A Windows 95 Programmer dies, and instead of going to Heaven or Hell, he is sent to a place with a Saint behind a desk. Confused, he walks up to the Saint and asked what was going on. The Saint replies "Well, we are changing our ways of handling your ultimate destination. We now allow you to see both Heaven and Hell, and let you take your pick." "Wow! Lets go!" he replies.

So, with a snap of his fingers, the Saint and the programmer are instantly in a world that is very calm...classical music, people playing chess, soft lighting. "This is Heaven" replied the Saint. "It's not bad...but let me see Hell before I decide" says the W95 programmer. Again, a snap of the fingers, and they find themselves in Hell. But, to the programmers surprise, there is rock and roll music playing, an open bar, scantily clad women running around everywhere, big screen TV's with all the major sports games on. "Cool! I'll take Hell!" the W95 programmer says, with much excitement. "As you wish" replies the Saint, and disappears in a puff of smoke.

Immediately, the W95 programmer finds himself up to his neck in shit and puke, with bugs crawling all over his face, and a large Demon smacking him with a whip. "Aarrgh...what is this?" he bellows. "This is not the Hell that you showed me!"

"Ah," says the Saint. "You are right...that was the Demo"


I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be aproximated.

Some years ago my son and his friend were playing an early Adventure on a TRS-80. The jewels to be collected were in a throne room at the edge of a cliff and the room was guarded by a bear. Using all the various tools, weapons, and spells at their command they were unable to get rid of the bear.

This went on for some 20 minutes or so. Finally in frustration they entered: "Fuck bear!"

The program's response was: "Bear is so startled it falls off cliff."


If a programmer is Catholic does he/she use the Algorithm method?


Why E-mail is like a penis:

Some folks have it, some don't. Those who have it would be devastated if it were ever cut off. They think that those who don't have it are somehow inferior. They think it gives them power. They are wrong. Those who don't have it may agree that it's an nifty toy, but think it's not worth the fuss that those who do have it make about it. Still, many of those who don't have it would like to try it.

It can be up or down. It's more fun when it's up, but it makes it hard to get any real work done.

In the long-distant past, its only purpose was to transmit information considered vital to the survival of the species. Some people still think that's the only thing it should be used for, but most folks today use it for fun most of the time.

Once you've started playing with it, it's hard to stop. Some people would just play with it all day if they didn't have work to do.

It provides a way to interact with other people. Some people take this interaction very seriously, others treat it as a lark. Sometimes it's hard to tell what kind of person you're dealing with until it's too late.

If you don't apply the appropriate protective measures, it can spread viruses.

It has no brain of its own. Instead, it uses yours. If you use it too much, you'll find it becomes more and more difficult to think coherently.

We attach an importance to it that is far greater than its actual size and influence warrant. If you're not careful what you do with it, it can get you in big trouble.

It has its own agenda. Somehow, no matter how good your intentions, it will warp you behavior. Later you may ask yourself "why on earth did I do that?"

It has no conscience and no memory. Left to its own devices, it will do the same damn dumb things again and again.


[For the occassional hermit out there without a mail drop, America Online has been distributing "10 Hours Free" disks like crazy. They come with magazines, they come by themselves, they are attached to trade journals etc. I have about ten of them now. I have never expressed an interest in AOL but these disks keep mounting up.] Things to do about all of your AOL disks.

  1. Collect two solar masses worth and detonate the sun. [copied from a signature seen on the net.]
  2. Activate each account with a different cartoon character name like Bullwinkle, Barney Rubble, Tasmanian Devil, etc. See if you run out of names before you run out of disks.
  3. Activate the disks one at a time. For each disk you activate, download enough files to fill up the reformatted activation disk. Don't stop until you have downloaded all data AOL has to offer. Use remaining unactivated disks for backup of downloaded data.
  4. Get 1000 people to all activate all of their disks at the same time. Monitor trade journals to see which disk storage manufacturer gets AOL's order for new multi-terabyte drive to hold subscriber data base.
  5. Tile your bathroom with your collection. Submit picture of bathroom to GQ (Geek Quarterly) magazine.
  6. Donate disks to charity. Tell IRS that each disk contains $10 worth of software. Use resulting deductions to buy Lichtenstein.
  7. Call the FBI and tell them that these disks are made from refined uranium and homes across the country will begin exploding as soon as they reach critical mass.
  8. Activate all of your disk simultaneously using different ids. Making effective use of mail forwarding and distrubtion lists, bring AOL to a screeching halt by creating, sending, forwarding and reforwarding the following message among the various account: "Stop sending these f*****g disks."
  9. Erase all disks, put new labels on them and resell them as new. Retire at age 43.
  10. Start pyramid scheme with chain letter that tells recipient to mail 1 disk to each of the five people listed in the letter and to send the letter to five more people.


After a long, boring and stressful day trying to get my version of our code to fit with the official version, I finally linked it successfully. And at the end, it printed the checksum of the code (as is its wont). It was F0AD.

Things must be bad if even my code tells me to FOAD...


If you have half a brain, you can't help but notice the throng of publications, analists and net users declaring Windows 95 the Saviour of the Computer Industry. If you have less than half a brain, you probably believe it. Could it be?

Let's compare Windows 95 against a widely-accepted Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth:

        Jesus                                   Windows 95
--------------------------------------+--------------------------
Said, "Surely I come quickly."        |  Has been promised "any day
                                         now."


Is taking a lot longer to actually    |  Is taking a lot longer to
arrive                                   actually arrive.

Can walk on water.                    |  Can crawl on a 486.

Sits in judgement at the pearly gates.|  Will be used to judge Bill
                                         Gates.

Bible says, "In Him, all things are   |  Windows 95 doesn't even
possible."                               run all possible Windows
                                         apps.

Started life as a carpenter.          |  Turns perfectly good
                                         computers into furniture.

Born in a manger.                     |  Resembles something found
                                         in a barn.

Remembered for protecting the weak.   |  Has weak memory
                                         protection.

Was raised from the dead.             |  Was created from Windows
                                         3.1.

Jesus performed great works for       |  Windows 95 multitasking
the multitudes                           performance barely works.


Jesus has no sin.                     |  Windows 95 has no shame.

--------------------------------------+--------------------------
You decide.


Top Ten Anagrams for "Netscape Communications"
----------------------------------------------

10. Companies can't consume it
9. I cannot compute sans mice
8. Can't access 'net... I'm on opium
7. Um, options scam can entice
6. Net's uncommon capacities
5. Connect communities, ASAP
4. Mosaic IPO, etc., can stun men
3. Optimum 'net access: An icon
2. Connect it up; amass income
And the number one anagram for "Netscape Communications":
1. Mosaic, minus neat concept

Copyright (c) 1995 by the author, Mike Morton . All rights reserved. You may reproduce this, in whole or in part, in any form provided you retain this paragraph unchanged.


Suggested design for a tasteful rec.humor.funny T-shirt:

A simple image of a button, placed over the left nipple
(in some parts of the world one could use a neat round
opening in the cloth), with the label "rot-13".
Press the toggle, and the wearer becomes either offensive, or sexually explicit...


                          IIIII BBBB  M   M
                            I   B   B MM MM
                            I   BBBB  M M M
                            I   B   B M   M
                          IIIII BBBB  M   M

                   New Updates and Fixes to IBM/VU
This is a notification of two patches to IBM/VU (Virtual Universe) and a new release designed for users not requiring the full capibilities of a virtual universe.

Several users have reported errors resulting from recursive calls to the Universe Creation Utility (UCU). This utility, called from IEBSAGAN, is used to initialize the virtual space which will hold the universe to be simulated. On occasion, the universe created by this routine will contain technologies capable of creating their 'own' virtual universe processors, which in turn call on the UCU. While the stack structure supporting the UCU was designed with this in mind, no system can handle unlimited recursion. Release 134 will contain a patch that will request user verification before a new level is created.

Another problem that has been experienced occurs during the use of black holes and neutron stars in the virtual universe. Although the mass storage media provided with the VU processor is of the highest quality, it can not handle storage at such a density. The highest density that is supported is 2.32E16 grams/cc. DO NOT EXCEED THIS LIMIT. Severe gravitaional effects have serious impact on the reliability of the system. V134 will also contain a program (IEBFORWARD) that can deal with these problems.

Due for release in April is IBM/VSS (Virtual Solar System). This is designed for the casual user, who does not require the full use of a universe. One possible use of this package is to provide uniform testing conditions for programs that take input regarding the phase of the moon. In addition, it is estimated that the cost of simulating the solar system and a Voyager flyby is 1/5 that of actually running such a mission.

                    IBM Software Division


In article <3u6moi$sn2@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,

foo wrote: > >I have noticed that some postings are disappearing faster than others. Why
>is that and who decides?

> Its the size of the article. You see, the articles are stored on disk. An article is encoded in things known as 'bits' which are written on the disk. A disk is a rotating platter. As anyone knows centrifugal force will force anything off of a rotating surface.

As time goes on, the article moves closer and closer to the edge of the disk, and finally, it flies right off. Of course, the larger articles (more bits == more weight) tend to fly off faster.

Unix systems have something known as a "sticky bit" which can help articles remain longer if it is set. Remember, USENET was originally set up by Unix people, and they knew what they were doing.

On the other hand, some systems have their own rules, and you might get a better (or at least more correct) answer by asking the people who administer your machine.


Top Ten Anagrams for "Communications Decency Act"

Runners-up:

Copyright (c) 1996 by the author, Mike Morton . All rights reserved. You may reproduce this, in whole or in part, in any form provided you retain this paragraph unchanged.


Here's something I got (appropriately) over the net from someone, who got it from someone, who in turn got it from somebody else. I have no idea who originally wrote it.

"Think of the Internet as a highway."

There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know didley about the net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's a rotten metaphor.

Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net. . .

A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection. No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant- vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitrogylcerin and idle at 120.

No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirtguns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.

NO OFFRAMPS. None.

Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system.


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From: akirczen@sfu.ca (Anton Kirczenow)

"Intel Inside" ... the world's most widely used warning label!