A blind woman was out walking with her seeing eye dog when suddenly the animal paused and wet the woman’s leg.
Bending down, the blind woman stretched out her hand and patted the dog’s head.
Having watched what happened, a passer by said, “Say, why are you patting him? That dog just peed on your leg!”
“I know,” said the blind woman, “but I gotta find his head before I can kick his butt.”
When I went to college in the 1980’s, I heard a lot of words like “data input” and “beta version.” They confused me. I wanted desperately to know what people were talking about, what Big Secret resided in the computer industry.
Now that I’ve worked in a computer company for the last few years, I’ve gained an insider’s perspective. I decided to share my knowledge with the uninitiated by creating the following brief, handy glossary:
Alpha. Software undergoes alpha testing as a first step in getting user feedback. Alpha is Latin for “doesn’t work.”
Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for “still doesn’t work.”
Computer. Instrument of torture. The first computer was invented by Roger “Duffy” Billingsly, a British scientist. In a plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, Duffy disguised himself as a German ally and offered his invention as a gift to the surly dictator. The plot worked. On April 8, 1945, Adolf became so enraged at the “Incompatible File Format” error message that he shot himself. The war ended soon after Hitler’s death, and Duffy began working for IBM.
CPU. Central propulsion unit. The CPU is the computer’s engine. It consists of a hard drive, an interface card and a tiny spinning wheel that’s powered by a running rodent – a gerbil if the machine is a 286, a ferret if it’s a 386 and a ferret on speed if it’s a 486.
Default Directory. Black hole. Default directory is where all files that you need disappear to.
Error message. Terse, baffling remark used by programmers to place
blame on users for the program’s shortcomings.
File. A document that has been saved with an unidentifiable name. It helps to think of a file as something stored in a file cabinet – except when you try to remove the file, the cabinet gives you an electric shock and tells you the file format is unknown.
Hardware. Collective term for any computer-related object that can be kicked or battered.
Help. The feature that assists in generating more questions. When the help feature is used correctly, users are able to navigate through a series of Help screens and end up where they started from without learning anything.
Input/Output. Information is input from the keyboard as intelligible data and output to the printer as unrecognizable junk.
Interim Release. A programmer’s feeble attempt at repentance.
Memory. Of computer components, the most generous in terms of variety, and the skimpiest in terms of quantity.
Printer. A joke in poor taste. A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.
Programmers. Computer avengers. Once members of that group of high school nerds who wore tape on their glasses, played Dungeons and Dragons, and memorized Star Trek episodes; now millionaires who create “user-friendly” software to get revenge on whoever gave them noogies.
Reference Manual. Object that raises the monitor to eye level. Also used to compensate for that short table leg.
Scheduled Release Date. A carefully calculated date determined by estimating the actual shipping date and subtracting six months from it.
User-Friendly. Of or pertaining to any feature, device or concept that makes perfect sense to a programmer.
Users. Collective term for those who stare vacantly at a monitor.
Users are divided into three types: novice, intermediate and expert.
– Novice Users. People who are afraid that simply pressing a key might break their computer.
– Intermediate Users. People who don’t know how to fix their computer after they’ve just pressed a key that broke it.
– Expert Users. People who break other people’s computers.
A pirate was talking to a man in a bar. The man noticed that, like any self-respecting pirate, this pirate had a pag leg, a hook in place of one of his hands, and a patch over one eye.
The man just had to find out how the pirate got in such bad shape. He asked the pirate, “how did you loose your leg?” The pirate responded, “I lost my leg in a battle off the coast of Jamaica!”
The man was still curious so he asked, “What about your hand. Did you lose it at the same time?” The pirate answered, “No. I lost it to the sharks off the Florida Keys.”
Finally the man asked, “I notice you also have an eye patch. How did you lose your eye?” The pirate answered, “I was sleeping on a beach when a seagull flew over and crapped right in my eye.” The man asked, “How could a little seagull crap make you loose your eye?” The pirate replied, “It was the day after I got my hook fixed!”
A man tried to sell his neighbour a new dog.
“This is a talking dog,” he said. “And you can have him for five dollars.”
The neighbour said, “Who do you think you’re kidding with this talking dog stuff? There ain’t no such animal.
“Suddenly the dog looked up with tears in his eyes. “Please buy me, Sir,” he pleaded.
“This man is cruel. He never buys me a meal, never bathes me, never takes me for a walk. And I used to be the richest trick dog in America. I performed before kings. I was in the army and was decorated ten times.”
“Hey!” said the neighbour. “He can talk. Why do you want to sell him for just five dollars?”
“Because,” said the seller, “I’m getting tired of all his lies.”
This married couple was on holiday in Pakistan. They were touring around the marketplace looking at the goods and such, when they passed this accent say, “You, foreigners! Come in. Come into my humble shop.”
So the married couple walked in. The Pakistani man said to them, “I have some special sandals I think you’d be interested in. They make you wild at sex like a great desert camel.” Well, the wife was really interested in buying the sandals after what the man had claimed, but her husband felt he really didn’t need them, being the sex god he was.
The husband asked the man, “How could sandals make you into a sex freak?”
The Pakistani man replied, “Just try them on.” Well, the husband, after much badgering from his wife, finally conceded to try them on. As soon as he slipped them onto his feet, he got this wild look in his eyes; something his wife hadn’t seen in many years — raw sexual power. In a blink of an eye, the husband rushed the Pakistani man, threw him on a table and started tearing at the guy’s pants.
All the time the Pakistani man was screaming, “YOU HAVE THEM ON THE WRONG FEET!”.
On a Trans-Atlantic flight, a plane passes through a severe storm.
The turbulence is awful, and things go from bad to worse when one wing is struck by lightning. One woman in particular loses it. Screaming, she stands up in the front of the plane. “I’m too young to die!” she wails.
Then she yells, “Well, if I’m going to die, I want my last minutes on Earth to be memorable! I’ve had plenty of relationships in my life, but no one has ever made me really feel like a woman! Well I’ve had it!
Is there ANYONE on this plane who can make me feel like a WOMAN??”
For a moment there is silence. Everyone has forgotten their own peril, and they all stare, riveted, at the desperate woman in the front of the plane.
Then, a man stands up in the rear of the plane. “I can make you feel like a woman,” he says. He’s gorgeous. Tall, built, with flowing black hair and jet black eyes, he starts to walk slowly up the aisle, unbuttoning his shirt one button at a time. No one moves. The woman is breathing heavily in anticipation as the strange man approaches. He removes his shirt. Muscles ripple across his chest as he reaches her, and extends the arm holding his shirt to the trembling woman, and whispers:
“Iron this.”
