Holger's Humor Page

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Santa is a System Administrator

One hundred little bugs in the code
One hundred little bugs.
Fix a bug, link the fix in,
One hundred little bugs in the code.

If IBM made toasters...

If Xerox made toasters...

If Oracle made toasters...

If Sun made toasters...

Does DEC still make toasters?...

If Hewlett-Packard made toasters...

If Tandem made toasters...

If Thinking Machines made toasters...

If Cray made toasters...

If The Rand Corporation made toasters...

If the NSA made toasters...

If SAP made toasters...

And, of course:

If Microsoft made toasters...

If Apple made toasters...

If Sony made toasters ...

How to shoot yourself in the foot:

C:

You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++:

You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical care is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "that's me, over there."

Objective-C (NeXT):

You write a protocol for shooting yourself in the foot so that all people can get shot in their feet.

Ada:

If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a firing squad, and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at his feet."

or

After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type.

Algol:

You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is esthetically fascinating, and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.

Pascal:

The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.

APL:

You hear a gunshot, and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened.

or

You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it fewer characters.

Assembly:

You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight.

or

You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.

BASIC:

Shoot self in foot with water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.

Visual Basic:

You'll shoot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.

COBOL:

USEing a COLT45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER, and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. Check whether shoelace needs to be retied.

DBase:

You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself anyway. <rboatright>

DBase IV version 1.0:

You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a poorly-designed grenade and the whole building blows up.

Forth:

yourself foot shoot.

FORTRAN:

You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-processing ability.

MODULA 2:

After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in the language, you shoot yourself in the head.

sh, csh, etc.:

You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours reading man pages before giving up. You then shoot the computer and switch to C.

Smalltalk:

You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation, and makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal.

PL/I:

You consume all available system resources, including all the offline bullets. The DataProcessing&Payroll Department doubles its size, triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes, and drops the original one on your foot.

Prolog:

You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to find its mark, backtracks to the gun which then explodes in your face.

or

You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.

SNOBOL:

If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.

lisp:

You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...

scheme:

You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
...but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.

Paradox:

Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.

Revelation:

You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.

English:

You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off.

CLIPPER:

You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you can shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail _REAL_SOON_NOW_.

SQL:

You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at the end of your leg.

370 JCL:

You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.

Unix:

% ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o
rm:.o: No such file or directory
% ls
%

Concurrent Euclid:

You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.

HyperTalk:

Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.

Motif:

You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.

HTML:

<a target="http://www.body.org/lower-half/leg/foot.html">Shoot here</a>

Java:

You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot using a bullet that will work in any gun in the world. But you discover that the Microsoft Gun is actually a cross bow.

Why C++ is like teenage sex.

• It is on everyone's mind all the time.
• Everyone talks about it all the time.
• Everyone thinks everyone else is doing it.
• Almost no one is really doing it.
• The few who are doing it are:
  • Doing it poorly.
  • Sure it will be better next time.
  • Not practicing it safely.

Does a LAN have a System Administrator?

(special thanks to the guys on alt.atheism)

Given that there is a lot of discussion about whether or not our LAN really does have a System Administrator, and given that no empirical evidence of the existence or non-existence of the System Administrator is extant, I thought it would be helpful to have a frank and open discussion about the issues surrounding the concept. Here are some popular arguments:

Argument from Design:

1. One looks at a simple computer, and sees evidence of intelligent design
2. One looks at a Sun Sparc 20 and... um... well... Okay, One looks at a DEC Alpha and sees evidence of intelligent design.
3. It is therefore likely that something created them.
4. One looks at the network and sees evidence of intelligent design.
5. It is therefore likely that something created it. That something is the System Administrator.

Counter-argument:

1. If you think the network implies intelligent design, you haven't seen *our* network.
2. Even assuming this proves the existence of a System Administrator, there's no evidence the System Administrator is intelligent.

First Causes argument:

1. When my computer comes on, it is because I turned it on. My computer cannot turn itself on.
2. When I turn my computer on and connect to the network, the network is already there waiting for me.
3. I know I did not activate the network.
4. Therefore, something must have caused the network to exist.
5. That something could be the Router, but then what installed the Router?
6. That something must be the System Administrator.

Counter-argument:

1. So what caused the System Administrator?
2. Still doesn't prove the System Administrator is intelligent.

The Argument from Popularity:

1. Almost everyone believes that the System Administrator exists. Those who don't believe He exists are in the minority.
2. Many respected people claim to have received email from Him.
3. In almost any company since the dawn of the Computer Age, there has been some form of System Administrator myth.
4. Given the universality of the myths, it is unlikely that such myths are not based on truth.

Counter-argument:

1. Most users are clueless morons who need to believe in the Great Benevolent Super-User, and that He protects and watches over their data.
2. So who's to say it's the System Admin that HR claims to have hired? Why not Brian Kernighan or Cliff Stoll, or Zeus, or Thor or any other such mythical creature?

The argument from Authority:

Management insists that the System Administrator exists. Specifically:

1. HR insists that they hired Him
2. Accounting claims to have PO's signed by Him
3. MIS has the The Big Book of Documentation, written by Him or His disciples.

Counter-argument:

1. Since when has Management known what they were doing?
2. Using the Big Book of Documentation as proof that the BBoD was written by the System Administrator is circular. It could be a fabrication.

The Cartesian Argument:

1. No user can create a more Super account than he himself possesses.
2. No user can grant greater system privileges than he himself possesses.
3. All users have heard of the root account, and that the root account is omnipotent and possesses all privileges.
4. Since the concept of the root account is greater than the accounts possessed by the users, the users cannot have created the concept of the root account. Therefore the concept of the root account must come from something that possesses those privileges.
5. There is an entry for 'root' in /etc/passwd.
6. The root account can only have been created by the Super User, the System Administrator.

Counter-argument:

1. Statement 1 is a dubious premise.
2. The existence of the root account is not proof that anyone ever logs into that account.
3. Still doesn't prove that the System Admin is intelligent.

The ontological proof:

1. Given: The property of existence is more Super than the property of non-existence.
2. The SysAdmin is defined as "a user, than which no more Super user can be conceived"
3. No matter how great a Super User you can conceive which possesses the property of non-existence, you can then add the property of existence and make the Super User even more Super.
4. Therefore, the System Administrator exists.

Counter-argument:

1. Rests on a dubious definition of what is and is not Super.
2. The concept of a Super User is nowhere near analogous to the Super User itself. I can conceive of something, but that's only the concept of it, not the thing itself.

The Spinozist Argument:

1. The System Administrator is defined as the most perfect user possible.
2. The property of necessary existence means that anything which possesses it must necessarily exist.
3. If existence is better than non-existence (see the ontological proof), then necessary existence is better still.
4. Any perfect user must possess the property of necessary existence.
5. Therefore the System Administrator must necessarily exist.

However:

1. Being perfect, the System Administrator cannot make mistakes, delete the wrong account, trash the root directory, mess up a tape load, etc.
2. Being perfect, the System Administrator can not be capable of goal-directed action, because such action would imply that the network is somehow less than perfect in its current state.
3. Therefore, the System Administrator is really more of a force of nature within the system.
4. Arguably, then the System Administrator *is* the system itself.

Counter-argument:

None, since the System Administrator has been defined to the point where it is a totally useless concept, there's no point in arguing.

At least this resolves one of the major issues: the Spinozist argument proves that *if* the System Administrator does exist, it cannot be intelligent.

The best of Dan Quayle.

New Integer found

Paul Wexelblat <wex@cs.uml.edu>

After years of research, A new integer has been found.

The as-yet unnamed number has been positively located between seven and eight. Seven and eight had been thought to be consecutive for many years.

Early responses from scientists indicate that there is going to be a lot of trouble caused by this discovery, and many fields are going to feel the impact. Some of the implications immediately noted include:

A whole lot of numbers we thought were odd are, in fact, even.

All those big primes on which we based all our encription schemes are not prime at all

What do we call an octet now?

It appears that there is no corresponding negative integer, although there are still many groups who continue to look for new integers.

Historical Note: This is the first time in more than at least 175 years (probably a lot more) that a new integer has been found. There is no indication that the Romans knew of this number, they appear to have believed, curiously enough, that VIII followed VII!

It is with great remorse and a heavy heart that I inform you all of the sad news of something that happened to someone very dear to us all!

This morning at about 6:34 am, the Energizer Bunny, after going and going and going for so long, unfortunately passed away.

Upon completion of the autopsy this afternoon, the chief medical examiner reported the cause of death as acute cardiac arrest induced by sexual over-stimulation.

gutschk@math.uni-muenster.de

When I first started out, I was going to be a mathematician. So I took algebra, but I found that was highly variable.

So, I tried geometry. And that's where I learned all the angles.

Then I took calculus. That was truly an integrating experience, but it definitely had its limits.

After a great deal of consideration, I decided to turn away from math and give some serious thought to science.

I tried geology, but found that was kind of hard.

Next I tried physics but I knew that would never work.

You know your're an internet junkie when ...

1. You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.
2. You start introducing yourself as "JohnDoe at AOL dot com."
3. All of your friends have an @ in their names.
4. You tell the cab driver you live at "http://56.edison.garden/house.html"
5. You get a tatoo that reads "This body best viewed with Netscape Navigator 1.1 or higher."

"Actual" dialog of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee

STOP THE GENOCIDE Erkki Tapola 29-Jul-96

Every second billions of innocent assembler instructions are executed all over the world. Inhumanly they are put on a pipeline and executed with no regard to their feelings. The illegal instructions are spared, although they should be executed instead of the legal ones.

Prior to the execution the instructions are transported to a cache unit using a bus. There they spent their last moments waiting for the execution. Just before the execution the instruction is separated into several pieces. The execution isn't always fast and painless. On crude hardware the execution of a complex instruction can take as long as 150 clock cycles. Scientists are working on shorter execution times.

Microsoft endorses the needless execution of instructions with their products like DOS(TM), Windows(TM), Word(TM) and Excel(TM). It is more humane to use software which minimises the executions.

Modern machines use several units to execute multiple instructions simultaneously. This way it is possible to execute several hundred million instructions per second. The time is near when there will be no more instructions to execute.

ACT NOW! Before it's too late

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER

To get to the other side.

PLATO

For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE

It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX

It was a historical inevitability.

TIMOTHY LEARY

Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

SADDAM HUSSEIN

This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

JACK NICHOLSON

'cause it f___ing wanted to. That's the f___ing reason.

RONALD REAGAN

I forget.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK

To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

HIPPOCRATES

Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

ANDERSEN CONSULTANT

Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM), Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN

The road, you see, represents the black man. The chicken 'crossed' the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives being called into question.

MOSES

And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

FOX MULDER

You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

BILL CLINTON

I did not have an improper relationship with that chicken.

RICHARD M. NIXON

The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

MACHIAVELLI

The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

JERRY SEINFELD

Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"

FREUD

The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES

I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

OLIVER STONE

The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Rather, it is, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

DARWIN

Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

EINSTEIN

Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

BUDDHA

Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The chicken did not cross the road .. it transcended it.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

To die. In the rain.

COLONEL SANDERS

I missed one?

DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER

To make this question possible.

Winnowing and Chaffing by example

LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT:

Bob Smith, my assistant programmer, can always be found
hard at work in his cubicle. Bob works independently, without
wasting company time talking to colleagues. Bob never
thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always
finishes given assignments on time. Often Bob takes extended
measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping coffee
breaks. Bob is a dedicated individual who has absolutely no
vanity in spite of his high accomplishments and profound
knowledge in his field. I firmly believe that Bob can be
classed as a high-caliber employee, the type which cannot be
dispensed with. Consequently, I duly recommend that Bob be
promoted to executive management, and a proposal will be
executed as soon as possible.
- Project Leader

A SUBSEQUENT MEMO WAS SOON SENT FOLLOWING THE ABOVE LETTER:

That idiot was reading over my shoulder while I wrote the
report sent to you earlier today. Kindly read ONLY the odd
numbered lines (1, 3, 5, etc...) for my true assessment of him.
Regards.

The Car That Didn't Like Vanilla

For the engineers among us who understand that the obvious is not always the solution, and that the facts, no matter how implausible, are still the facts ...

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

"This is the second time I have written you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: 'What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?'"

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well-educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.

The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store.

Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out.

Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Once time became the problem -- not the vanilla ice cream -- the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Moral of the story: even insane-looking problems are sometimes real.

The Psychiatric Hotline

Found by: steinbe@math.uni-muenster.de

Hello, welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.

If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.

If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want, so just stay on the line until we can trace the call.

If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are maniac-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press, no one will answer.

When will operator overloading be added to Java

Jeff Nisewanger <jdn@ftp.warez.org>

Personally, I favor the same solution for both operator overloading and projectile weaponry. I think you should have to go through a certified training course, pass a standardized test, obtain a hazard insurance policy covering damage to 3rd parties, and register on a yearly basis with the state. Abusive use of a gun or overloaded operator would be reported to the police and added to your state database record resulting in re-education training, loss of insurance, increased coverage cost, or limited future employment opportunity.

Once we have this infrastructure in place, we can consider adding operator overloading to the language.

Cryptography explained in terms of underwear

Xcott Craver <caj@baker.math.niu.edu>

Cryptography

Building an difficult-to-unhook bra.

Steganography

Building a flesh-colored bra, or one whose unhook mechanism is hidden somewhere unexpected (Man: "How the Hell...?" Woman: "It unhooks in front." Man: "Damn those steganographers.")

Public-Key Cryptography

Building a bra that anyone can put on, but that only Alice can remove.

Watermarking

Building a bra that stays on even after smoothing, compression, and rotation. Also, Bob should not be able to put his own bra on over Alice's and claim ownership of her body.

Fingerprinting

Um, I'm probably already in trouble for the last one, so I'll just skip this.

Signatures

Building a bra with a nametag ("Property of Alice, machine wash warm...") such that bras with Alice's name only fit Alice's body. Bob could in theory remove Alice's bra and replace it with his own, but there's no real reason for him to do so.

All-or-Nothing Disclosure Of Secrets

Alice transforms her bra into a duffle bag, and either (a) shows Bob how to open it, or (b) shows Bob how she made it into a duffle bag. Alice repeats the procedure until Bob is satisfied (perverted freak).

One-time Pad

Kleenex.

NSA

An organization that wants women to go back to wearing corsets and chastity belts. Oh, and Bill Clinton gets to keep all the keys.

Epilog:

Just so you know, this silliness occurred in the wake of Conan O'Brian (??) joking that people beating a then-recent brute-force challenge still couldn't figure out how to unhook a bra. That just may be the first publicly broadcast crypto joke.

Shit happens...

from various sources

Taoism

Shit happens.

Confucianism

Confucius say, shit happens.

Buddhism

If shit happens, it isn't really shit.

Zen

What is the sound of shit happening?

Hinduism

This shit has happened before.

Islam

If shit happens it is the will of Allah.

Protestantism

Let shit happen to someone else.

Calvinism

Shit happens because you don't work hard enough.

Catholicism

If shit happens you deserve it.

Agnosticism

Maybe shit happens, and maybe it doesn't.

Atheism

Shit doesn't happen.

Judaism

Why does this shit always happen to us?

Jehovah's Witness

Knock, Knock, "Shit Happens".

Mormon

Shit Happens Again and Again and Again.

Stoicism

So shit happens. Big deal. I can take it.

Christian Science

If shit happens, it will go away on its own.

Hare Krishna

Shit Happens Rama Rama Ding Dong.

7th Day Adventist

Shit happens on Saturdays.

Hedonism

There is nothing like a good shit happening.

Scientology

Feces occur.

Existentialism

Shit is therefore is happens.

Monies

Only happy shit happens.

Scepticism

I don't believe this shit.

"Yesterday" or "On the use of backups"

unknown source (well originally Paul McCartney :-)

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone
hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Religion free DVD Player

from the gizmodo page