Humor: Computer Jokes and Gags by TTG Services: database programming, database development for access and paradox

Top 20 Replies By Programmers
when their programs do not work

(Thanks to Peg Silloway)

20. That's weird
19. It's never done that before
18. It worked yesterday.
17. How is that possible?
16. It must be a hardware problem.
15. What did you type in wrong to get it to crash?
14. There is something funky in your data.
13. I haven't touched that module in weeks!
12. You must have the wrong version.
11. It's just some unlucky coincidence.
10. I can't test everything.
9. THIS can't be the source of THAT.
8. It works, but it hasn't been tested.
7. Somebody must have changed my code.
6. Did you check for a virus on your system?
5. Even though it doesn't work, how does it feel?
4. You can't use that version on your system.
3. Why do you want to do it that way?
2. Where were you when the program blew up?

And the Number One Reply by Programmers when their programs don't work:

1. It works fine on my machine.

Nevermore

(With apologies to Edgar Allen Poe)

Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat immersed in spreadsheets;
Having reached the bottom line
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand
I then invoked the "save" command,
But got instead a reprimand.
It read: ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE!

Was this some occult illusion?
Some mechanical intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself
Had never faced before.
Carefully I weighed my options:
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must now adopt one :
Choose ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE.

With my fingers fearful, trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending,
Hoping all would be restored.
Praying for some guarantee,
Reluctantly I pressed a key,
But on the screen, what did I see?
Again: ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE.

Hoping to catch the rogue off guard
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Ah, Fortune was not in the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations,
Still the cur'sed incantation:
Choose ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE.

There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
By this foul machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away
And paced across my office floor.
Then, alas, a flash of light,
An almost blinding fearsome sight
A lightning bolt had split the night
And shook me to my very core.

I saw the screen collapse and die.
"Oh, no! My database!" I cried.
Then thought I heard a voice reply
"You'll see your data Nevermore."
E'en to this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes.
Perhaps to Heaven where God's angels
Have it safely stored.

But as for productivity, oh well,
I fear that it goes straight to Hell
And that's the tale I have to tell.
Your choice: ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE!

Author Unknown

Haiku Poetry

(With thanks to Martin Schrage)

In Japan, Haikus are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity -- the essence of Zen. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables, five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The following apply to computer errors:

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
-------------------------------------------
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
--------------------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
-----------------------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
------------------------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
--------------------------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
---------------------------------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
---------------------------------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
--------------------------------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
-------------------------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
---------------------------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
---------------------------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
---------------------------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
---------------------------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
--------------------------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
---------------------------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Is Your PC Politically Correct?

A communications consultant who had served in the Navy was very aware that ships are referred to as "she" and "her". In this current age of political correctness he found himself worrying over which gender computers should be assigned when referring to them in his business proposals. After wrestling with the question for several days without a satisfactory answer, he finally decided to set up two consumer focus groups to resolve the issue.

The first group comprised women, and the second, men. Each group was asked to determine which gender should be applied. They were asked to give four reasons for their recommendations.

The group of women reported that the computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem.
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

The men, on the other hand, concluded that computers should be referred to in the feminine gender because:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

A Mountaineer's Computer Glossary

LOG ON: Makin' a woodstove hot.
LOG OFF: Don't add no more wood.
MONITOR: Keepin' an eye on the wood stove.
DOWNLOAD: Gittin' the farwood off the truck.
MEGA HERTZ: When you're not keerfull gittin' the farwood.
FLOPPY DISC: Whutcha git from trying to tote too much farwood.
RAM: That thar thing whut splits the farwood.
HARD DRIVE: Gittin' home in the winter time.
WINDOWS: Whut to shut when it's cold outside.
SCREEN: Whut to shut when it's black fly season.
BYTE: Whut them dang flys do.
CHIP: Munchies fer the TV.
MICRO CHIP: Whut's in the bottom of the munchie bag.
MODEM: Whutcha do to the hay fields.
DOT MATRIX: Old Dan Matrix's wife.
LAP TOP: Whar the kitty sleeps.
KEYBOARD: Whar you hang the dang truck keys.
SOFTWARE: Them dang plastic forks and knifes.
MOUSE: Whut eats the grain in the barn.
MOUSE PAD: That's hippie talk fer the mouse hole.
MAINFRAME: Holds up the barn roof.
PORT: Fancy Flatlander wine.
ENTER: Northerner talk fer, "C'mon in, y'all."
CLICK: Whut you hear when you cock your gun.
DOUBLE CLICK: When the dang gun don't far when you pull the trigger.
REBOOT: Whut you have to do at bedtime when you forgot the kitty's still outside.

	Virus Alert
PLEASE READ AND HEED THIS VIRUS ALERT!! If you receive an email entitled "Badtimes," delete it immediately. Do not open it! Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play. It will re-calibrate your refrigerator's temperature settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will program your phone auto dial to call only your mother-in-law's number. This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer. (For God's sake men are you listening?!?!) It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card. It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye. It will rewrite your backup files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporating undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretations of key sentences. If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk. WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN.
Author Unknown

Talk About a Hard Drive!

Speaking at a recent computer expo, Bill Gates compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology the way the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that get 1000 miles to the gallon."

This prompted one skeptic to suggest that General Motors issue a press statement stating that if GM had developed its automotive technologies according to prevailing computer industry standards, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to start, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car98" or "CarNT". And you would have to buy more seats.

6. Apple would make a car that was powered by the sun, absolutely reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 5 percent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "General Car Fault" warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size rear end.

9. The air bag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in unless you simultaneously lift the door handle, turn the key and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the cars performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as on the old car.

13. You'd press the "START" button to shut off the engine.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes!

Here's a true story from an ex field-sales/customer support survivor:

I used to work in a computer store. One day we had a gentleman call in with a smoking power supply. My service-rep partner was having a bit of trouble convincing this guy that he had a hardware problem.

Service Rep: Sir, from what you tell me, something has burned out within your power supply.

Customer: I'll bet that there is some command that I can put into the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that will take care of this.

Service Rep: I'm sorry, there is nothing that software can do to help you with this problem.

Customer: I know that there is something I can put in — some command — maybe it should go into CONFIG.SYS.

Service Rep [After a few minutes of going 'round and 'round]: Okay, I am not supposed to tell anyone this, but there is a hidden command in some versions of DOS that you can use. I want you to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and add the last line as C:\DOS\NOSMOKE.EXE and reboot your computer.

[Customer does this]

Customer: It is still smoking.

Service Rep: Well, then I guess you'll need to call Microsoft tech support and ask them for a NOSMOKE.EXE patch.

[The customer then hangs up. We thought that we had heard the last of this guy. But no, he calls back four hours later!]

Service Rep: Hello, sir. How is your computer now?

Customer: Well, Microsoft says that my power supply is incompatible with their NOSMOKE.EXE and that I need to get a new one. I was wondering when I can have it installed and how much it will cost...

Is the Sky Really the Limit?

A man flying in a hot air balloon realizes he is lost. He reduces altitude and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where I am?"

The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

"You must work in information technology," says the balloonist.

"I do" replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's of no use to anyone."

The man below says, "You must work in business management."

"I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

If Dr. Seuss Wrote Technical Manuals For Computers...

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall…

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the machine's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM,
And quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!

Thanks to Helen Van Gelder (HelenVG@aol.com)

	Interested? You can reach me at: phil@ttgservices.com Toll-free phone: 877-934-4766 Fax: 301-498-9454 Location: Columbia, MD, near Washington, D.C.
	TTG Services-Helping Clients Since 1989
	Member of Independent Computer Consultants Association, and subscriber to its Code of Ethics
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Online Shtick...or how I learned to stop worrying and love the computer!

Creative solutions for you, designed for excellence.
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Call Toll-free 877-934-4766

Online Shtick...or how I learned to stop worrying and love the computer!

Creative solutions for you, designed for excellence. Serving North America.

Creative solutions for you, designed for excellence.
Serving North America.