IT Jokes: 2014
Posted December 31, 2014
Faced with hard times, the high tech company offered a New Year’s bonus of one thousand dollars to any employee who could come up with a way of saving money.
The holiday bonus went to a young woman in network systems administration who suggested limiting future bonuses to ten dollars.
Posted December 29, 2014
One day my housework-challenged, programmer husband decided to wash his new sweatshirt that he had gotten for Christmas.
Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, “What setting do I use on the washing machine?”
“It depends,” I replied. “What does it say on your shirt?”
He yelled back, “Georgia Tech.”
Posted December 28, 2014
The young mother skeptically examined a new educational toy for Christmas.
“Isn’t it rather complicated for a small boy?” she asked the salesclerk.
“It’s designed to ease the tot into living in today’s networked world, madam,” the shop assistant replied. “Any way he tries to put it together is wrong.”
Posted December 27, 2014
The Twelve Computerized Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
A glitch on the video screen.
On the second day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Two keyboard bounces, and a glitch on the video screen.
On the third day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Three loose plugs,
Two keyboard bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the FORTH day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Four garbled SAVE’s,
Three loose plugs,
Two keyboard bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’s,
Three loose plugs,
Two keyboard bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’s,
Three loose plugs,
Two keyboard bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the seventh day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’s,
Three loose plugs,
Two keyboard bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Eight worthless printouts,
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’s
Three loose plugs,
Two key bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Nine burnt-out fuses
Eight worthless printouts,
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’S
Three loose plugs,
Two key bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Ten disk-drive lockouts,
Nine burnt-out fuses
Eight worthless printouts,
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’S
Three loose plugs,
Two key bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Eleven damaged diskettes,
Ten disk-drive lockouts,
Nine burnt-out fuses
Eight worthless printouts,
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’S
Three loose plugs,
Two key bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my computer gave to me
Twelve blown-out circuits,
Eleven damaged diskettes,
Ten disk-drive lockouts,
Nine burnt-out fuses
Eight worthless printouts,
Seven system resets,
Six I/O spasms,
Five blank cassettes,
Four garbled SAVE’S
Three loose plugs,
Two key bounces,
And a glitch on the video screen.
Posted December 26, 2014
As a little girl climbed onto Santa’s lap, Santa asked the usual, “And what would you like for Christmas?”
The child stared at him open mouthed and horrified for a minute, then gasped: “Didn’t you get my E-mail?”
Posted December 25, 2014
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Star Trek: The Next Generation Style
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship
Not a circuit was buzzing, not one microchip;
The phasers were hung in the armory securely,
in hopes that no aliens would get up that early.
The crewmen were nestled all snug in their bunks
(Except for the few who were partying drunks);
And Picard in his nightshirt and Bev in her lace,
Had just settled down for a nice face to face…
When out in the halls there arose such a racket,
That we leapt form our beds, pulling on pants and jacket.
The bridge Red Alert lights, which flashed through the din,
Gave a luster of Hades to objects within.
When, what, on the viewscreen, should our eyes behold,
But a weird kind of sleigh, and some guy who looked old.
His sleigh grew much larger as closer he came.
Then he zapped to the bridge and addressed us by name:
“It’s Riker! It’s Data! It’s Worf! and Jean-Luc!
It’s Geordi! and Wesly, the genetic fluke!
To the top of the bridge! To the top of the hall!
Now float away! Float away! Float away all!”
As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,
So the floor of the bridge came away from our feet,
And up to the ceiling our bodies then flew,
As the captain called out, “What the…is this, Q?!”
The prankster just laughed and expanded his grin,
And snapping his fingers, he vanished again.
As we took in our plight and were looking around,
The spell was removed, and we crashed to the ground.
Then Q, dressed in fur from head to his toe,
Appeared once again, to continue the show.
“That’s enough!” cried the captain, “You’ll stop this at Once!”
And Riker said, “Worf! Take aim at this dunce!”
“I’m deeply offended, Jean-Luc,” replied Q,
“I just want to celebrate Christmas with you.”
As we scoffed at his words, he produced a large sack,
He dumped out the contents and took a step back.
“I’ve brought gifts,” he said, “just to show I’m sincere.
There’s something delightful for everyone here.”
He sat on the floor and dug into his pile,
And handed out gifts with his most charming smile:
“For Counselor Troi, there’s no need to explain,
Here’s Tylenol-Beta for all of your pain.
For Worf I’ve some mints as his breath is not too great,
And for Geordi Laforge, and inflatable date.
For Wesley, some hormones, and Clearasil-Plus;
For Data a Joke Book, for Riker, a truss.
For Beverly Crusher, there’s sleek lingerie,
And for Jean-Luc, the thrill of just seeing her that way.”
Then he sprang to his feet with that grin on his face,
And clapping his hands, disappeared into space.
But we herd him exclaim as he dwindled from sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good flight!”
Posted December 24, 2014
Web Surfer’s Christmas s
‘Twas, the night before Christmas, and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, except for my mouse.
No kids lived with me, so I thought I would chatter.
There’d be no damn reindeer, and no stupid clatter.
There’d be no fat elf, coming through my chimney.
I’ll be alone, my computer and me.
I won’t race to the window, to see him arrive.
I’ll just sit right here….. with windows ninety-five.
There’s no one I know, as I’m surfing around.
None of my regular buddies are found.
I went in some chat rooms, but quickly got out.
Age, sex, location is all that’s about.
As, I was about to go check out the net.
I got an E-mail which I didn’t expect.
A lady told me, she had read my profile.
And, ask, if I might like to chat for a while.
She said, if I didn’t, then she would just leave.
But, she was so lonely, on this Christmas Eve.
She said, it’s the first time, she’d ever been on.
But, she heard, computers, could be so much fun.
She said, the computer, was usually locked tight.
But, she said, her husband, left it on… tonight.
He’s away on some business; He’ll be gone all night.
So, she thought she’d use it, “I guess it’s all right.”
She started to tell me, about her whole life.
How, she was expected to be a good wife.
She talked of her anger, frustrations, and needs.
Because, she was forced, to do such silly deeds.
She talked on and on, from one thing to the next.
Then finally told me…… she was oversexed.
She didn’t have sex, with her husband, she told.
He’s always too busy, and getting too old.
Then, she wrote me something, that made my heart vex.
She asked me to teach her, to have cyber-sex.
I said, if she wanted me to, that I could.
Then after an hour, she got really good.
After five hours, my fingers were sore.
I told her, that I couldn’t go anymore.
She said, that was fine, because she was tired too.
And anyway, her husband, soon would be due.
She said she would be on, the same time next year.
Then asked, if I wouldn’t mind, meeting her here.
She said, only…. on this night, she could be found.
It is only…. this night, her husband leaves town.
She said bye, and signed off…..and I had to pause.
I think I just cybered……..with Mrs. Santa Claus!!!!
Posted December 21, 2014
Top 10 New Star Trek Toys For Christmas
10. “Borg Adapter Kit” Longing for Locutus? This handy little kit will allow you to assimilate any of your action figures
9. “Play-Doh Food Replicator and Cloning Facility”
8. “Borg Ship” with assimilation area and places to put disassembled parts of your other toy ships. Spend hours of fun threatening the galaxy
7. “My First Tricorder”
6. “Holodeck play set” You two can recreate all those great holodeck program backgrounds and costumes (sold separately). Comes with Lieutenant Barclay action figure. (Some programs may not be available to minors)
5. “Screwed-up timeline Series” Yep, all your favorite time travel episodes”
A. U.S.S. Bozeman play set (with Captain Bates action figure)
B. Enterprise-C play set (with Captian Garret action figure)
C. Unification Play set (with Sela and Pardek action figures)
D. Time’s arrow Play set (complete with Data’s head, two pocket watches, the snake cane, and Mark Twain action figure)
E. U.S.S. Jenolan play set (With Mr Scott action figure)
4. “Deanna Troi Chocolate Factory”
3. “Kill Wesly Play Set” Now you can finally do all those things to Wesley Crusher you wanted to see on TV! Comes with “Crash Test Dummy” Action figure of Wesley Crusher (Crash test Alexander sold separately)
2. “Shuttlecraft Bay of Doom Play Set” With falling barrels, crates of leaking/unstable explosives, defective airlock, plasma fire, and an unstable gateway to another world.
and the number one Star Trek Toy this Crhistmas:
1. A fully functional Phaser
Posted December 19, 2014
The X-FILES Christmas Case
“We’re too late! It’s already been here.”
“Mulder, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Look, Scully, just like the other homes: Douglas fir, truncated, mounted, transformed into a shrine; halls decked with boughs of holly; stockings hung by the chimney, with care.”
“You really think someone’s been here?”
“Someone or some THING.”
“Mulder, over here – it’s a fruitcake.”
“Don’t touch it! Those things can be lethal.”
“It’s O.K. There’s a note attached: ‘Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.'”
“It’s judging them, Scully. It’s making a list.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Ancient mythology tells of an obese humanoid entity who could travel at great speed in a craft powered by antlered servants. Once each year, near the winter solstice, this creature is said to descend from the heavens to reward its followers and punish disbelievers with jagged chunks of anthracite.”
“But that’s legend, Mulder — a story told by parents to frighten children. Surely you don’t believe it?”
“Something was here tonight, Scully. Check out the bite marks on this gingerbread man. Whatever tore through this plate of cookies was massive — and in a hurry.”
“It left crumbs everywhere. And look, Mulder, this milk glass has been completely drained.”
“It gorged itself, Scully. It fed without remorse.”
“But why would they leave it milk and cookies?”
“Appeasement. Tonight is the Eve, and nothing can stop its wilding.”
“But if this thing does exist, how did it get in? The doors and windows were locked. There’s no sign of forced entry.”
“Unless I miss my guess, it came through the fireplace.”
“Wait a minute, Mulder. If you’re saying some huge creature landed on the roof and came down this chimney, you’re crazy. The flue is barely six inches wide. Nothing could get down there.”
“But what if it could alter its shape, move in all directions at once?”
“You mean, like a bowl full of jelly?”
“Exactly. Scully, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was a child my home was visited. I saw the creature. It had long white strips of fur surrounding its ruddy, misshapen head. Its bloated torso was red and white. I’ll never forget the horror. I turned away, and when I looked back it had somehow taken on the facial features of my father.”
“Impossible.”
“I know what I saw. And that night it read my mind. It brought me a Mr. Potato Head, Scully. IT KNEW THAT I WANTED A MR. POTATO HEAD!”
“I’m sorry, Mulder, but you’re asking me to disregard the laws of physics. You want me to believe in some supernatural being who soars across the skies and brings gifts to good little girls and boys. Listen to what you’re saying. Do you understand the repercussions? If this gets out, they’ll close the X-files.”
“Scully, listen to me: It knows when you’re sleeping. It knows when you’re awake.”
“But we have no proof.”
“Last year, on this exact date, SETI radio telescopes detected bogeys in the airspace over twenty-seven states. The White House ordered a Condition Red.”
“But that was a meteor shower.”
“Officially. Two days ago, eight prized Scandinavian reindeer vanished from the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Nobody – not even the zookeeper – was told about it. The government doesn’t want people to know about Project Kringle. They fear that if this thing is proved to exist the public will stop spending half its annual income in a holiday shopping frenzy. Retail markets will collapse. Scully, they cannot let the world believe this creature lives. There’s too much at stake. They’ll do whatever it takes to insure another silent night.”
“Mulder, I –”
“Sh-h-h. Do you hear what I hear?”
“On the roof. It sounds like . . . a clatter.”
“The truth is up there. Let’s see what’s the matter.”
Posted December 16, 2014
Similarities Between Santa and Sysadmins
1. Santa is bearded, corpulent, and dresses funny.
2. When you ask Santa for something, the odds of receiving what you wanted are infinitesimal.
3. Santa seldom answers your mail.
4. When you ask Santa where he gets all the stuff he’s got, he says, “Elves make it for me.”
5. Santa doesn’t care about your deadlines.
6. Your parents ascribed supernatural powers to Santa, but did all the work themselves.
7. Nobody knows who Santa has to answer to for his actions.
8. Santa laughs entirely too much.
9. Santa thinks nothing of breaking into your $HOME.
10. Only a lunatic says bad things about Santa in his presence.
Posted December 14, 2014
The Technical Twelve Days of Christmas
On the first day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
AN ALGORITHM IN A SPANNING TREE
On the second day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
Two LLC’s…………………….(Chorus)
On the third day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
THREE ETHERNETS……………….(CHORUS)
On the fourth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
FOUR TOKEN BUSES………………(CHORUS)
On the fifth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
F I V E T O K E N R I N G S!….(CHORUS)
On the sixth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
SIX MANs A’MANNING…………….(CHORUS)
On the seventh day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
SEVEN BROADS A’BANDING…………(CHORUS)
On the eighth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
EIGHT FIBERS SPARKLING…………(CHORUS)
On the ninth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
NINE VIDEOS TALKING……………(CHORUS)
On the tenth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
TEN VLANS ENCRYPTED……………(CHORUS)
On the eleventh day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
ELEVEN LANS SANS WIRES…………(CHORUS)
On the twelveth day of Net Tech, my instructor gave to me,
TWELVE FAST ETHERNETS………….
(CHORUS, WITH FOUR PART HARMONY AND FEELING!)
Posted December 12, 2014
Techie Christmas Tunes
‘Twas the ‘Net before Christmas
Santa Claus is modem to town
Up On The Desktop
“Quark,” The Herald Angels Sing
Gateway In A Manger
The First AOL
INTEL IT On The Mountain
.COM All Ye Faithful
JAVA Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Joy To The World Wide Web
Posted December 9, 2014
WEB ADDICTION HOLIDAY SING ALONG!
(Sung to the tune of “Winter Wonderland”)
Doorbell rings, I’m not list’nin’,
From my mouth, drool is glist’nin’,
I’m happy — although
My boss let me go —
Happily addicted to the Web.
All night long, I sit clicking,
Unaware time is ticking,
There’s beard on my cheek,
Same clothes for a week,
Happily addicted to the Web!
Friends come by; they shake me, Saying, “Yo, man!
Don’t you know tonight’s the senior prom?”
With a listless shrug, I mutter “No, man;
I just discovered laugh-a-lot-dot-com!”
I don’t phone, don’t send faxes,
Don’t go out, don’t pay taxes,
Who cares if someday
They drag me away?
I’m happily addicted to the Web!
Happ-ilyyyyy, ad-dict-eeeed to the Weeeeeb!!! (Yeah!)
Posted December 6, 2014
If 1990’s Companies Ran Christmas
If IBM ran Christmas…
They would want one big Santa, dressed in blue, where kids queue up for their present-processing. Receiving presents would take about 24-36 hours of mainframe processing time.
If Microsoft ran Christmas…
Each time you bought an ornament, you would have to buy a tree as well. You wouldn’t have to take the tree, but you still have to pay for it anyway. Ornament/95 would weigh 1500 pounds (requiring a reinforced steel countertop tree), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your living room, would claim to be the first ornament that uses the colors red/green together. It would interrogate your other decorations to find out who made them. Most everyone would hate Microsoft ornaments, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the other tree types wouldn’t work with their hooks.
If Apple ran Christmas…
It would do everything the Microsoft ornaments do, but years earlier, and with a smaller mouse (not stirring of course).
If Silicon Graphics ran Christmas…
Ornaments would be priced slightly higher, but would hang on the tree remarkably quickly. Also the colors of the ornaments would be prettier than most all the others. Options would be available for ‘equalization’ of color combinations on the tree.
If Dell ran Christmas…
Wait a minute? Isn’t IBM running this Christmas..?
If Fisher Price ran Christmas…
“Baby’s First Ornament” would have a hand-crank that you turn to hang the thing on the tree.
If The Rand Corporation ran Christmas…
The ornaments would be large perfectly smooth and seamless black cubes. Christmas morning there would be presents for everyone, but no one would know what they were. Their service department would have an unlisted phone number, and be located at the North Pole. Blueprints for ornaments would be highly classified government documents. X-Files would have an episode about them.
If the NSA ran Christmas…
Your ornaments would have a secret trap door that only the NSA could access in case they needed to monitor your tree for reasons of national security.
If DEC ran Christmas…
We used to have Christmas back in the ’70s, didn’t we?
If Hewlett-Packard ran Christmas…
They would market the Reverse Polish Ornament, which is put in your attic on the weekend after Thanksgiving, and placed out for viewing the day after the January Bowl Games.
If Sony ran Christmas…
Their Personal Xmas-ing Device, which would be barely larger than an ornament and flat, would allow you to celebrate the season with a device attached conveniently to your belt.
If the Franklin Mint ran Christmas…
Every month, you would receive another lovely hand-crafted item from an authentic Civil War pewter ornament collection. Each ornament would weight about seven pounds, and require you to pay shipping and handling charges.
If Cray ran Christmas…
The holiday season would cost $160 million but would be celebrated faster than any other holiday during the year.
If Thinking Machines ran Christmas…
You would be able to hang over 64,000 ornaments on your tree (all identical) at the same time.
If Timex ran Christmas…
The holiday would be cheap, small, quartz-crystal driven, and would letyou take a licking and keep on shopping.
If Radio Shack ran Christmas…
The staff would sell you ornaments, but not know anything about them orwhat they were for. Or you could buy parts to build your own tree.
If University of Waterloo ran Christmas…
They would immediately change the name to WatMas.
Posted December 4, 2014
The 12 Bugs of Christmas – A Software Developers’ Version
1. For the first bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
See if they can do it again.
2. For the second bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
3. For the third bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
4. For the fourth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
5. For the fifth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
6. For the sixth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
7. For the seventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
8. For the eighth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
9. For the ninth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
10. For the tenth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
11. For the eleventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Say it’s not supported
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
12. For the twelfth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me:
Tell them it’s a feature
Say it’s not supported
Change the documentation
Blame it on the hardware
Find a way around it
Say they need an upgrade
Reinstall the software
Ask for a dump
Run with the debugger
Try to reproduce it
Ask them how they did it and
See if they can do it again.
Posted December 2, 2014
Twas the Night Before Crisis
Twas the night before crisis,
And all through the house,
Not a program was working,
Not even a browse.
Programmers were wrung out,
Too mindless to care,
Knowing chances of cutover
Hadn’t a prayer.
The users were nestled
All snug in their beds,
While visions of inquiries
Danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby
There arose such a clatter,
That I sprang from my tube
To see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering
Eyes should appear,
But a Super Programmer,
Oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles,
His programs they came
And he whistled and shouted
And called them by name.
On Update! On Add!
On Inquiry! On Delete!
On Batch Jobs! On Closing!
On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over,
His fingers were lean,
From weekends and nights
Spent in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye,
And a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know
I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word,
But went straight to his work,
Turning specs into code,
Then he turned with a jerk.
And laying his fingers
Upon the ENTER key,
The system came up,
And worked perfectly!
The updates updated;
The deletes they deleted;
The inquiries inquired;
And the closing completed.
He tested each whistle,
He tested each bell,
With nary an abend,
And all had gone well.
The system was finished,
The tests were concluded,
The client’s last changes
Were even included!
And the client exclaimed,
With a snarl and a taunt,
“It’s just what I asked for,
But it’s not what I want!”
Posted November 30, 2014
A Smilies 😉
}:-) Above in an updraft
:-s After a bizarre comment
:-* After eating something bitter
:-6 After eating something sour
*:o) And bozo the clown!
O 🙂 Angel (at heart, at least)
|-I Asleep
:-% Banker
🙂 Basic smiley
:-} Beard
(:-) Big-face
:-)-8 Big girl
|-O Birth
:-1 Bland face
[:-] Blockhead
🙁 Boo hoo
:-X Bow tie
:-# Braces
%-6 Braindead
:^) Broken nose
:v) Broken nose, but it’s the other way
:-E Bucktoothed vampire
:-c Bummed out smiley
C=:-) Chef
*:o) Clown
:-~) Cold
🙂 Comedy
:-8( Condescending stare
:-t Cross smiley
:,( Crying
:’-( Crying too
0-) Cyclops (scuba diver?)
8-# Death
:-e Disappointed
:-} Ditto
,-) Ditto…but he’s winking
🙁 Drama
:*) Drunk
<:-I Dunce
(:I Egghead
:-#| Face with bushy mustache
>- Female
🙁 Frowning
😎 Glasses
8:-) Glasses on forehead
:] Gleep…
🙂 Ha ha
E-:-) Ham radio operator
🙂 Happy
😐 Have an ordinary day smiley
|-) Hee hee
:-> Hey hey
:-I Hmm
|-D Ho ho
+-:-) Holds religious office
B-) Horn-rims
=:-) Hosehead
[] Hugs
[] and :* Hugs and kisses
:-I Indifferent smilie
8 Infinity
:-* Just ate something sour
X-( Just died
:-> Just made a really devilish remark
:-7 Just made a wry statement
:-X Keeping lips sealed
:* Kisses
😀 Laughing
😀 Laughing (at you!)
😀 Laughter
:v) Left-pointing nose smiley
:-b Left-pointing tongue smiley
(-: Left handed
:-j Left smiling smiley
:-/ Lefty undecided smiley
:-9 Licking his/her lips
8:-) Little girl
-< Mad
:- Male
3:[ Mean pet smilie
:> Midget smiley
🙂 Midget smilie
:< Midget unsmiley
:-{) Moustache
~~:-( Net.flame
:-0 No yelling! (quiet lab)
😛 Nyah nyah
:-=) Older smiley with mustache
+:-) Priest
@= Pro-nuclear
=:-) Punk-rocker
:[ Real downer
:-< Real sad smiley
:-C Really bummed
[:] Robot
🙁 Sad
,:-) Same thing…other side
:-@ Screaming
:-i Semi-smiley
😮 Singing national anthem
:-/ Skeptical
:-Q Smoker
|^o Snoring
:’-) So happy, s/he is crying
:-p Sticking its tongue out (at you!)
😎 Sunglasses
B:-) Sunglasses on head
😮 Surpise
8-| Suspense
😎 Swimmer
:-v Talking head smiley
:-& Tongue tied
:-O Uh oh
😮 Uh oh!
:-)~ User drools
*<:-) Wearing a santa claus hat
[:-) Wearing a walkman
:-# Wears braces
B-) Wears horn-rimmed glasses
:-{} Wears lipstick
::-) Wears normal glasses
:Q What?
;;-) Winking
{:-) With its hair parted in the middle
:^) With pointy nose (righty)
8 🙂 Wizard
:-7 Wry
|-O Yawning/snoring
:O Yelling
|-P Yuk
Posted November 27, 2014
A Systems Admin was teaching his 6-year-old daughter how to unbuckle her seat belt:
The daughter asked, “Do I click the square?”
The techie said, “Yes.”
The daughter then wanted to know, “Single click or double click?”
Posted November 25, 2014
Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are in Ft. Lauderdale for a two-week period helping out on a project.
About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour. Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie appears and says “Normally I would grant you 3 wishes, but since there are 3 of you, I will grant you each one wish.”
The hardware engineer went first. “I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge house in St. Thomas, with no money worries and surrounded by beautiful women who worship me.” The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.
The software engineer went next. “I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean, with no money worries and surrounded by beautiful women who worship me.” The genie granted him his wish and sent him off to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the project manager’s turn. “And what would your wish be?” asked the genie.
“I want them both back after lunch” replied the project manager.
Posted November 23, 2014
Dear Valued Data Center Employee:
Re: Vacation Pay
Our records indicate that you have not used any vacation time over the past 100 year(s). As I’m sure you are aware, employees are granted 3 weeks of paid leave per year or pay in lieu of time off. One additional week is granted for every 5 years of service.
Please either take 9,400 days off work or, if you wish monetary compensation, notify our office and your next pay check will reflect payment of $8,277,432.22 which will include all pay and interest for the past 1,200 months.
Sincerely,
Automated Payroll Processing
Posted November 21, 2014
Dr. Leroy, the head psychiatrist at the local mental hospital, is examining patients to see if they’re cured and ready to re-enter society.
“So, Mr. Clark,” the doctor says to one of his patients, “I see by your chart that you’ve been recommended for dismissal. Do you have any idea what you might do once you’re released?”
The patient thinks for a moment, then replies, “Well, I went to school for network engineering. That’s still a good field, good money there. But on the other hand, I thought I might write a book about my experience here in the hospital, what it’s like to be a patient here. People might be interested in reading a book like that. In addition, I thought I might go back to college and study art history, which I’ve grown interested in lately.”
Dr. Leroy nods and says, “Yes, those all sound like intriguing possibilities.”
The patient replies, “And the best part is, in my spare time, I can go on being a teapot.”
Posted November 18, 2014
This legend, the truth of which is not necessarily related to its value, concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen: “Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer.”
One student replied: “Tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building.”
This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately.
He appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics.
To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.
For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn’t make up his mind which to use.
On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:
“Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer.
“Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper’s shadow, and thereafter it is simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper.
“But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sq root(l / g).
“Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up.
“If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building.
“But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor’s door and say to him ‘If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this building’.”
The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win the Nobel prize for Physics.
Posted November 15, 2014
A Systems Administrator hosted a dinner party for people from work, including his boss, the Data Center manager.
All during the sit-down dinner, the host’s three-year-old girl stared at her father’s boss sitting across from her. The girl could hardly eat her food from staring. The man checked his tie, felt his face for food, patted his hair in place, but nothing stopped her from staring at him.
The Network Manager tried his best to just ignore her but, finally it was too much for him. He asked her, “Why are you staring at me?”
Everyone at the table had noticed her behavior and the table went quiet for her response.
The little girl said, “My daddy said you eat like a pig and I don’t want to miss it!”
Posted November 12, 2014
Things you would love to say out loud at work in the Data Center….
1. I can see your point, but I still think you’re full of crap .
2. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
3. How about never? Is never good for you?
4. I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
5. I’m really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my way.
6. I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
7. I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
8. I don’t work here. I’m a consultant.
9. It sounds like English, but I can’t understand a damn word you’re saying.
10. Ahhh…I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again…
11. I like you. You remind me of myself when I was young and stupid.
12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
13. I have plenty of talent and vision; I just don’t give a damn.
14. I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
16. Thank you. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
17. The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.
18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!
20. I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
21. It’s a thankless job, but I’ve got a lot of Karma to burn off.
22. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
23. And your crybaby whiny opinion would be…?
24. Do I look like a people person?
25. This isn’t an Data Center. It’s Hell with fluorescent lighting.
26. I started out with nothing and still have most of it left.
27. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
28. If I throw a stick, will you leave?
29. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.
30. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
31. I’m trying to imagine you with a personality.
32. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
33. Can I trade this job for what’s behind door #1?
34. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
35. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
36. Chaos, panic, and disorder – my work here is done.
37. How do I set a laser printer to stun?
38. I thought I wanted a career; turns out I just wanted a salary.
39. Who lit the fuse on your tampon?
40. Oh I get it… like humor… but different.
41. Stick your job where the sun don’t shine
42. Hello I’m from renta-kill – where is the rat you want exterminated?
43. I see !! your going to do it that way then – MMmmmm
Posted November 9, 2014
An IT security architect was on his way home with a new car, which was absorbing all his attention, when it struck him that he had forgotten something.
Twice he stopped, counted his parcels, searched his pockets, but finally decided he had everything with him. Yet the feeling persisted.
When he reached home his daughter ran out, stopped short, and cried:
“Daddy, where’s Mommy?”
Posted November 7, 2014
For months the Programmer had been a devoted admirer of the lady in HR. Now, at long last, he had collected up sufficient courage to ask her the most momentous of all questions:
“There are quite a lot of advantages to being a bachelor,” the Geek began, “but there comes a time when one longs for the companionship of another being — a being who will regard one as perfect, as an idol; whom one can treat as one’s absolute own; who will be kind and faithful when times are hard; who will share one’s joys and sorrows.”
To his delight he saw a sympathetic gleam in her eyes. Then she nodded in agreement.
Finally, she responded, “I think its a great idea! Can I help you choose which puppy to buy?”
Posted November 6, 2014
The VP of Network Engineering was concerned that his employees weren’t giving him enough respect, so he tried an old fashioned method of persuasion: He brought in a sign that said “I’m the Boss” and taped it to his door.
After lunch, he noticed someone had taped another note under his. “Your wife called. She wants her sign back!”
Posted November 4, 2014
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would have destroyed civilization.
Posted November 1, 2014
A man was crossing a road one day when a frog said: “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a beautiful woman.”
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said: “If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful woman I will stay with you for an entire week!”
The man took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it in to his pocket.
The frog cried out: “If you kiss me and turn me back into a woman, I’ll stay with you for a year.”
Again the man took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally the frog asked: “What is the matter? I’ve told you I’m a beautiful woman and that I’d stay with you for a year. Why won’t you kiss me?”
The man said: “Look, I’m a network engineer. I don’t have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is pretty cool.”
Posted October 30, 2014
Eight Rules for “Working Hard” in the Data Center
1. Never walk around the server room without a document or folder in your hands
People with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings. People with nothing in their hands look like they’re heading for the cafeteria. People with a newspaper in their hands look like they’re heading for the toilet.
2. Use your computer to look busy
Any time you use your computer, it looks like work to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, chat, check out Facebook, and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work. These aren’t exactly the societal benefits that the computer revolution portended, but they’re not bad either.
3. Messy desk
Top management can get away with a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like we’re not working hard enough. Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the observer, last year’s work looks the same as today’s work; it’s volume that counts. Pile them high and wide. If you know somebody is coming to your cubicle, bury the document you’ll need halfway down in an existing stack and rummage for it when he/she arrives.
4. Voice Mail
Never answer your phone. People don’t call you just because they want to give you something for nothing – they call because they want YOU to do work for THEM. That’s no way to live.
Screen all your calls. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you and it sounds like impending work, respond during lunch hour when you know they’re not there – it looks like you’re hardworking and conscientious even though you’re being a devious weasel.
5. Looking Impatient and Annoyed
According to George Costanza, one should also always try to look impatient and annoyed to give your bosses the impression that you are always busy.
6. Leave the Data Center late
Always leave the office late, especially when the boss is still around. You can read magazines, romance novels, whatever, but figure out a way to bide your time—and then make sure you walk past the boss’ room on your way out. Bonus points: Send work emails at unearthly hours (e.g. 11:35pm, 5:05am, etc.) and during public holidays.
7. Creative Sighing for Effect
Sigh loudly when there are many people around, giving the impression that you are under extreme pressure and need get back to tend to critical issues.
8. MOST IMPORTANT:
DON’T forward this to your Network Manager by mistake!!!
Posted October 27, 2014
CTO: I am reading a most interesting book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.
Posted October 24, 2014
A pastor, a doctor and a network engineer are waiting one morning behind a particularly slow group of golfers. They see the course marshal and ask why he isn’t doing something to expedite play.
“They’re blind firefighters,” says the marshal, “They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we let them have free access to the course anytime they want.”
After a moment’s reflection, the group responds:
Pastor: “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.”
Doctor: “I’m going to contact an ophthalmologist friend, and see if there’s anything he can do for them.”
Network Engineer: “Why can’t these guys play at night?”
Posted October 23, 2014
Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the Banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.
After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result -all the apes are sprayed with cold water. Turn off the cold water. If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.
Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they weren’t permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes, which have been sprayed with cold water, have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? “Because that’s the way it’s always been around here.”
That’s how Data Center policy begins…
Posted October 20, 2014
Murphy’s Laws of Computing
1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it’s probably obsolete.
3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.
5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
6. To err is human . . . to blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.
7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
8. If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.
9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine.
10. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
11. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want to do.
Posted October 16, 2014
Three friends are sitting around talking one day when they begin to discuss what they would like their friends and families to say about them as they’re laying in their caskets at their funerals.
The first man says, “I would like to hear them say that I was an exceptional doctor, and a great family man.”
The second man responds, “I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher who made a huge difference in our children’s lives.”
The last guy, a Sys Admin, replies, “I would like to hear them say, ‘LOOK! HE’S MOVING!!'”
Posted October 14, 2014
Put More Stress Into Your Life, Network Engineers!
1. Refuse to take action on nagging network infrastructure problems. Procrastinate, brood, and if possible, lose some sleep over them.
2. Make a concerted effort to take note of irritations in your daily IT work and blow them out of proportion.
3. Consider the power of negative thinking.
4. Hide your sense of humor. Erase the words smile, joke, and laugh from your vocabulary; concentrate on frowning.
5. If you’ve been working a 60 hour week, try 65 or 70 or 75! Spending more time at work will give you less time to consider how stressed you are.
6. Consume vast quantities of caffeine. As a stimulant it will ensure that you are awake day and night.
7. Practice the art of “hurry up and wait”. This means dashing off to join a line-up somewhere – like the bank, cinema, or ticket outlet.
8. Make sure you drive no further than two feet from the car in front.
9. To relieve boredom while waiting for traffic lights, pretend you are on the starting grid for the Indy 500.
10. Never read a book or listen to music.
11. Play “Hide and Seek” by concealing important network equipment manuals from yourself.
12. Delegate nagging problems to junior techs. You’ve proved that you can’t deal with them.
13. Tell yourself that your programming abilities are unlimited. Do not waver from this conviction until you are fired for lack of competence.
14. Giggle nervously. It will make other people nervous, meetings will be unproductive and you won’t come away with a long list of things to do.
15. Find a disagreeable tennis partner. Perhaps your spouse.
16. When feeling stressful, breathe deeply and hyperventilate until you pass out.
17. Take up gardening. Nothing can be more stressful than if you don’t like it.
18. When things are going badly, knock your head against a server rack. The resulting headache will supersede the original problem.
Posted October 12, 2014
Did you hear about the two microwave antennas that got married?
The wedding was terrible, but the reception was excellent!
Posted October 10, 2014
“Do you believe in life after death?” the Network Manager asked one of his hardware engineers.
“Yes, sir,” the IT guy replied.
“That’s good,” the boss said. “After you left early yesterday to go to your grandmother’s funeral, she stopped in to see you.”
Posted October 9, 2014
A Programmer (Me) Dealing with AT&T
Me: Hello
AT&T: Hello, this is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T…
Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes This is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: YES! This is AT&T, may I speak to Mr. Jones please?
Me: May I ask who is calling?
AT&T: This is AT&T.
Me: OK, hold on.
At this point I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, they were still waiting.
Me: Hello?
AT&T: Is this Mr. Jones?
Me: May I ask who is calling please?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T…
Me: Is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes this is AT&T…
Me: This is AT&T?
AT&T: Yes, is this Mr. Jones?
Me: Yes, is this AT&T?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: The phone company?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I thought you said this was AT&T.
AT&T: Yes sir, we are a phone company.
Me: I already have a phone.
AT&T: We aren’t selling phones today Mr. Jones.
Me: Well whatever it is, I’m really not interested but thanks for calling.
When you are not interested in something, I don’t think you can express yourself any plainer than by saying “I’m really not interested”, but this lady was persistent.
AT&T: Mr. Jones we would like to offer you 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Now, I am sure she meant she was offering a “rate” of 10 cents a minute but she at no time used the word rate. I could clearly see that it was time to whip out the trusty old calculator and do a little ciphering.
Me: Now, that’s 10 cents a minute 24 hours a day?
AT&T: (getting a little excited at this point by my interest) Yes sir that’s right! 24 hours a day!
Me: 7 days a week?
AT&T: That’s right.
Me: 365 days a year?
AT&T: Yes sir.
Me: I am definitely interested in that! Wow!!! That’s amazing!
AT&T: We think so!
Me: That’s quite a sum of money!
AT&T: Yes sir, it’s amazing how it ads up.
Me: OK, so will you send me checks weekly, monthly or just one big one at the end of the year for the full $52,560, and if you send an annual check, can I get a cash advance?
AT&T: Excuse me?
Me: You know, the 10 cents a minute.
AT&T: What are you talking about?
Me: You said you’d give me 10 cents a minute, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That comes to $144 per day, $1008 per week and $52,560 per year. I’m just interested in knowing how you will be making payment.
AT&T: Oh no sir I didn’t mean we’d be paying you. You pay us 10 cents a minute.
Me: Wait a minute here!!! Didn’t you say you’d give me 10 cents a minute. Are you sure this is AT&T?
AT&T: Well, yes this is AT&T sir but……
Me: But nothing, how do you figure that by saying that you’ll give me 10 cents a minute that I’ll give you 10 cents a minute? Is this some kind of subliminal telemarketing scheme? I’ve read about things like this in the Enquirer you know. Don’t use your alien brainwashing techniques on me.
AT&T: No sir we are offering 10 cents a minute for…..
Me: THERE YOU GO AGAIN! Can I speak to a supervisor please!
AT&T: Sir I don’t think that is necessary.
Me: Sure! You say that now! What happens later?
AT&T: What?
Me: I insist on speaking to a supervisor!
AT&T: Yes Mr. Jones. Please hold on.
So now AT&T has me on hold and my supper is getting cold. I begin to eat while I’m waiting for a supervisor. After a wait of a few minutes and while I have a mouth full of food:
Supervisor: Mr. Jones?
Me: Yeth?
Supervisor: I understand you do not quite understand our 10 cents a minute program.
Me: Id thish Ath Teeth & Teeth?
Supervisor: Yes sir, it sure is.
I had to swallow before I choked on my food. It was all I could do to suppress my laughter and I had to be careful not to produce a snort.
Me: No, actually I was just waiting for someone to get back to me so that I could sign up for the plan.
Supervisor: OK, no problem, I’ll transfer you back to the person who was helping you.
Me: Thank you.
I was on hold once again and was getting really hungry. I needed to end this conversation. Suddenly, there was an aggravated but polite voice at the other end of the phone.
AT&T: Hello Mr. Jones, I understand that you are interested in signing up for our plan?
Me: Do you have that friends and family thing because you can never have enough friends and I’m an only child and I’d really like to have a little brother…
AT&T: (click)
Posted October 5, 2014
An Accident Report
I am writing in response to your request for “additional information.” In block number 30 of the accident report form, I put “poor planning” as the cause for my accident. You said in your last letter that I should explain more fully. I trust that the following detail will be sufficient.
I am an amateur radio operator. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the top section of my new 80-foot antenna tower. When I completed my work, I discovered that I had, over the course of several trips up the tower, brought about 300 lbs. of tools and spare hardware. Rather than carry the now unneeded tools and materials down by hand, I decided to lower the items in a small barrel by using a pulley, which fortunately was attached to the pole at the tip of the tower. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the top of the tower and loaded the tools and materials into the barrel. Then I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow descent of the 300 lbs. of tools.
You will note in block number 11 of the accident report form that I weigh 155 lbs. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming down. This explains my fractured skull and broken clavicle.
Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley. Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly on the rope in spite of the pain. At about the same time however, the barrel hit the ground. The bottom fell out of the barrel. Devoid of the weight of the tools, the barrel now weighed 20 pounds.
I refer you again to my weight in block number 11. As you might guess, I began a rapid descent down the side of the tower. In the vicinity of the 40-foot level, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles and the lacerations or my legs and lower body.
The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of tools, and fortunately only three vertebras were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the tools in pain, unable to stand, and watching the empty barrel 80 feet above me, I again lost my presence of mind.
I let go of the rope…
Posted October 3, 2014
A Prayer for the Stressed Network Manager
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those business users that I had to kill today because they got on my nerves.
Help me also to be careful of the toes that I step on today as they may be connected to the feet that I may have to kiss tomorrow.
Help me always give 100% at work in the data center………
12% on Monday
23% on Tuesday
40% on Wednesday
20% on Thursday and
5% on Friday.
Help me to remember ………….
When I am having a bad day and it seems that the IT staff are trying to wind me up, it takes 42 muscles to frown, 28 muscles to smile but only 4 to extend my arm and smack someone in the mouth.
Posted October 1, 2014
While trying to explain to our six-year-old daughter how much technology had changed, my husband pointed to our brand-new personal computer and told her that when he was in college, a computer with the same amount of power would have been the size of a house.
Wide-eyed, our daughter asked, “How big was the mouse?”
Posted September 30, 2014
More Cyberaliases
Can you name the owners for these email cyberaliases? Hint: all of the addresses are for deceased female historical figures. (These are all
fake, so don’t try to send email to these addresses.) Answers are below.
bella@backs_ships.com
eatcake@versailles.gov
iluvmark@nile.net
katy@whitehorse.com
mrs.pm@newdelhi.gov
sba@leagueofwomenvoters.org
vikki@windsor.net
(Answers: Queen Isabella, Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra, Katherine the
Great, Mrs. Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Queen Victoria)
Posted September 28, 2014
An IT executive was interviewing a young woman for a Network Systems Architect position in his company. He wanted to find out something about her personality so he asked, “If you could have a conversation with someone, living or dead, who would it be?”
The pragmatic girl responded confidently, “The living one!”
Posted September 26, 2014
The Pentagon recently unveiled its new super computer to the top brass. This fantastic device, capable of making bazillions of decisions in split nanoseconds, is designed to solve all military problems with the greatest of ease.
To test its capabilities, the brass poses a tactical problem to it and then asks for a decision, “Attack or Retreat?”
The computer hums a bit, blinks a myriad of lights and answers, “Yes.”
The brass, somewhat confused by this answer, replies, “Yes what?”
The computer instantly replies, “Yes, sir!”
Posted September 25, 2014
The start of the new school term always brings out the most interesting questions for computer consultants on campus. The predominant questions this term pertain to “getting into” E-mail and how to access the “Information Highway”.
An obviously distraught student came into the consulting office yesterday complaining that his E-mail wasn’t working; his attempts to get tickets for an on-campus concert kept resulting in returned mail.
He showed me the mail address he was attempting to reach–I asked him where he obtained such an unusual mail address.
He replied, “The sign told me, ‘begins@7:30P.M.'”
Posted September 21, 2014
Q: What did the keyboard say to the programmer?
A: You’re really pushing my buttons!!!!
Posted September 18, 2014
A Dictionary of Network Management Project Terms
Programming Project slightly behind original schedule due to unforeseen difficulties– We got so sick of working on this that we decided to do something else.
Major Data Processing Technological Breakthrough–Back to the drawing board.
Developed after years of intensive coding research–It was discovered by accident.
Business Customer satisfaction is believed assured–We are so far behind schedule that the customer will be happy to get anything at all from us.
The network architecture design will be finalized in the next reporting period–We haven’t started this job yet, but we’ve got to say something.
Network Bandwidth Test results were extremely gratifying–It works, and are we surprised.
Extensive effort is being applied on a fresh approach to the firewall problem–We just hired three new guys; we’ll let them kick it around for a while.
Preliminary server operational tests are inconclusive–The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.
The entire new network architecture concept will have to be abandoned–The only guy who understood the thing quit.
Programming Modifications are under way to correct certain minor difficulties–We threw the whole thing out and are starting from scratch.
Posted September 14, 2014
On our Help Desk Technical Support line we have an answering machine that instructs callers to leave their name and address, and to spell any difficult words.
Early one Monday, the IT secretary was reviewing the weekend messages and she heard an enthusiastic young woman recite her name and address and then confidently offer, “My difficult word is reconciliation. R-E-C-O-N-C-I-L-I-A-T-I-O-N.”
Posted September 12, 2014
MATHEMATICS FOR GEEKS
ROMANCE MATHEMATICS
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy
OFFICE ARITHMETIC
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime
SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need.
GENERAL EQUATIONS
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
Posted September 9, 2014
Notice to Data Center Employees (Includes Part Time Workers)
SICKNESS
We will no longer accept your doctors’ statements as proof.
We believe if you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to work.
LEAVE OF ABSENCE FOR SURGERY
We are no longer allowing this practice. As long as you are employed here, you will need all of whatever you have and should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for. Anyone having operations will be FIRED immediately.
PREGNANCY
In the event of extreme pregnancy, you will be allowed to go to the first aid room when the pains are FIVE MINUTES apart. If it is false labor, you will have to take an hour’s leave without pay.
DEATH
This will be accepted as an excuse, BUT we would like two weeks notice, as we feel it is your duty to teach someone your job prior to . . . or after death.
This new benefit program started yesterday.
MIS/IT Management
Posted September 7, 2014
Our local newspaper ran several stories about a study that tied male obesity to a virus.
One evening my brother came home exhausted from a long day at work in the IT department of a major computer company..
“Did you read the paper?” he asked.
“I’m not going in to work tomorrow. I’m calling in fat.”
Posted September 6, 2014
Helpdesk: How may I help you?
Customer: I’m writing my first e-mail.
Helpdesk: OK, and, what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter a, but how do I get the circle around it.
Posted September 4, 2014
Computer Problem Report Form
1. Describe your problem:
__________________________________________
2. Now, describe the problem accurately:
__________________________________________
3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem:
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
4. Problem Severity:
A. Minor__
B. Minor__
C. Minor__
D. Trivial__
5. Nature of the problem:
A. Locked Up__
B. Frozen__
C. Hung__
D. Shot__
6. Is your computer plugged in?
Yes__ No__
7. Is it turned on?
Yes__ No__
8. Have you tried to fix it yourself?
Yes__ No__
9. Have you made it worse?
Yes__
10. Have you read the manual?
Yes__ No__
11. Are you sure you’ve read the manual?
Yes__ No__
12. Are you absolutely certain you’ve read the manual?
No__
13. Do you think you understood it?
Yes__ No__
14. If `Yes’ then why can’t you fix the problem yourself?
__________________________________________
15. How tall are you? Are you above this line?
__________________________________________
16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem occurred?
__________________________________________
17. If “nothing” explain why you were logged in.
__________________________________________
18. Are you sure you aren’t imagining the problem?
Yes__ No__
19. How does this problem make you feel?
__________________________________________
20. Tell me about your childhood.
__________________________________________
21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem?
Yes__ No__
22. Can’t you do something else, instead of bothering me?
Yes__
Thank you for taking the time to fill out our Computer Problems Form. Please allow 1-week response time so that the problem will resolve its self or you will reboot your computer, most likely resolving the issue.
Posted September 2, 2014
Helpdesk: Microsoft Tech. Support, may I help you?
Old woman: Good afternoon! I have waited over 4 hours for you. Can you please tell me how long it will take before you can help me?
Helpdesk: Uhh..? Pardon, I don’t understand your problem?
Old woman: I was working in Word and clicked the help button more than 4 hours ago. Can you tell me when you will finally be helping me?
Posted August 31, 2014
Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend has placed a screensaver on my computer, but every time I move the mouse, it disappears!
Posted August 29, 2014
Definitions of a Kiss
Professors of different subjects define the same word in different ways:
Professor of Computer Science:
A kiss is a few bits of love compiled into a byte.
Professor of Algebra:
A kiss is two divided by nothing.
Professor of Geometry:
A kiss is the shortest distance between two straight lines.
Professor of Physics:
A kiss is the contraction of mouth due to the expansion of the heart.
Professor of Chemistry:
A kiss is the reaction of the interaction between two hearts.
Professor of Zoology:
A kiss is the interchange of unisexual salivary bacteria.
Professor of Physiology:
A kiss is the juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in the state of contraction.
Professor of Dentistry:
A kiss is infectious and antiseptic.
Professor of Accountancy:
A kiss is a credit because it is profitable when returned.
Professor of Economics:
A kiss is that thing for which the demand is higher than the supply.
Professor of Statistics:
A kiss is an event whose probability depends on the vital statistics of 36-24-36.
Professor of Philosophy:
A kiss is the persecution for the child, ecstasy for the youth and homage for the old.
Professor of English:
A kiss is a noun that is used as a conjunction; it is more common than proper; it is spoken in the plural and it is applicable to all.
Professor of Network Engineering:
Uh, What? I’m not familiar with that term.
Posted August 27, 2014
You might be a Redneck Jedi if…..
You ever heard the phrase, “May the force be with y’all.”
Your Jedi robe is camouflage.
You have ever used your light saber to open a bottle of Bud Light.
At least one wing of your X-Wing fighters is primer colored.
You can easily describe the taste of an Ewok.
You have ever had a land-speeder up on blocks in your yard.
The worst part of spending time on Dagobah is the dadgum skeeters.
Wookies are offended by your B.O.
You have ever used the force to get yourself another beer so you didn’t have to wait for a commercial.
You have ever used the force in conjunction with fishing/bowling.
Your father has ever said to you, “Shoot, son come on over to the dark side…it’ll be a hoot.”
You have ever had your R-2 unit use its self-defense electro-shock Thingy to get the barbecue grill to light.
You have a confederate flag painted on the hood of your land-speeder.
You ever fantasized about Princess Leah wearing Daisy Duke shorts.
You have the doors of your X-wing fighter welded shut and you have to get in through the window.
Although you had to kill him, you kinda thought that Jabba the Hutt had a pretty good handle on how to treat his women.
You have a cousin who bears a strong resemblance to Chewbacca.
You suggested that they outfit the Millennium Falcon with a redwood deck.
You were the only person drinking Jack Daniels during the cantina scene.
If you hear . . . “Luke, I am your father … and your uncle …”
Posted August 26, 2014
Helpdesk: What antivirus program do you use?
Customer: Firefox.
Helpdesk: That’s not an antivirus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry…Internet Explorer.
Posted August 24, 2014
A customer couldn’t get on the internet.
Helpdesk: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes I’m sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Helpdesk: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.
Posted August 22, 2014
MIS Dis-Inspirational Posters
There is no “I” in “teamwork”…but there is in “management kiss-up.”
Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG 14 times gives you job security.
Pride, Commitment, Teamwork: Words we use to get you to work for free.
If at first you don’t succeed, try management.
Teamwork means never having to take all the blame yourself.
If you do a good job and work hard, you may get a job with a better company someday.
We build great products when we feel like it and don’t have any reason to call in sick.
Rome did not become a great empire by having meetings…they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
We put the “k” in “kwality.”
Posted August 19, 2014
A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.
“House” for instance, is feminine: “la casa.”
“Pencil,” however, is masculine: “el lapiz.”
A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?”
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun.
Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.
The men’s group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computadora”) because:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
(THIS GETS BETTER!)
The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (“el computador”) because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves.
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time, they ARE the problem; and
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
The women won.
Posted August 17, 2014
There’s a man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.
When asked to define “great”, he said, “I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!”
He now works for a software company, writing error messages.
Posted August 16, 2014
Helpdesk: Your password is the small letter a as in apple, a capital letter
V as in Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters?
Posted August 14, 2014
For his entire working life, a dedicated and hardworking Astrophysicist tried in all earnest to find the existence of other being somewhere in the universe. After 58 years of constant effort, he finally receives a response from a planet 30 billion light years away.
“What is your planet like?” groaned the extraterrestrial from the other side of the Galaxy.
“It is 12,756 Kilometers in diameter, is 93,000,000 miles from the nearest star, our sun, has an average temperature of 72 degrees F. We breathe oxygen, live about 75 years, and have both men and women” answered the Physicist.
“Do the you get along with the women on your planet?” the extraterrestrial asked slowly.
Puzzled by the question, but not wanting to insult the female Physicists near by, he answered “Why yes. We get along quite well here.”
The extraterrestrial perked up “Can we send you ours?”
Posted August 12, 2014
Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Helpdesk: Are you sure it’s plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can’t get behind the computer.
Helpdesk: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer: OK
Helpdesk: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Helpdesk: That means the keyboard is not plugged in. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there’s another one here. Ah…that one does work!
Posted August 10, 2014
Two technical types were comparing notes on the difficulties of running a small network cable installation business.
“I started a new practice last year,” the first one said. “I insist that each of my employees take at least a week off every three months.”
“Why in the world would you do that?” the other asked.
The first engineer responded, “It’s the best way I know of to learn which ones I can do without.”
Posted August 8, 2014
I was flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles for my next network installation. Unexpectedly, we stopped in Sacramento on the way. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if we wanted to get off the aircraft, we would reboard in 30 minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind. I noticed him as I walked by and could tell he had flown before because his Seeing Eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight.
I could also tell he had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached him and, calling him by name, said, “Keith, we’re in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?” Keith replied, “No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs.”
Picture this: All the people in the gate area came to a completely quiet standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with the Seeing Eye dog! The pilot was even wearing sunglasses. People scattered. They not only tried to change planes, they also were trying to change airlines!
Posted August 5, 2014
You know it is time to reassess your relationship with your computer when….
1. You wake up at 4 O’clock in the morning to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on the way back to bed.
2. You turn off your computer and get an awful empty feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.
3. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free internet access.
4. You laugh at people with phone-line modems.
5. You start using smileys 🙂 in your snail mail.
6. You find yourself typing “com” after every period when using a word processor.com
7. You can’t correspond with your mother because she doesn’t have a computer.
8. When your email box shows “no new messages” and you feel really depressed.
9. You don’t know the gender of your three closest friends because they have nondescript screen name and you never bothered to ask.
10. You move into a new house and you decide to “Netscape” before you landscape.
11. Your family always knows where you are.
12. In real life conversations, you don’t laugh, you just say “LOL, LOL”.
13. After reading this message, you immediately send it to a friend!
Posted August 3, 2014
How many online forum members does it take to change a light bulb?
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed.
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.
27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.
53 to flame the spell checkers.
41 to correct spelling/grammar flames.
6 to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb”…another 6 to condemn those 6 as anal-retentive
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is “lamp”.
15 know-it-alls who claim *they* were in the industry, and that “light bulb” is perfectly correct.
156 to email the participant’s ISPs complaining that they are in violation of their “acceptable use policy”.
109 to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb group
203 to demand that cross posting to hardware forum, off-topic forum, and lightbulb group about changing light bulbs be stopped.
111 to defend the posting to this group saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts *are* relevant to this group.
306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.
27 to post URL’s where one can see examples of different light bulbs.
14 to post that the URL’s were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL’s.
3 to post about links they found from the URL’s that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.
33 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add “Me too”.
12 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.
19 to quote the “Me too’s” to say “Me three”.
4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.
44 to ask what is a “FAQ”.
4 to say “didn’t we go through this already a short time ago?”
143 to say “do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs”.
1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again….
Posted August 1, 2014
Helpdesk: And now hit F8.
Customer: It’s not working.
Helpdesk: What did you do, exactly?
Customer: I hit the F-key 8-times as you told me, but nothing’s happening…
Posted July 31, 2014
New customer to Tech Support: “It says, hit any key and when I do that nothing happens’.
Tech Support: Can you try again and tell me what happens?
Customer: ‘Tried but nothing”
Tech Support: “What key did you hit?
After a moment and some clinking sounds the customer replied: Well, first I tried my car key and just now my office key.
Posted July 29, 2014
As director of our network operations group, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s MIS training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director’s office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, she showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired – and the word “pedagogical” circled in red.
The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words, which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos.
A month later, I resigned, and in accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.
Posted July 27, 2014
Once I worked as an operator on an old IBM 370/Model 138 mainframe at a local college. My position had been reclassified to fall into a new area outside of the I/S staff.
One day, my new supervisor entered the room and stared at the air conditioning unit directly behind me. He studied the two flashing lights for a few moments and asked what job it was currently processing.
I killed my career by replying, “Actually, sir, it’s cooling the room. The computer is over there.”
Posted July 26, 2014
Data Center Policies
Dress Code:
1) You are advised to come to work in the IT Department dressed according to your salary.
2) If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.
3) If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.
4) If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore you do not need a raise.
Sick Days:
We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
Personal Days:
Each Data Center employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays & Sundays.
Bereavement Leave:
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-IT-employees attend the funeral arrangements in your place. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.
Bathroom Breaks:
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the “Chronic Offenders” category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sanctioned under the Data Center’s mental health policy.
Lunch Break:
* Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy.
* Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.
* Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.
Thank you for your loyalty to our Data Center. We are here to provide a positive employment experience. Therefore, all questions, comments, concerns, complaints, frustrations, irritations, aggravations, insinuations, allegations, accusations, contemplations, consternation and input should be directed elsewhere.
Posted July 23, 2014
One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a network project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!”
Posted July 20, 2014
Even though I was a computer science student at the University of Rhode Island, chemistry was a required course. The professor, on the first day of class, asked everyone to name the most outstanding contribution chemistry had made to society.
When my turn came, I answered, “Blondes!”
Posted July 18, 2014
Our team of network engineers recently received a memo from senior IT management saying: “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above.”
Posted July 16, 2014
Oracle Of Corporate IT Life
BEHOLD:
In the beginning, there was the Network Plan.
And then came the Infrastructure Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the
IT Workers and they spoke among
themselves saying, “It’s a crock of shit, and it stinks.”
And the Workers went unto their LAN Supervisors
and said, “It is a pail of dung, and we can’t live with the smell.”
And the Supervisors went unto their
Network Managers saying, “It is a container of
excrement, and it is very strong, such that
none may abide by it.”
And the Managers went unto their MIS Directors
saying, “It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide it’s
strength.”
And the Directors spoke among themselves,
saying to one another, “It contains that which aids
plant growth, and it is very strong.”
And the Directors went to the IT Vice Presidents saying unto them, “It
promotes growth, and it is very powerful.”
And the Vice Presidents went to the CIO saying unto him,
“This new plan will actively promote growth, and vigor of the
Data Center with very powerful effects.”
And the CIO looked upon the Network Plan, and
said that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
And this is how shit happens…
Posted July 14, 2014
Warning: New Virus Called FEAR
If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of FEAR, delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous e-mail virus yet.
It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator’s coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and
use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play. It will give your “ex” your new phone number. It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks on the coffee table when there s company coming over.
It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic. FEAR will make you fall in love with a hardened criminal. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current partner
behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your VISA card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of FEAR. It reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.
FEAR will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will wantonly remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, and refill your skim milk with whole.
It is insidious and subtle.
It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
These are just a few signs. Be very, very afraid.
AND PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!
Posted July 13, 2014
At work in a major data center for a financial services company, my dad noticed that the name of an employee was the same as an old friend. He found the man’s e-mail address and sent him a message.
When Dad received a reply, he was insulted and fired back another e-mail: “I have put on some weight, but I didn’t realize it was that noticeable.”
His friend’s hastily typed message, with an apparent typo, had read:
“Hi, Fred. I didn’t know you worked here, but I did see a gut that looked like you in the cafeteria.
Posted July 10, 2014
In a high school gym class, all the girls are lined up against one wall, and all the boys against the opposite wall. Every ten seconds, they walk toward each other exactly half the remaining distance between them.
A mathematician, a physicist, and a network engineer are asked, “When will the girls and boys meet?”
Mathematician: “Never.”
Physicist: “In an infinite amount of time.”
Network Engineer: “Well… in about two minutes, they’ll be close enough for all practical purposes.”
Posted July 7, 2014
VP of Networking quote: “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.”
Posted July 5, 2014
Physics 101
Ratio of an igloo’s circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi
2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton
1 millionth of a mouthwash: 1 microscope
Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: Knot-furlong
365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it’s less filling: 1 lite year
16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone: 1 Rod Serling
Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon
1000 aches: 1 megahurtz
Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower
2000 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds
10 cards: 1 decacards
1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton
1000 grams of wet socks: 1 literhosen
1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche
1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin
10 rations: 1 decoration
8 nickels: 2 paradigms
2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League
Posted July 2, 2014
An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor. The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (Section: Floors, sweeping and cleaning).
After the test, the manager says, “You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day. Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies, “Well, then, that means that you virtually don’t exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed.
Stunned, the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25 lb flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly.
After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pick-up truck to support his expanding business. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.
Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance. Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically. When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, “What, you don’t have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!”
After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, “Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!”
Moral of this story:
1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
2. If you don’t have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.
3. Since you got this story via e-mail, you’re probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire.
4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.
Posted June 30, 2014
2001 Press Release from the New Archives
Microsoft Patent
REDMOND, WA–In what CEO Bill Gates called “an unfortunate but necessary step to protect our intellectual property from theft and exploitation by competitors,” the Microsoft Corporation patented the numbers one and zero Monday.
With the patent, Microsoft’s rivals are prohibited from manufacturing or selling products containing zeroes and ones–the mathematical building blocks of all computer languages and programs–unless a royalty fee of 10 cents per digit used is paid to the software giant. “Microsoft has been using the binary system of ones and zeroes ever since its inception in 1975,” Gates told reporters. “For years, in the interest of the overall health of the computer industry, we permitted the free and unfettered use of our proprietary numeric systems. However, changing marketplace conditions and the increasingly predatory practices of certain competitors now leave us with no choice but to seek compensation for the use of our numerals.”
A number of major Silicon Valley players, including Apple Computer, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, said they will challenge the Microsoft patent as monopolistic and anti-competitive, claiming that the 10-cent-per-digit licensing fee would bankrupt them instantly.
“While, technically, Java is a complex system of algorithms used to create a platform-independent programming environment, it is, at its core, just a string of trillions of ones and zeroes,” said Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, whose company created the Java programming environment used in many Internet applications. “The licensing fees we’d have to pay Microsoft every day would be approximately 327,000 times the total net worth of this company.”
“If this patent holds up in federal court, Apple will have no choice but to convert to analog,” said Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs, “and I have serious doubts whether this company would be able to remain competitive selling pedal-operated computers running software off vinyl LPs.”
As a result of the Microsoft patent, many other companies have begun radically revising their product lines: Database manufacturer Oracle has embarked on a crash program to develop “an abacus for the next millennium.” Novell, whose communications and networking systems are also subject to Microsoft licensing fees, is working with top animal
trainers on a chimpanzee-based message-transmission system. Hewlett-Packard is developing a revolutionary new steam-powered printer.
Despite the swarm of protest, Gates is standing his ground, maintaining that ones and zeroes are the undisputed property of Microsoft.
“We will vigorously enforce our patents of these numbers, as they are legally ours,” Gates said. “Among Microsoft’s vast historical archives are Sanskrit cuneiform tablets from 1800 B.C. clearly showing ones and a symbol known as ‘sunya,’ or nothing. We also own: papyrus scrolls written by Pythagoras himself in which he explains the idea of singular
notation, or ‘one’; early tracts by Mohammed ibn Musa al Kwarizimi explaining the concept of al-sifr, or ‘the cipher’; original mathematical manuscripts by Heisenberg, Einstein and Planck; and a signed first-edition copy of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being And Nothingness. Should the need arise, Microsoft will have no difficulty proving to the Justice Department or anyone else that we own the rights to these numbers.”
Added Gates: “My salary also has lots of zeroes. I’m the richest man in the world.”
According to experts, the full ramifications of Microsoft’s patenting of one and zero have yet to be realized.
“Because all integers and natural numbers derive from one and zero, Microsoft may, by extension, lay claim to ownership of all mathematics and logic systems, including Euclidean geometry, pulleys and levers, gravity, and the basic Newtonian principles of motion, as well as the concepts of existence and nonexistence,” Yale University theoretical mathematics professor J. Edmund Lattimore said. “In other words, pretty much everything.”
Lattimore said that the only mathematical constructs of which Microsoft may not be able to claim ownership are infinity and transcendental numbers like pi. Microsoft lawyers are expected to file liens on infinity and pi this week.
Microsoft has not yet announced whether it will charge a user fee to individuals who wish to engage in such mathematically rooted motions as walking, stretching and smiling.
In an address beamed live to billions of people around the globe Monday, Gates expressed confidence that his company’s latest move will, ultimately, benefit all humankind.
“Think of this as a partnership,” Gates said. “Like the ones and zeroes of the binary code itself, we must all work together to make the promise of the computer revolution a reality. As the world’s richest, most powerful software company, Microsoft is number one. And you, the millions of consumers who use our products, are the zeroes.”
Posted June 27, 2014
USEFUL PHRASES TO USE IN THE DATA CENTER
1. Thank you. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
2. The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.
3. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
4. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
5. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don’t care.
6. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
7. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
8. I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
9. I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
10. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
11. It’s a thankless job, but I’ve got a lot of Karma to burn off.
12. Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
13. No, my powers can only be used for good.
14. How about never? Is never good for you?
15. I’m really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.
16. You sound reasonable. Time to up my medication.
17. I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
18. I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message .
19. I don’t work here. I’m a consultant.
20. Who me? I just wander from room to room.
21. My toys! My toys! I can’t do this job without my toys!
22. It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy.
23. At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
24. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
25. I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
26. Someday, we’ll look back on this, laugh nervously, and change the subject.
Posted June 25, 2014
Computer Sayings
1. Home is where you hang your @
2. The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.
3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
4. You can’t teach a new mouse old clicks.
5. Great groups from little icons grow.
6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.
7. C:\ is the root of all directories.
8. Don’t put all your hypes in one home page.
9. Pentium wise-pen and paper foolish.
10. The modem is the message.
11. Too many clicks spoil the browse.
12. The geek shall inherit the earth.
13. A chat has nine lives.
14. Don’t byte off more than you can view.
15. Fax is stranger than fiction.
16. What boots up must come down.
17. Windows will never cease.
18. In Gates we trust.
19. Virtual reality is its own reward.
20. Modulation in all things.
21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted.
22. There’s no place like http://www.home.com.
23. Know what to expect before you connect.
24. Oh, what a tangled web site we weave when first we practice.
25. Speed thrills.
26. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won’t bother you for weeks
Posted June 22, 2014
Top 10 reasons to go to work in the Data Center naked…
1. Network Manager is always yelling, “I wanna see your ass in here by 8:00!”
2. Can take advantage of computer monitor radiation to work on your tan.
3. Inventive way to finally meet that hottie in Human Resources.
4. “I’d love to chip in, but I left my wallet in my pants.”
5. To stop those creepy guys in Marketing from looking down your blouse.
6. You want to see if it’s like the dream.
7. People stop stealing your pens after they’ve seen where you keep them.
8. Diverts attention from the fact that you also came to work stoned.
9. Gives “bad hair day” a whole new meaning.
10. No one steals your chair.
Posted June 20, 2014
Quote from the Director of Networks and Infrastructure: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.”
Posted June 17, 2014
A young IT worker bought an expensive piece of jewelry as a present for his girlfriend.
“Don’t you want her name engraved on it?” asked the clerk.
The young nerd thought for a moment, and then, ever the realistic, steadfastly replied, “No, just engrave it: To My One and Only Love. That way, if we break up and she throws it back to me in anger, I can use it again.”
Posted June 15, 2014
A programmer went on a business trip to China and wanted to buy some gifts for his kids. He went to a shop and found a nice looking CD player. Wary of buying inferior goods, he asked the shopkeeper, ‘What would happen if this does not work?’
The shopkeeper quietly points to the only sign in English that reads, ‘GUARANTEE NO SPOILT’.
Feeling assured, he paid for the CD player and returns to his hotel. He tried to use the CD player after returning to the hotel but it would not even switch on.
He quickly return to the shop and asked for a refund or an exchange for another unit. When the shopkeeper refused to give either, the man points to the sign assuring him of a guarantee.
The shopkeeper then said, ‘Brother, you are in China. We read from the right to the left.’
Posted June 13, 2014
A systems architect for a major consumer packaged goods company learned shortly before quitting time that he had to attend a meeting. He tried unsuccessfully to locate his car-pool members, also in the IT department, to let them know that he would not be leaving with them.
Hastily, he scribbled a message to one network engineer and left it on his desk: “I have a last-minute meeting. Leave without me. Fred.”
At 7:00 p.m., the man stopped at his workstation and found this note: “Meet us at the bar and grill across the street. You drove, you idiot.”
Posted June 10, 2014
Johnny never wanted to believe that his Dad was stealing from his job as an IT specialist for highway notification systems.
But when he got home, all the signs were there.
Posted June 8, 2014
A video game programmer was passing by a small courtyard when he started hearing voices and murmuring. He went in and saw an altar with a large zero in the middle and a banner that said, “NIL.”
Black-robed people were kneeling before the altar chanting hymns to The Great Nullity and The Blessed Emptiness.
The geek turned to a black-robed observer beside him and asked, “Is Nothing Sacred?”
Posted June 4, 2014
My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.
Posted June 2, 2014
A network systems architect went to New York on a business trip. When the trip was over, he took a cab to get to the airport. The cab driver decided to have a little fun at the computer geek’s expense, so he asked, “My mother had three kids, one was my brother, one was my sister, who was the third?”
The passenger had no idea.
The driver replied, “The third one was ME!”
The man went home to his wife and said to her. “Hey honey, here’s a riddle for you. My mother had three kids, one was my brother, one was my sister, who was the third one?”
His wife was stumped and said, “I don’t know, who?”
The techie responded, “Believe it or not, some cab driver in New York.”
Posted May 31, 2014
Overheard in the server room: “No one will believe you solved this storage problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.”
Posted May 28, 2014
Sign in the Data Center: “Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.”
Posted May 26, 2014
Jim, our network manager, had been out for a few days with the flu. Back at work, he ran into our CIO, who asked him, “Jim, how are you feeling?”
“I’m better, thanks. You know, it was a wonderful experience,” Jim replied.
“Wonderful? How can the flu be wonderful?”
“Well, I learned that my wife really loves me. You know, whenever the mailman came by or a delivery man headed toward the door, my wife ran out to meet them? I could hear her excitedly say, ‘My husband is home! My husband is home!'”
Posted May 23, 2014
The interviewer examined the programmer job application then turned to the prospective employee.
“I see you have put ASAP down for the date you are available to start, meaning as soon as possible, of course. However, I see you’ve put AMAP down for required salary. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before, what does it mean?”
The techie applicant replied, “As Much as Possible!”
Posted May 20, 2014
I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Rick the computer guy, to come over. Rick clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. He gave me a bill for a minimum service call. As he was walking away, I called after him, “So, what was wrong?”
He replied, “It was an ID ten T error.”
I didn’t want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired: “An ID ten T error? What’s that … in case I need to fix it again?”
The computer guy grinned…. “Haven’t you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?”
“No,” I replied.
“Write it down,” he said, “and I think you’ll figure it out.”
So I wrote out ……
I D 1 0 T
Posted May 18, 2014
Sally, a systems architect for our company, was driving home from one of her business trips to our data center in Northern Arizona, when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a word or two of thanks, she got in the car.
After resuming the journey and a bit of small talk, the Navajo woman noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally. “What’s in the bag?” asked the old woman.
Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, “It’s a bottle of wine. Got it for my husband.”
The Navajo woman was silent for a moment, and then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder said, “Good trade.”
Posted May 15, 2014
An IT consultant died suddenly at the age of 45. He got to the gates of Heaven. The angel standing there said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”
“What do you mean,” he replied. “I’m only 45, in the prime of my life. Why did I have to die now?”
“45? You’re not 45, you’re 82,” replied the angel.
“Wait a minute. If you think I’m 82 then you have the wrong guy. I’m only 45. I can show you my birth certificate.”
“Hold on. Let me go check,” said the angel and disappeared inside.
After a few minutes the angel returned. “Sorry, but by our records you are 82. I checked all the hours you have billed your clients, and you have to be 82…”
Posted May 13, 2014
A distraught Network Manager made an appointment with a counselor.
“I was out of town on business,” he told the doctor,” and I left a message for my wife that I would be coming home on Tuesday, instead of Wednesday. When I got in I went straight home and when I got there I found her in bed with my best friend!”
The man then broke down into uncontrollable tears.
The doctor considered the problem and said, “Ok, let’s relax and approach the problem logically. Maybe she never got your telegram!”
Posted May 11, 2014
A LAN engineer was in his front yard mowing grass when his attractive blonde female neighbor came out of the house and went straight to the mail box. She opened it then slammed it shut, stormed back in the house.
A little later she came out of the house again went to the mail box and opened it, slammed it shut again angrily. Back into the house she went.
As the techie was getting ready to edge the lawn, here she came out again, marched to the mail box, opened it and then slammed it closed harder than ever.
Puzzled by her actions the IT guy asked her “Is something wrong” to which she replied “There certainly is. My stupid computer keeps giving a Message saying……..”. “You’ve Got Mail”
Posted May 9, 2014
Two programmers were driving through the country to go bear hunting.
They came upon a fork in the road where a sign read, “BEAR LEFT”.
So they went home.
Posted May 6, 2014
When I was a newly commissioned Lieutenant in the Army, I was assigned as a temporary programmer in a data center in a Military Intelligence unit.
One day a long memo came around with a cover sheet instructing all assigned officers to read it and initial it as indication of their compliance. I figured it meant me too, so I read and initialed it.
However, a few days later, it came back addressed specifically to me. An attached note read:”You are not permanently assigned to this unit and are thus not an authorized signee. Please erase your initials and initial your erasure.”
So I did.
Posted May 4, 2014
Network Engineers
When does a person decide to become a network engineer?
When he realizes he doesn’t have the charisma to be an undertaker.
What do network engineers use for birth control?
Their personalities.
How can you tell an extroverted network engineer?
When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.
Why did the network engineers cross the road?
Because they looked in the file and that’s what they did last year.
How do you drive an network engineer completely insane?
Tie him to a chair, stand in front of him, and fold up a road map the wrong way.
You might be an network engineer if …
… you can type 70 words per minute but can’t read your own handwriting.
… you sit backwards on the Disneyland rides to see how they do the special effects.
… you have saved every power cord from all your broken appliances.
Posted May 2, 2014
Programming Manager to Staff: “This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.”
Posted April 29, 2014
Joe, our network manager, had asked Bob, a systems engineer, to help him out with the deck after work, so Bob just went straight over to Joe’s place. When they got to the door, Joe went straight to his wife, gave her a hug and told her how beautiful she was and how much he had missed her at work. When it was time for supper, he complimented his wife on her cooking, kissed her and told her how much he loved her.
Once they were working on the deck, Bob told Joe that he was surprised that he fussed so much over his wife. Joe said that he’d started this about six months ago, it had revived their marriage, and things couldn’t be better. Bob thought he’d give it a go. When he got home, he gave his wife a massive hug, kissed her and told her that he loved her. His wife burst into tears.
Bob was confused and asked why she was crying. She said, “This is the worst day of my life. First, little Billy fell off his bike and twisted his ankle. Then, the washing machine broke and flooded the basement. And now, you come home drunk!”
Posted April 27, 2014
During a recent password audit, our I.T. group discovered a blonde was using the following password:
MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento
When they asked why such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.
Posted April 25, 2014
Quote from the CIO: “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.”
Posted April 23, 2014
An architect, an artist and a network engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.
The network engineer said, “I like both.”
“Both?” they asked.
Network Engineer: “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the computer lab and get some work done.”
Posted April 20, 2014
Plea from a network project manager desperately trying to complete a new project plan: “What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.”
Posted April 18, 2014
Actual Announcement in Data Center cafeteria:
“As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.”
Posted April 15, 2014
Helpdesk: What’s on your monitor now ma’am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me in the supermarket.
Posted April 13, 2014
Smith, a network engineer, was always tired. After a while, he became known in the office for dozing off at his desk, sometimes even several times a day.
Granted, he had a reason: his wife just had twins and he didn’t get much sleep at home. But his boss, the Network Manager, was having none of it. He told Smith, that if he was caught sleeping on the job one more time, he would be fired.
After a short while, the Network Manager decided to make a surprise visit at Smith’s desk, to see if the situation had improved.
You can imagine, what happened next: he found Smith asleep.
But Smith was a quick thinker. He woke up just in time, remained in his position and calmly delivered the following line that saved his job: “…and I especially thank you for my excellent Network Manager. Amen.”
Posted April 11, 2014
Recently my CIO called a business phone number and heard the following: If you are calling from a touch-tone phone, press one now. If you are calling from a rotary phone, hang up and call back from a touch-tone phone.
Posted April 8, 2014
The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way the first railways were built in England, and the first US railroads were built by English expatriates.
Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines in Europe were designed and built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.
Why did “they” use that gauge then? Because the people who designed and built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing.
Okay, why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well… when they tried to use any other spacing, the wagons were prone to breaking down on some of the old, long distance roads, because that’s the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who created these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by the Legions of Imperial Rome for the same reason the autobahns were built by Hitler and the Interstates were constructed in the U.S. To facilitate the movement of troops and supplies throughout the Empire – Reich – Country.
And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were all made to certain specifications for or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification (Military, as it were) for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
But one “nagging” question still remains. Why did the design of the Roman army war chariots incorporate that specific wheelbase?
Answer: Because the chariots were designed to be just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
So, the next time you are handed some odd ball specification for your network or programming code and you assume that some horse’s ass was responsible for coming up with it, you may be exactly right!
Posted April 6, 2014
Hi good afternoon, this is Martha, I can’t print.
Every time I try it says ‘Can’t find printer’.
I’ve even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can’t find it…
Posted April 3, 2014
Dictionary of IT Project Terms & Phrases
Project slightly behind original schedule due to unforeseen difficulties– We got so sick of working on this that we decided to do something else.
Major Technological Breakthrough–Back to the drawing board.
Developed after years of intensive research–It was discovered by accident.
Customer satisfaction is believed assured–We are so far behind schedule that the customer will be happy to get anything at all from us.
The design will be finalized in the next reporting period–We haven’t started this job yet, but we’ve got to say something.
Test results were extremely gratifying–It works, and are we surprised.
Extensive effort is being applied on a fresh approach to the problem–We just hired three new guys; we’ll let them kick it around for a while.
Preliminary operational tests are inconclusive–The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.
The entire concept will have to be abandoned–The only guy who understood the thing quit.
Modifications are under way to correct certain minor difficulties–We threw the whole thing out and are starting from scratch.
Posted April 1, 2014
Helpdesk: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello… I can’t print.
Helpdesk: Would you click on start for me and ..
Customer: Listen pal; don’t start getting technical on me! I’m not Bill Gates!
Posted March 30, 2014
We had a power outage at my place this morning and my PC, laptop, TV, DVD, iPad and my new surround sound music system were all shut down. Then I discovered that my iPhone battery was flat and to top it off it was raining outside, so I couldn’t play golf. I went into the kitchen to make coffee and then I remembered that this also needs power, so I talked with my wife for a couple hours.
She seems like quite a nice person.
Posted March 27, 2014
The IT manager of a large office asked a new support employee to come into his office. “What is your name?,” was the first thing the network manager asked.
“John,” the new guy replied.
The IT manager scowled. “Look, I don’t know what kind of a namby-pamby place you worked at before, but I don’t call anyone by their first name! It breeds familiarity and that leads to a breakdown in authority,” he said. “I refer to my employees by their last name only – Smith, Jones, Baker – that’s all. Now that we got that straight, what is your last name?”
The new computer support guy sighed and said, “Darling. My name is John Darling.”
The manager said, “Okay, John, the next thing I want to tell you…”
Posted March 24, 2014
Three Helpdesk Calls
Call #1
Helpdesk: What kind of computer do you have?
Newbie customer: A white one…
Call #2
Hi, this is Marie. I can’t get my diskette out.
Helpdesk: Have you tried pushing the button?
Marie: Yes, sure, it’s really stuck.
Helpdesk: That doesn’t sound good; I’ll make a note ….”
Marie: No … wait a minute… I hadn’t inserted it yet… it’s still on my desk… sorry
Call #3
Helpdesk: Click on the ‘my computer’ icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?
Posted March 23, 2014
My boss, the CIO, and I had just reached the airport in the nick of time to catch the plane for our trip to the new data center overseas. “I wish I’d brought my desktop keyboard with me,” said Mr. CIO.
“What on earth for?” I asked while noting that there would be all types of equipment available at the new data center.
“I’ve left our airline tickets on it.”
Posted March 21, 2014
Old tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. IT Departments, however, often try other strategies. These include…
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like “This is the way we always have ridden this horse”
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other data centers to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today’s networking environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that “This horse is not dead”.
11. Hire IT contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that “No horse is too dead to beat.”
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.
15. Do a CA Study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16. Purchase a new boost product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is now “better, faster and cheaper.”
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.
Posted March 20, 2014
A small IT Consulting business was opening its first branch office because of a big new contract with a new insurance company and one of the owner’s friends wanted to send him flowers for the occasion. They arrived at the new business site and the owner read the card, “Rest in Peace.”
The owner was angry and called the florist to complain.
After he had told the florist of the obvious mistake and how angry he was, the florist replied,
“Sir, I’m really sorry for the mistake, but rather than getting angry, you should imagine this, ‘Somewhere there is a funeral taking place today, and they have flowers with a note saying, ‘Congratulations on your new location.'”
Posted March 18, 2014
WORK Virus Warning
There is a new virus going around, called WORK.
If you receive any sort of WORK at all, whether via email, Internet, or simply handed to you by a colleague…DO NOT OPEN IT.
This has been circulating around our building for months and those who have been tempted to open WORK or even look at WORK have found that
their social life is deleted and their brain ceases to function properly.
If you do encounter WORK via email or are faced with any WORK at all, then to purge the virus, send an email to your boss with the words “I’ve
had enough of your crap…I’m off to the pub”. The WORK should automatically be forgotten by your brain and your career will now be successful destroyed.
If you receive WORK in paper-document form, simply lift the document and drag the WORK to your garbage can and deposit there. Put on your hat and coat and skip to the nearest pub with two friends and order three pints of beer. After repeating this action 14 times, you will find that
WORK will no longer be of any relevance to you and that “Scooby Doo” was the greatest cartoon ever.
Send this message to everyone in your address book. If you do NOT have anyone in your address book, then I’m afraid the WORK VIRUS has already corrupted your life.
Posted March 15, 2014
Computer Terms in Maine
Log on – Make the wood stove hotta.
Log off – Don’t add no more wood.
Monitor – Keep an eye on that wood stove.
Download – Getting the firewood off the truck.
Floppy disk – What you get from trying to carry too much firewood.
Ram – The thing that split that firewood.
Hard drive – Getting home in the winta.
Prompt – What the mail ain’t during the winta.
Window – What to shut when it’s cold outside.
Screen – What to shut during black fly season.
Screen saver – Duct tape for the torn window screen.
Byte – What the black flies do.
Bit – What the black flies did.
Megabyte – What the BIG black flies do during trout season.
Chip – Munchies for TV.
Microchip – The crumbs in the bag after you’ve eaten the chips.
Modem – What you did to the weeds growing in the driveway.
Dot matrix – Old Dan Matrix’s wife.
Lap top – Where the beer spills when you pass out.
Software – The dumb plastic knives and forks they give you at McDonalds.
Hardware – Real stainless steel cutlery.
Mouse – What makes the holes in the Cheerios box.
Main frame – What holds the house up, hopefully.
Enter – The only way to win those magazine ad sweepstakes.
Web – What a spida makes.
Web site – What’s found in the corners of high ceilings.
Cursor – Someone who swears.
Search engine – What you do when the caa dies.
Home page – Map you keep in your back pocket in case you get lost in the woods.
Upgrade – Steep hill.
Server – Waitress.
Mail server – Male waitress, damn few in Maine.
Sound card – One of them technological birthday cards that plays music when you open it.
User – The neighbor who keeps borrowing stuff.
Browser – A problem moose in the garden or blueberry patch.
Network – Mending holes in the fishnet.
Internet – Complicated fishnet repair method.
Netscape – What haddock do when you don’t do your network.
Online – Good sign there’ll be clean clothes this week.
Offline – The clothespins let go and the laundry falls to the ground.
Posted March 14, 2014
Science and Engineering have a language of there own which sometimes puzzles laymen. The word “obvious” is a case in point.
A professor of physics, deriving some profound point of theory for the class, scribbled an equation on the board and said, “From this, it is obvious that we can proceed to write the following relationship…” and he scribbled a second and equally long equation on the board.
Then he paused. He stared hard at the two equations and said, “Wait a minute, I may be wrong…”
He sat down and began to write at his desk furiously, crossing out and rewriting for five minutes while the class sat in absolute silence waiting for the verdict.
Finally, the professor rose with an air of satisfaction and said, “Yes, I was right in the first place. It *IS* obvious that the second equation follows from the first.”
Posted March 12, 2014
True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: “Hello, is this Tech Support?”
Tech: “Yes, it is. How may I help you?”
Caller: “The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?”
Tech: “I’m sorry, but did you say a cup holder?”
Caller: “Yes, it’s attached to the front of my computer.”
Tech: “Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped. It’s because I am. Did you receive this as part of a promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?”
Caller: “It came with my computer, I don’t know anything about a promotional. It just has ‘4X’ on it.”
At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn’t stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!
Posted March 11, 2014
“Honey,” says an IT Architect to his wife, “I invited one of our network engineers home for supper.”
“What? Are you crazy? The house is a mess. I haven’t been shopping, all the dishes are dirty, and I don’t feel like cooking a fancy meal!!”
“I know all that.”
“Then why did you invite a friend for supper?”
“Because the poor fool’s thinking about getting married.”
Posted March 7, 2014
Q: What did the spider do on the computer?
A: Made a website!
Q: What did the computer do at lunchtime?
A: Had a byte!
Q: What does a baby computer call his father?
A: Data!
Q: Why did the computer keep sneezing?
A: It had a virus!
Q: What is a computer virus?
A: A terminal illness!
Q: Why was the computer cold?
A: It left it’s Windows open!
Q: Why was there a bug in the computer?
A: Because it was looking for a byte to eat?
Q: Why did the computer squeak?
A: Because someone stepped on it’s mouse!
Q: What do you get when you cross a computer and a life guard?
A: A screensaver!
Q: Where do all the cool mice live?
A: In their mousepads
Q: What do you get when you cross a computer with an elephant?
A: Lots of memory!
Posted March 5, 2014
My niece landed a great Network Architect job with a technology firm, and after a while she got a generous raise.
The day she found out about it, her husband picked her up from work, and they stopped for ice cream.
As they continued home, my sister blurted out, “Isn’t it hard to believe that I have a job that pays this much money?”
Just then, she went to toss the last of her ice cream cone out the window.
However, the window was closed, and it smacked against the glass.
Her husband replied calmly, “Yes.”
Posted March 3, 2014
Can you name the cartoon owners for these email cyberaliases? (These are all fake, don’t try to send email to these addresses.) Answers are below.
wise_dog@moose.com
badboy@springfield.net
kill_the_wabbit@nra.org
quacker@walts_world.com
caped_hero@rodent.net
sly@wb.com
greens_eater@navy.gov
(Answers: Professor Peabody, Bart Simpson, Elmer Fudd, Donald Duck, Mighty Mouse, Sylvester the cat, Popeye)
Posted February 28, 2014
Jake, fresh off being hired in his first network engineering position, had proposed to young Gina and was being interviewed by his prospective father-in-law.
“Do you think you are now earning enough to support a family?” the older man asked the suitor.
“Yes, sir,” replied Jake, “I’m sure I am.”
“Think carefully now,” said Gina’s father.
“There are twelve of us…”
Posted February 25, 2014
First thing – every single morning – one of the secretaries in our IT department opened the newspaper and read everyone’s horoscope aloud.
“Gwen,” said our boss, the VP of IT, finally, “you seem to be a normal, level-headed person. Do you really believe in astrology?”
“Of course not,” Gwen answered. “You know how skeptical we Capricorns are.”
Posted February 22, 2014
An office technician got a call from a computer user. The user told the tech that her computer was not working. She described the problem and the tech concluded that her computer needed to be brought in and serviced.
He told her, “Unplug the power cord and bring it up here and I’ll fix it for you.”
About ten minutes later she showed up at his door… with the electrical cord in her right hand.
Posted February 19, 2014
Redneck Computer Terms
BACKUP – What you do when you run across a skunk in the woods
BAR CODE – Them’s the fight’n rules down at the local tavern
BUG – The reason you give for calling in sick
BYTE – What your pit bull dun to cusin Jethro
CACHE – Needed when you run out of food stamps
CHIP – Pasture muffins that you try not to step in
TERMINAL – Time to call the undertaker
CRASH – When you go to Junior’s party uninvited
DIGITAL – The art of counting on your fingers
DISKETTE – Female Disco dancer
FAX – What you lie about to the IRS
HACKER – Uncle Leroy after 32 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 Bubba’s favorite fast food
MEGAHERTZ – How your head feels after 17 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
Posted February 17, 2014
Haiku PC Errror Messages
A file that 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.
ABORTED effort:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask way too much.
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.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
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.
Posted February 15, 2014
Dear Tech Support:
Help!! Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed that the new program began making unexpected changes to the accounting software: severely limiting access to wardrobe, flower and jewelry applications that operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalls many other valuable programs such as DinnerDancing 7.5, CruiseShip 2.3, and OperaNight 6.1 and installs new, undesirable programs such as PokerNight 1.3, Saturday Football 5.0, Golf 2.4 and Clutter Everywhere 4.5. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and invariably crashes the system. Under no circumstances will it run DiaperChanging 14.1 or HouseCleaning 2.6. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix Husband 1.0, but this general purpose utility is of limited effectiveness.
Can you help, please!!!!
Signed,
Jane
————————————————————
Dear Jane:
This is a very common problem women complain about, but it is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 with no idea that Boyfriend 5.0 is merely an ENTERTAINMENT package. However, Husband 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and was designed by its creator to run as few applications as possible.
Further, you cannot purge Husband 1.0 and return to Boyfriend 5.0, because Husband 1.0 is not designed to do this. Hidden operating files within your system would cause Boyfriend 5.0 to emulate Husband 1.0, so nothing is gained. It is impossible to uninstall, delete or purge the program files from the system, once installed.
Any new program files can only be installed once per year, as Husband 1.0 has severely limited memory. Error messages are common, and a normal part of Husband 1.0. In desperation to play some of their “old time” favorite applications, or to get new applications to work, some women have tried to install Boyfriend 6.0, or Husband 2.0. However, these women end up with more problems than encountered with Husband 1.0.
Look in your manual under “Warnings: Divorce/Child Support.” You will notice that this program runs very poorly, and comes bundled with HeartBreak 1.3. I recommend you keep Husband 1.0, and just learn the quirks of this strange and illogical system.
Having Husband 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Partnership Faults [GPFs]. This is a wonderful feature of Husband 1.0, secretly installed by the parent company as an integral part of the operating system. Husband 1.0 must assume ALL responsibility for ALL faults and problems, regardless of root cause.
To activate this great feature enter the command “C:\ I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME.” Sometimes Tears 6.2 must be run simultaneously while entering the command. Husband 1.0 should then run the applications Apologize 12.3 and Flowers/Chocolates 7.8.
TECH TIP! Avoid excessive use of this feature. Overuse can create additional and more serious GPFs, and ultimately YOU may have to give a
C:\I APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal operations. Overuse can also cause Husband 1.0 to default to GrumpySilence 2.5, or worse yet, to Beer 6.0. Beer 6.0 is a very bad program that causes Husband 1.0 to create FatBelly files and Snoring Loudly wave files that are very hard to delete. Save yourself some trouble by following this tech tip!
Posted February 12, 2014
“How is it that every time I pass your station, you are not working?” the angry network manager asked of one of his LAN engineers.
“It’s because you wear sneakers, sir!”
Posted February 7, 2014
One day a CIO drove his secretary home after she fell quite ill at work. Although this was an innocent gesture, he decided not to mention it to his wife, who tended to get jealous easily.
Later, that night the IT executive and his wife were driving to a restaurant.
Suddenly he looked down and spotted a high-heel shoe half hidden under the passenger seat. Not wanting to be conspicuous, he waited until his wife was looking out her window before he scooped up the shoe and tossed it out of the car. With a sigh of relief, he pulled into the restaurant parking lot. That’s when he noticed his wife squirming around in her seat.
“Honey,” she asked, “have you seen my other shoe?”
Posted February 5, 2014
Smith goes to see his supervisor in the IT department.
“Boss,” he says, “we’re doing some heavy house-cleaning at home tomorrow, and my wife needs me to help with the attic and the garage, moving and hauling stuff.”
“We’re short-handed and having a lot of network problems, Smith,” the LAN suprvisor replies. “I can’t give you the day off.”
“Thanks, boss,” says Smith, “I knew I could count on you!”
Posted February 2, 2014
Can you name the celebrity owners for these email cyberaliases? Hint: all of the celebs are deceased 1960’s icons and missed out on surfing
the internet. (These are all fake, don’t try to send email to these addresses.) Answers are below.
andy@15mins.org
jim@perception.rock.com
king@sun_sessions.com
jimi@experienced.com
bob@longtime_coming.net
doc_martin@dream.org
jj@big_brother.com
(Answers: Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix,
Robert Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Janis Joplin)
Posted January 30, 2014
Ever wondered what Heaven looks like ?
Bill Gates died and, much to everyone’s surprise, went to Heaven. When he got there, he had to wait in the reception area.
Heaven’s reception area was the size of Massachusetts. There were literally millions of people milling about, living in tents with nothing to do all day. Food and water were being distributed from the backs of trucks, while staffers with clipboards slowly worked their way through the crowd. Bill lived in a tent for three weeks until, finally, one of the staffers approached him. The staffer was a young man in his late teens, face scarred with acne. He was wearing a blue T-shirt with the words TEAM PETER emblazoned on it in large yellow lettering.
“Hello,” said the staffer in a bored voice that could have been the voice of any clerk in any overgrown bureaucracy. “My name is Gabriel and I’ll be your induction coordinator.” Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. “No, I’m not the Archangel Gabriel. I’m just a guy from Philadelphia named Gabriel who died in a car wreck at the age of 17. Now give me your name, last name first, unless you were Chinese in which case it’s first name first.”
“Gates, Bill.” Gabriel started searching though the sheaf of papers on his clipboard, looking for Bill’s Record of Earthly Works. “What’s going on here?” asked Bill. “Why are all these people here? Where’s Saint Peter? Where are the Pearly Gates?”
Gabriel ignored the questions until he located Bill’s records. Then Gabriel looked up in surprise. “It says here that you were the president of a large software company. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, do the math chip-head! When this Saint Peter business started, it was an easy gig. Only a hundred or so people died every day, and Peter could handle it all by himself, no problem. But now there are over five billion people on earth. Gosh, when God said to ‘go forth and multiply,’ he didn’t say ‘like rabbits!’ With that large a population, ten thousand people die every hour. Over a quarter-million people a day. Do you think Peter can meet them all personally?”
“I guess not.”
“You guess right.”
So Peter had to franchise the operation. Now, Peter is the CEO of Team Peter Enterprises, Inc. He just sits in the corporate headquarters and sets policy. Franchisees like me handle the actual inductions.” Gabriel looked though his paperwork some more, and then continued. “Your paperwork seems to be in order. And with a background like yours, you’ll be getting a plum job assignment.”
“Job assignment?”
“Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of eternity sitting on your butt and drinking ambrosia? Heaven is a big operation. You have to pull your weight around here!” Gabriel took out a triplicate form, had Bill sign at the bottom, and then tore out the middle copy and handed it to Bill. “Take this down to Induction Center #23 and meet up with your occupational orientator. His name is Abraham.”
Bill started to ask a question, but Gabriel interrupted him. “No, he’s not *that* Abraham.” Bill walked down a muddy trail for ten miles until he came to Induction Center #23. He met with Abraham after a mere six-hour wait.
“Heaven is centuries behind in building its data processing infrastructure,” explained Abraham. “As you’ve seen, we’re still doing everything on paper. It takes us a week just to process new entries.”
“I had to wait *three* weeks,” said Bill.
Abraham stared at Bill angrily, and Bill realized that he’d made a mistake. Even in Heaven, it’s best not to contradict a bureaucrat. “Well,” Bill offered, “maybe that Syria thing has you guys backed up.”
Abraham’s look of anger faded to mere annoyance. “Your job will be to supervise Heaven’s new data processing center. We’re building the largest computing facility in creation. Half a million computers connected by a multi-segment fiber optic network, all running into a back-end server network with a thousand CPUs on a gigabit channel. Fully fault tolerant. Fully distributed processing. The works.”
Bill could barely contain his excitement. “Wow! What a great job! This is really Heaven!”
“We’re just finishing construction, and we’ll be starting operations soon. Would you like to go see the center now?”
“You bet!”
Abraham and Bill caught the shuttle bus and went to Heaven’s new data processing center. It was a truly huge facility, a hundred times bigger than the Astrodome. Workmen were crawling all over the place, getting the miles of fiber optic cables properly installed. But the center was dominated by the computers. Half a million computers, arranged neatly row-by-row, half a million ….
…. Macintoshes ….
…. all running Claris software! Not a PC in sight! Not a single byte of Microsoft code!
The thought of spending the rest of eternity using products that he had spent his whole life working to destroy was too much for Bill. “What about PCs???” he exclaimed. “What about Windows??? What about Excel??? What about Word???”
“You’re forgetting something,” said Abraham.
“What’s that?” asked Bill plaintively.
“This is Heaven,” explained Abraham. “We need a computer system that’s heavenly to use. If you want to build a data processing center based on PCs running Windows, then ….
…. GO TO HELL!”
Posted January 29, 2014
Useful Phrases in the IT Department
(01) Thank you. We’re all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
(02) The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re a technical genius.
(03) I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
(04) Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
(05) I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don’t give a damn.
(06) I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
(07) What am I? Flypaper for freaks!?
(08) I’m not being rude. You’re just insignificant.
(09) I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
(10) Ahhh…I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again…
(11) I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about your networking skills.
(12) It’s a thankless wiring job, but I’ve got a lot of Karma to burn off.
(13) Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
(14) No, my technical powers can only be used for good.
(15) How about never? Is never good for you?
(16) I’m really easy to get along with once you engineers learn to worship me.
(17) Your programming solutions sound reasonable… Time to up my medication.
(18) I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.
(19) I’m out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message…
(20) I don’t work here. I’m an IT consultant.
(21) Who, me? I just wander from data center to data center.
(22) My toys! My toys! I can’t do this networking job without my toys!
(23) It might look like I’m doing nothing, but at the cellular level I’m really quite busy.
(24) At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
(25) You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
(26) I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
(27) Someday, we’ll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.
(28) I’m sorry, you must have took me for someone who gives a darn.
(29) I’m not in the mood to fix the bandwidth problem but when I get into it, I will be sure not to call you!
Posted January 25, 2014
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below replied, “You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be a network engineer,” said the balloonist.
“I am,” replied the man, “but how did you know?”
“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below responded, “You must be an IT manager.”
“I am,” replied the balloonist, “how did you know?”
“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”
Posted January 23, 2014
Safety is a major concern at the manufacturing company where I manage the IT department. So I’m constantly preaching caution to the workers I supervise. “Does anyone know,” I asked a few help desk staff members, “What the speed limit is in our parking lot?”
The long silence that followed was interrupted when one of them piped up. “That depends. Do you mean coming in to work or leaving?”
Posted January 20, 2014
Four best friends — all in working in the IT departments of different companies — met at the hospital since their wives were all giving birth at the same time.
The nurse comes up to the first man and says, “Congratulations, you got twins.” The man said “How strange, I’m the network manager of the Minnesota Twins.”
After awhile the nurse comes up to the second man and says, “Congratulations, you got triplets.” That man said, “Hmmm, strange I worked as the IT director for 3M.
Finally, the nurse comes up to the third man and says, “Congratulations, you got twins x2.” This man is happy and says, “Ironic, I am a database administrator for the Four Seasons Hotels.
All three of them are happy until they see their last buddy jumping all over the place, cursing God and banging his head on the wall. They asked him what’s wrong and he answered, “What’s wrong? I write applications code for 7UP!”
Posted January 18, 2014
I am a network administrator who must travel constantly to my company’s multiple locations around the country. While waiting in line at a busy airport check-in counter one day, I noticed a set of rambunctious little boys in front of me. As the line inched along, their mother tried in vain to get them to calm down.
Finally she reached the counter, where the ticket agent asked her, “Have any of the items you plan to take with you on this flight been out of your immediate control since your arrival at the airport?”
The young mother replied honestly, “The luggage, no; the children, yes.”
Posted January 15, 2014
Student Science Quiz Answers
Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the species.
Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards.
The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think.
Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillers.
The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.
The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.
To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.
Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.
A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.
When you haven’t got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier.
For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth.
To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.
For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.
When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
Posted January 13, 2014
When I worked as a technical-support specialist for a computer company, customer help calls ranged from the mundane to the bizarre.
One memorable problem I had to trouble-shoot came from a man who complained that every time he flushed his toilet, his computer would reboot.
It turned out that he lived in a rural area with water supplied by a well with an electric pump. Every time he flushed, it would turn on the pump, causing a dip in the electric power, which in turn would cause the computer to restart itself.
Posted January 11, 2014
Customer Service Rep: Can you install LOVE?
Customer: I can do that. I’m not very technical, but I think I am ready to install now. What do I do first?
Customer Service Rep: The first step is to open your HEART. Have you located your HEART ma’am?
Customer: Yes I have, but there are several programs running right now. Is it okay to install while they are running?
Customer Service Rep: What programs are running ma’am?
Customer: Let me see…. I have PASTHURT.EXE, LOWESTEEM.EXE, GRUDGE.EXE, and RESENTMENT.COM running right now.
Customer Service Rep: No problem. LOVE will automatically erase PASTHURT.EXE from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory, but it will no longer disrupt other programs. LOVE will eventually overwrite LOWESTEEM.EXE with a module of its own called HIGHESTEEM.EXE. However, you have to completely turn off GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM. Those programs prevent LOVE from being properly installed. Can you turn those off ma’am?
Customer: I don’t know how to turn them off. Can you tell me how?
Customer Service Rep: My pleasure. Go to your Start menu and invoke FORGIVENESS.EXE. Do this as many times as necessary until GRUDGE.EXE and RESENTMENT.COM have been completely erased.
Customer: Okay, I’m done. LOVE has started installing itself automatically. Is that normal?
Customer Service Rep: Yes it is. You should receive a message that says it will reinstall for the life of your HEART. Do you see that message?
Customer: Yes I do. Is it completely installed?
Customer Service Rep: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other HEARTS in order to get the upgrades.
Customer: Oops…I have an error message already. What should I do?
Customer Service Rep: What does the message say?
Customer: It says “ERROR 412 – PROGRAM NOT RUN ON INTERNAL COMPONENTS”. What does that mean?
Customer Service Rep: Don’t worry ma’am, that’s a common problem. It means that the LOVE program is set up to run on external HEARTS but has not yet been run on your HEART. It is one of those complicated programming things, but in non-technical terms it means you have to “LOVE” your own machine before it can “LOVE” others.
Customer: So what should I do?
Customer Service Rep: Can you find the directory called “SELF-ACCEPTANCE”?
Customer: Yes, I have it.
Customer Service Rep: Excellent, you are getting good at this.
Customer: Thank you.
Customer Service Rep: You’re welcome. Click on the following files and then copy them to the “MYHEART” directory: FORGIVESELF.DOC, SELFESTEEM.TXT, REALIZEWORTH.TXT, and GOODNESS.DOC. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching any faulty programming. Also, you need to delete SELFCRITIC.EXE from all directories, and then empty your recycle bin afterwards to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.
Customer: Got it. Hey! My HEART is filling up with really neat files. SMILE.MPG is playing on my monitor right now and it shows that WARMTH.COM, PEACE.EXE, and CONTENTMENT.COM are copying themselves all over my HEART!
Customer Service Rep: Then LOVE is installed and running. You should be able to handle it from here. One more thing before I go…
Customer: Yes?
Customer Service Rep: LOVE is freeware. Be sure to give it and its various modules to everybody you meet. They will in turn share it with other people and they will return some really neat modules back to you.
Customer: I will. Thank you for your help.
Posted January 9, 2014
The Web Addiction Holiday Sing Along!
(Sung to the tune of “Winter Wonderland”)
Doorbell rings, I’m not list’nin’,
From my mouth, drool is glist’nin’,
I’m happy — although
My boss let me go —
Happily addicted to the Web.
All night long, I sit clicking,
Unaware time is ticking,
There’s beard on my cheek,
Same clothes for a week,
Happily addicted to the Web!
Friends come by; they shake me, Saying, “Yo, man!
Don’t you know tonight’s the senior prom?”
With a listless shrug, I mutter; I say “No, man;
I just discovered laugh-a-lot-dot-com!”
I don’t phone, don’t send faxes,
Don’t go out, don’t pay taxes,
Who cares if someday
They drag me away?
I’m happily addicted to the Web!
Happ-ilyyyyy, ad-dict-eeeed to the Weeeeeb!!! (Yeah!)
Posted January 5, 2014
The heaviest element known to science is IT-Managerium.
This element has no protons or electrons, but has a nucleus made up of 1 neutron, 2 vice-neutrons, 5 junior vice-neutrons, 25 assistant vice-neutrons, and 125 junior assistant vice-neutrons all going round in circles.
IT-Managerium has a half-life of three years, at which time it does not decay but institutes a series of reviews leading to reorganization.
Its molecules are held together by means of the exchange of tiny particles known as morons.
Posted January 2, 2014
Bubba applied for a network engineering position at the data center for a Lake Charles refinery.
A Northerner applied for the same job and both applicants, having the same qualifications, were asked to take a test by the IT manager. Upon completion of the networking principles test, both men only missed one of the questions.
The manager went to Bubba and said: “Thank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to give the Northerner the job.”
Bubba asked: “And why are you giving him the job? We both got nine questions correct. This being Louisiana, and me being a Southern boy, I should get the job!”
The manager said: “We have made our decision not on the correct answers, but rather on the one question that you both missed.”
Bubba then asked: “And just how would one incorrect answer be better than the other?”
The manager replied: “Bubba, its like this. On question #4 the Northerner put down; “I don’t know.” You put down, “Neither do I.”