technician replaced the disk, snapped the old one in half so it would fit in the garbage can, and threw it away.

Technician: “I’m done — she’s all yours.”
Customer: (after playing with the system a bit) “I can’t find any of my data.”
Technician: “Right — you’ll have to restore it.”
Customer: “What does ‘restore’ mean?”
Technician: “Uh, it means you have to RESTORE it from a copy.”
Customer: “Copy? What copy?”
Technician: “The one you make every night.”
Customer: “WE DON’T HAVE A COPY!!!”
Technician: “When I asked you if you were backed up, you said YES!”
Customer: “We ARE backed up! We’re SO backed up that we haven’t had time to make any recovery disks!”

10 signs you’re an Internet Geek

10. When filling out your driver’s license application you give your IP address.

9. You no longer ask prospective dates what their sign is, instead your line is ‘Hi, what’s your URL? Do you have a live video streaming service‘

8. Instead of calling you to dinner, your spouse sends e-mail.

7. You’re amazed to find out spam is a food.

6. You ‘ping’ people to see if they’re awake, ‘finger’ them to find out how they are, and ‘AYT’ them to make sure they’re listening to you.

5. You search the Net endlessly hoping to win every silly free T-shirt contest.

4. You introduce your wife as ‘my lady@home.wife’ and refer to your children as ‘client applications’.

3. At social functions you introduce your husband as ‘my domain server’.

2. After winning the office super bowl pool you blurt out, ‘I feel so colon-right parentheses!’

And the number one sign you are an Internet Geek:

1. Two Words: ‘Pizza’s Here!’

The 25 BBS Commandments

1. Thou shall love thy BBS with all thy heart and all thy bytes.
2. Thou shalt remember thy name and password.
3. Thou shalt only call a BBS two times a day.
4. Honor thy SysOp.
5. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s password, nor his or her real name, computer, software, nor any other thing belonging to him or her.
6. Thou shalt not post messages that are stupid, worthless, or have no meaning.
7. Thou shalt use the English language properly.
8. Thou shalt spell thy words correctly when ever possible.
9. Thou shalt delete thine olden messages.
10. Thou shalt help other users.
11. Thou shalt not post anonymously when offering criticism.
12. Thou shalt keep thy foul language to thyself.
13. Woe be unto the user who attempt to crash thy BBS, for he or she shalt be cast out from the sanctuary of thy hobby and must repent by doing 40 days and 40 nights of penance of voice-only communications.
14. Thou shalt first dial BBS numbers during the day by way of voice line to assure correct numbers.
15. Thou shalt not post messages while drunk.
16. Thou shalt confine thy messages to those of friendship, requests for assistance, aid to the needy, advice, and advancement of thy hobby; and thou art obligated to repel any who wouldst transgress upon those commandments.
17. If thou doth promise to reply to a message and thou doth not, then surely thou shalt spill coffee into thy keyboard and burn out thy central processing chip.
18. Thou shalt not giveth any false information when applying for membership to a BBS, for verily it is written that whosoever shall do so will surely be found out and thy welcome on all boards will be thus denied forever and ever.
19. Thou shalt log on properly and in accordance with the SysOp’s rules.
20. Thou shalt observe BBS time limits.
21. Thou shalt not upload “worm” programs.
22. Thou shalt not ask stupid questions that are already fully explained in the BBS instructions.
23. Thou shalt not exchange copy protected software thru the BBS.
24. Thou shalt not violate applicable state/federal/local laws hand regulations affecting BBS telecommunications (even if you DO have high speed satellite internet), or thy will feel the wrath of thy judicial system.
25. Thou shalt not hack.

You know it’s time to turn your computer off and read a book when:

OK, some of these are a bit old, but applicable anyway …

A friend calls and says “How are you? Your phones have been busy for a year!”
You forgot how to work the TV remote control.
You see something funny and scream, “LOL, LOL.”
You meet the mailman at the curb and swear he said “You’ve Got Mail!”
You sign off and your screen says you were on for 3 days and 45 minutes.
You fall asleep, but instead of dreams you get IM’s.
You buy a laptop and a cell phone so you can have AOL in your car.
Tech support calls YOU for help.
You beg your friends to get an account so you can “hang out.”
You get a second phone line just to call out for pizza.
You purchase a vanity car license plate with your screen name on it.
You say “he he he he” or “heh heh heh” instead of laughing.
You say “Scroll Up” when someone asks what it was you said.
You sneak away to your computer when everyone goes to sleep.
You talk on the phone with the same person you are sending an instant message to.
You look at an annoying person off line and wish that you had your ignore button handy.
You start to experience “withdrawal” after not being online for awhile.
“Where did the time go??”
You sit on AOL for six hours for that certain special person to sign on.
You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
You have an SSL VPN Authentication token as your keyring.
…..You end your sentences with…..three or more periods…….
You enter a room and get greeted by 25 people with {{{hugs}}}and **kisses**.
Being called a “newbie” is a major insult to you.
You’re on the phone and say “BRB.”
Your teacher or boss recommends a drug test for the blood shot eyes.
Your answering machine/voice mail sounds a little like this….”BRB. Leave your S/N and I’ll TTYL ASAP”.
You need to be pried from your computer by the Jaws-of-Life.

Thank you for calling Tech Support

‘Thank you for calling Technical Support.’

(This is kind of long… just like waiting for Tech Support)

All of our technicians are currently busy helping people even less competent than you, so please hold for the next available technician. The waiting time is now estimated at between fifteen minutes and eternity. In order to expedite your call, please punch your 63-digit product identification number onto your telephone touch pad, followed by your product serial number, which can be found in a secret compartment inside your computer where, for security purposes, it is printed in the smallest typeface known to mankind. Do that now.

(Lengthy excerpt from Mahler’s ‘Lugubrious’ Symphony in C Minor)

Thank you again for calling Technical Support. We recommend that you sit at your computer, preferably turning it on at some point, and have at hand all your floppy disks, CD-ROM disks, computer manuals and ori- ginal packing materials in order to allow the technician to aid you in the unlikely event that he ever takes your call. It would also be helpful for you to refrain from sobbing while explaining your problem to the technician. Shouting obscene threats will cause you to be im- mediately disconnected and blackballed from further communication with Technical Support, not only from ours but that of every other electron- ics related firm in the industrialized world.

(Medley of Hootie and the Blowfish hits rendered by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)

Thank you once again for calling Technical Support. In order to enable us to better assist you, it would be helpful to know more about you and your equipment. Have you called Technical Support before? If you have please press the numeral ‘one’ on your telephone touchpad. If not, press the numeral ‘two.’ If you are not sure, using the letters on your touchpad, spell out the phrase: ‘I am confused and despondent and quickly losing the will to live.’ Once you have finished, hang up your phone and make arrangements to sell your computer because by the time the technician takes your call, it will be obsolete, and you will be too senile to use it anyway.

(Rangoon Opera Company’s classic 1963 recording of Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’ in its entirety)

Thank you for calling Orange County Tech Support. Unfortunately, all of our technicians just went out for lunch. This means that to the estimated waiting time we gave you earlier, you may now add at least another two hours. _

(Wayne Newton singing ‘Danke Schoen’ 1,743 times)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. Before talking to the tech- nician about your problem and risking the possibility that you may be wasting his valuable time, please ask yourself the following questions:

* If my monitor screen is dark, is it possible I have forgotten to plug in my computer or, alternately, that I have been suddenly struck blind?

* Have I exhausted every possible means of help before utilizing the sacred, last-resort-only telephone option?

* Have I sent a fax to Fast Fax Technical Support?

* Have I consulted my manual?

* Have I read the Read-Me notice on the floppy disk?

* Have I called up my know-it-all geek cousin who I can’t stand but who can probably fix this thing for me in under five minutes?

* Have I given the central processing unit of my computer a good, solid whack?

If you can not honestly answer ‘yes’ to all these questions, please get off the line immediately so that our overworked technicians can help those truly desperate customers whose suffering is so much greater than yours.

(Recording of Tibetan monks performing a six-day chant celebrating the reincarnation of one of their recently deceased colleagues into the form of a salamander.)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. You may not be aware that this week we are featuring a discount on a number of popular CD-ROM titles you may wish to purchase, such as the best-selling Porn Doubler, which allows you to access erotic material from the Internet twice as fast. If you would like to hear all 26,000 titles read to you, shout ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ into the telephone now. This will not cause you to lose your place in line for Technical Support; in fact it may jump you ahead of several other callers.

(Tape loop of background music from the soundtrack of Johnny Mnemonic starring Keanu Reeves.)

Thank you for calling Technical Support. Our electronic sensors indi- cate that you are about to slump over and die from a massive frustra- tion attack combined with severe dehydration from lack of food and water. Before doing so, please take a moment to place your telephone receiver back in its base and switch off your computer so as not to wear down its internal battery. As a non-living person, you will have no further need of Technical Support and so we regretfully must remove you from our list of registered product users. Remember, we valued your patronage and were happy to serve your needs. Do not hesitate to have your heirs or beneficiaries contact us should any further techni- cal problems arise.

Computer Acronyms

Here are some computer acronyms you may not have come across before:

PCMCIA People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN It Still Does Nothing
APPLE Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
SCSI System Can’t See It
DOS Defective Operating System
BASIC Bill’s Attempt to Seize Industry Control
IBM I Blame Microsoft
ISCSI Internet Satellite Can’t See It
DEC Do Expect Cuts
CD-ROM Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
OS/2 Obsolete Soon, Too.
WWW World Wide Wait
MACINTOSH Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
PENTIUM Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics
COBOL Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
AMIGA A Merely Insignificant Game Addiction
LISP Lots of Infuriating & Silly Parenthesis
MIPS Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
WINDOWS Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
GIRO Garbage In Rubbish Out
MICROSOFT Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software’s Only (for)Fools (&) Teenagers.

The Genesis of Computing

In the beginning God created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.
And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.
And God said – Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said – Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.
And God said – Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.
And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big… And told them – Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.
And God said – I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.
And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes and you may use data center automation but DO NOT USE Windows.
And God said – It is not Good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer’s body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.
And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.
But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User – Did God really tell you not to run any programs?
And the User answered – God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.
And Bill said to the User – How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.
And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless – since Windows could replace it.
So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.
And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him – What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered – I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said – Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said – It was Bill who told us to !
And God said to Bill – Because of what you did you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.
And God said to the User – Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.
And God said to the Programmer – Because you listened to the User you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.
And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.
GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT

I love my office

I love my office and its location –
I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love office furniture, drab and gray,
and the paper that piles up every day!

I love my chair in my padded cell!
There’s nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers –
I love their leers and jeers and sneers.

I love my computer and all its software;
I hug it often though it doesn’t care…
I love each program and every file,
I try to understand once in a while!!

I’m happy to be here, I am, I am;
I’m the happiest slave of my uncle Sam.
I love this work: I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.

I love my Job – I’ll say it again –
I even love these friendly Men –
These men who’ve come to visit today
In lovely white coats to take me away!!!

50 ways to mess with people in a computer lab

Log on, wait a sec, then get a frightened look on your face and scream “Oh my God! They’ve found me!” and bolt.
Laugh uncontrollably for about 3 minutes & then suddenly stop and look suspiciously at everyone who looks at you.
When your computer is turned off, complain to the monitor on duty that you can’t get the damn thing to work. After he/she’s turned it on, wait 5 minutes, turn it off again, & repeat the process for a good half hour.
Type frantically, often stopping to look at the person next to you evilly.
Before anyone else is in the lab, connect each computer to different screen than the one it’s set up with.
Write a program that plays the “Smurfs” theme song and play it at the highest volume possible over & over again.
Work normally for a while. Suddenly look amazingly startled by something on the screen and crawl underneath the desk.
Ask the person next to you if they know how to tap into top-secret Pentagon files.
Use Interactive Send to make passes at people you don’t know.
Make a small ritual sacrifice to the computer before you turn it on.
Bring a chainsaw, but don’t use it. If anyone asks why you have it, say “Just in case…” mysteriously.
Type on VAX for a while. Suddenly start cursing for 3 minutes at everything bad about your life. Then stop and continue typing.
Enter the lab, undress, and start staring at other people as if they’re crazy while typing.
Light candles in a pentagram around your terminal before starting and chant songs about IT Process Automation.
Ask around for a spare disk. Offer $2. Keep asking until someone agrees. Then, pull a disk out of your fly and say “Oops, I forgot.”
Every time you press Return and there is processing time required, pray “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” and scream “YES!” when it finishes.
“DISK FIGHT!!!”
Start making out with the person at the terminal next to you (It helps if you know them, but this is also a great way to make new friends).
Put a straw in your mouth and put your hands in your pockets. Type by hitting the keys with the straw.
If you’re sitting in a swivel chair, spin around singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” whenever there is processing time required.
Draw a picture of a woman (or man) on a piece of paper, tape it to your monitor. Try to seduce it. Act like it hates you and then complain loudly that women (men) are worthless.
Try to stick a Nintendo cartridge into the 3 disc drive, when it doesn’t work, get the supervisor.
When you are on an IBM, and when you turn it on, ask loudly where the smiling Apple face is when you turn on one of those.
Print out the complete works of Shakespeare, then when its all done (two days later) say that all you wanted was one line.
Sit and stare at the screen, biting your nails noisily. After doing this for a while, spit them out at the feet of the person next to you.
Stare at the screen, grind your teeth, stop, look at the person next to grinding. Repeat procedure, making sure you never provoke the person enough to let them blow up, as this releases tension, and it is far more effective to let them linger.
If you have long hair, take a typing break, look for split ends, cut them and deposit them on your neighbor’s keyboard as you leave.
Put a large, gold-framed portrait of the British Royal Family on your desk and loudly proclaim that it inspires you.
Come to the lab wearing several layers of socks. Remove shoes and place them of top of the monitor. Remove socks layer by layer and drape them around the monitor. Exclaim sudden haiku about the aesthetic beauty of cotton on plastic.
Take the keyboard and sit under the computer. Type up your paper like this. Then go to the lab supervisor and complain about the bad working conditions.
Laugh hysterically, shout “You will all perish in flames!!!” and continue working.
Bring some dry ice & make it look like your computer is smoking.
Assign a musical note to every key (ie. the Delete key is A Flat, the B key is F sharp, etc.). Whenever you hit a key, humits note loudly. Write an entire paper this way.
Attempt to eat your computer’s mouse.
Borrow someone else’s keyboard by reaching over, saying “Excuse me, mind if I borrow this for a sec?”, unplugging the keyboard & taking it.
Bring in a bunch of magnets and have fun.
When doing calculations, pull out an abacus and say that sometimes the old ways are best.
Play Pong for hours on the most powerful computer in the lab.
Make a loud noise of hitting the same key over and over again until you see that your neighbor is noticing (You can hit the space bar so your fill isn’t affected). Then look at your neighbor’s keyboard. Hit his/her delete key several times, erasing an entire word. While you do this, ask: “Does *your* delete key work?” Shake your head, and resume hitting the space bar on your keyboard. Keep doing this until you’ve deleted about a page of your neighbor’s document. Then, suddenly exclaim: “Well, whaddya know? I’ve been hitting the space bar this whole time. No wonder it wasn’t deleting! Ha!” Print out your document and leave.
Remove your disk from the drive and hide it. Go to the lab monitor and complain that your computer ate your disk. (For special effects, put some Elmer’s Glue on or around the disk drive. Claim that the computer is drooling.)
Stare at the person’s next to your’s screen, look really puzzled, burst out laughing, and say “You did that?” loudly. Keep laughing, grab your stuff and leave, howling as you go.
Point at the screen. Chant in a made up language while making elaborate hand gestures for a minute or two. Press return or the mouse, then leap back and yell “COVEEEEERRRRRR!” peek up from under the table, walk back to the computer and say. “Oh, good. It worked this time,” and calmly start to type again.
Keep looking at invisible bugs and trying to swat them.
See who’s online. Send a total stranger a talk request. Talk to them like you’ve known them all your lives. Hang up before they get a chance to figure out you’re a total stranger.
Bring an small tape player with a tape of really absurd sound effects. Pretend it’s the computer and look really lost.
Pull out a pencil. Start writing on the screen. Complain that the lead doesn’t work.
Come into the computer lab wearing several endangered species of flowers in your hair. Smile incessantly. Type a sentence, then laugh happily, exclaim “You’re such a marvel!!”, and kiss the screen. Repeat this after every sentence. As your ecstasy mounts, also hug the keyboard. Finally, hug your neighbor, then the computer assistant, and walk out.
Run into the computer lab, shout “Armageddon is here!!!!!”, then calmly sit down and begin to type.
Quietly walk into the computer lab with a Black and Decker chainsaw, rev that baby up, and then walk up to the nearest person and say “Give me that computer or you’ll be feeding my pet crocodile for the next week”.
Two words: Tesla Coil.

Tag: computer