Microsoft Code (Only a True Geek Would Understand This.)
Subject: *** TOP SECRET MICROSOFT CODE ***
Project: Version - Windows 95
Microsoft marketing strategy (MARKET.EXE):
#include <NONSENSE.H
#include <LIES.H
#include <SPYWARE.H /* Microsoft Network Connectivity library */
#include <PROCESS.H /* For the court of law */
#define say(x) lie(x)
#define computeruser ALL_WANT_TO_BUY_OUR_BUGWARE
#define next_year soon
#define the_product_is_ready_to_ship another_beta_version
void main()
{
if (latest_window_version>one_month_old)
{
if (there_are_still_bugs)
market(bugfix);
if (sales_drop_below_certain_point)
raise(RUMOURS_ABOUT_A_NEW_BUGLESS_VERSION);
}
while(everyone_chats_about_new_version)
{
make_false_promise(it_will_be_multitasking); /* Standard Call, in
lie.h */
if (rumours_grow_wilder)
make_false_promise(it_will_be_plug_n_play);
if (rumours_grow_even_wilder)
{
market_time=ripe;
say("It will be ready in one month);
order(programmers, stop_fixing_bugs_in_old_version);
order(programmers, start_brainstorm_about_new_version);
order(marketingstaff, permission_to_spread_nonsense);
vapourware=TRUE;
break;
}
}
switch (nasty_questions_of_the_worldpress)
{
case WHEN_WILL_IT_BE_READY:
say("It will be ready in", today+30_days," we're just testing");
break;
case WILL_THIS_PLUG_AND_PLAY_THING_WORK:
say("Yes it will work");
ask(programmers, why_does_it_not_work);
pretend(there_is_no_problem);
break;
case WHAT_ARE_MINIMAL_HARDWARE_REQUIREMENTS:
say("It will run on a 8086 with lightning speed due to"
" the 32 bits architecture");
inform(INTEL, "Pentium sales will rise skyhigh");
inform(SAMSUNG, "Start a new memorychip plant"
"'cos all those customers will need at least 32 megs");
inform(QUANTUM, "Thanks to our fatware your sales will triple");
get_big_bonus(INTEL, SAMSUNG, QUANTUM);
break;
case DOES_MICROSOFT_GET_TOO_MUCH_INFLUENCE:
say("Oh no, we are just here to make a better world for
everyone");
register(journalist, Big_Bill_Book);
when(time_is_ripe)
{
arrest(journalist);
brainwash(journalist);
when(journalist_says_windows95_is_bugfree)
{
order(journalist, "write a nice objective article");
release (journalist);
}
}
break;
}
while (vapourware)
{
introduction_date++; /* Delay */
if (no_one_believes_anymore_there_will_be_a_release)
break;
say("It will be ready in",today+ONE_MONTH);
}
release(beta_version)
while (everyone_is_dumb_enough_to_buy_our_bugware)
{
bills_bank_account += 150*megabucks;
release(new_and_even_better_beta_version);
introduce(more_memory_requirements);
if (customers_report_installation_problems)
{
say("that is a hardware problem, not a software problem");
if (smart_customer_says_but_you_promised_plug_and_play)
{
ignore(customer);
order(microsoft_intelligence_agency, "Keep an eye on this
bastard");
}
}
if ( bills_bank_account>skyhigh && marriage>two_years )
{
divorce(woman_that_was_beatifull_when_I_married_her);
wave(dollars, at_lusty_chicks);
marry(young_blond_virgin_with_big_boobies);
devirginize(young_blond_virgin_with_big_boobies);
if (boobies_start_to_hang)
dump(young_blond_virgin_with_big_boobies);
}
if (there_is_another_company)
{
steal(their_ideas);
accuse(compagny, stealing_our_ideas);
hire(a_lot_of_lawyers); /* in process.h */
wait(until_other_company_cannot_afford_another_lawsuit);
buy_out(other_company);
}
}
/* Now everyone realizes that we sell bugware and they are all angry at
us */
order(plastic_surgeon, make_bill_look_like_poor_bastard);
buy(nice_little_island); hire(harem);
laugh_at(everyone,
for_having_the_patience_year_after_year_for_another_unfinished_version);
}
void bugfix(void)
{
charge (a_lot_of_money)
if (customer_says_he_does_not_want_to_pay_for_bugfix)
say("It is not a bugfix but a new version");
if (still_complaints)
{
ignore(customer);
register(customer, big_Bill_book);
/* We'll get him when everyone uses Billware!!*/
}
}
Quick Guide to Programming Languages
The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to
have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it
difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy
reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find
themselves in such a dilemma.
TASK: 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 assistance 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."
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 with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways
because you have no exception-handling capability.
Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
Ada: After correctly packing 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 you can't because your foot is of
the wrong type.
COBOL: Using a COLT 45 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 re-tied.
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 the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with
which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
FORTH: Foot in yourself shoot.
Prolog: You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The
program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to
explain it to you.
BASIC: Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large
systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
Visual Basic: You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the
foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.
HyperTalk: Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you.
Answer the result.
Motif: You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the
bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory
handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger,
the gun jams.
APL: You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out
how to do it in fewer characters.
SNOBOL: If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail,
shoot yourself in the right foot.
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.
370 JCL: You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document
explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your
foot comes back deep-fried.
Paradox: Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can,
too.
Access: You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in
all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Revelation: You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in
the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little
bullet-thingies are for.
Assembler: You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you
must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.
Modula2: After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in
this language, you shoot yourself in the head.
Computer Dictionary
386: No, 486: Oops, Pentium: The only chip to consider if you're
thinking of buying a PC. Until Intel ramps up the 686.
640K: The salary the average Wall Street PC analyst pulls in each year.
Algorithm: A catchy 1930 song by George and Ira Gershwin.
Availability: Date when a dozen copies of the beta version will be
hurriedly shrink-wrapped for the benefit of the press and the
investment community.
Backup: The chore you were really, honestly, going to do the very next
thing before you switched drive letters and accidentally copied older,
out-of-date versions of you files over all your newer ones at 3 a.m.
Buffer: The only other job - involving a chamois at the car wash - for
which most computer store salespeople are qualified.
Bundled software: Free applications like home dentistry packages and
Esperanto spelling dictionaries that are thrown in with cheap clones so
you think you're getting real value for your money.
CD-ROM: A $30 dollar mechanism in a $300 cabinet that accesses vast
quantities of valuable information too slowly to use.
Copy protection: A sly technique employed by hardware vendors to combat
software piracy by continually changing the size and compatibility of
disk drives (from 160K to 320K to 360K to 1.2MB to 720K to 1.44MB to
2.88MB, etc.).
CP/M: An antiquated operation system from the early days of computing,
based on inscrutable prompts like A>, terse commands, and absurdly
backward conventions, such as 11-character limits on filenames.
Contrasted with today's modern versions of DOS.
Database, flat-file: A program selling for under $500 that most people
use to keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
Database, relational/programmable: A program selling for over $500 that
most people use to keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
Debugging: The process of uncovering glitches by packaging prerelease
software as finished products, then waiting for irate customers to
report problems.
Downward compatibility: You really didn't have to spend the money for
the upgraded version, since all you use anyway is the old set of
features.
End User: One born every minute.
Entry level: Only slightly above most users' heads.
Expanded memory: RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from extended
memory.
Expansion slot: The computer didn't come with everything you needed.
Extended memory: RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from expanded
memory.
FAX: Originally a last resort for procrastinators who missed the final
Federal Express pickup; these days, an expensive way to order lunch
from the pizza place around the corner.
Firmware: Software with permanent bugs hardwired into it.
Icon: One picture is worth a thousand lawsuits. Or, as Shakespeare
might have put it, "He who steals my trash better have a large purse.
Installation routine: A process employed by many applications to
overwrite and thereby trash the user's existing and painstakingly
created AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files
Interface, character-based: A way of presenting information to the user
that's every bit as good as a user interface except in the areas of
readability, ease of use, intuitiveness, and productivity.
Interface, graphic user (GUI): An increasingly popular way of
presenting information to the user, originally designed by Xerox PARC
and now being adopted by dozens of competitors; otherwise known as the
Trial Attorney Full Employment Act.
Laptop: A dinky keyboard wedded to a lousy LCD screen, all with bad
battery life.
Live links: A clever system that lets you unknowingly corrupt data in
lots of separate files at the same time.
Low-bandwidth: The process of talking to a corporate press relations
official. (Question: How many IBM PR types does it take to change a
light bulb? Answer: We'll have to get back to you on that.)
Nanosecond: The time it takes after your warranty expires for your hard
disk to start making a sound like a monkey wrench in a blender.
NiCad battery: A cell that powers a laptop long enough to let you do
three solid hours of work, then dies before you're ready to save any of
it to disk.
Open system: Made up of parts from different manufacturers so that,
when you crash, each vendor can blame the others.
Optional: It should have come free, but someone in the marketing
department ran 1-2-3 and figured they'd double their profits this way.
Parity: A ninth memory bit that one time in nine will crash an
otherwise perfectly functioning system when it detects an error in
itself.
Partition: A wall you have to build around a noisy dot matrix printer
that makes only slightly less noise than a tree chipper.
Point-and-shoot: You mean you'd rather click on a menu choice than have
to type things like DEVICE=DOSUTSDRIVER.SYS /D:0 /T:80 /S:15 /H:2 /F:1 ?
Power Surge: What an MIS director feels when he denies you access to
your own database.
Power user: Someone who's read the manual all the way through once.
Productivity: Printing out 30 different versions of your document
before getting the spacing correct.
Real-time clock: A 50-dollar option based on a five-cent chip.
SAA: Silly And Awkward.
Shell: A clumsy program that forces users to stumble through ten menus
to get anything done instead of typing a simple three-character command.
Shock-mounted: Make sure you're sitting down when you ask the price.
Spreadsheet: Sophisticated software that can be used as a database,
rudimentary word processor, graphing program, and, in a pinch, a ledger.
Stack: The place in the corner of the room where you pile unopened
software manuals.
Standard: Manufactured by the company that does the flashiest
advertising.
Support: Fast, simple, courteous, friendly, accurate help available to
any user who happens to work for any company that bought 1,000 copies
of the product.
Throughput: What you feel like doing with your foot and your computer
screen after you see the message "General Failure Error Reading Drive
C:".
Toll-free hotline: An AT&T busy-signal test number.
Toner cartridge: A device to refill laser printers; invented by the
Association of American Dry Cleaners.
Torture test: Everyone - from the FedEx guy to the clerk who opened the
box to the trainee who executed the speed test - accidentally dropped
it.
Tutorial: A program that forces you to sit through lessons on every
last obscure and little-used feature of an application while ignoring
overall fundamental tricks that would make you far more productive.
Unix, year of: See Calendar, perpetual.
Value-added: A lot more expensive.
Virus: Commonly, the belief of incompetent users that some mysterious
external force is to blame for their mistakes at the keyboard.
Workstation: Any PC that sells for more than $10,000.
XT: All the computer that most users who just type letters and run
typical spreadsheets will ever need, even though a 386 machine will
reformat their text a whole tenth of a second faster.
Microsoft to Sell Ad Space in Error Messages
Microsoft announced that it is selling advertising space in the error
messages that appear in Windows. Acknowledging for the first time that
the average user of their operating system encounters error messages at
least several times a day, Microsoft is trying to take financial
advantage of the unavoidable opportunity to make an ad impression. "We
estimate that throughout the world at any given moment several million
people are getting a "general protection fault" or "illegal operation"
warning. We will be able to generate significant revenue by including a
short advertising message along with it," said Microsoft marketing
director Nathan Mirror. The Justice Department immediately indicated
that they intend to investigate whether Microsoft is gaining an unfair
advantage in reaching the public with this advertising by virtue of its
semi-monopolistic control over error messages.
Accident
There was an engineer, manager and programmer driving down a steep
mountain road.
The brakes failed and the car careened down the road out of control.
Half way down the driver managed to stop the car by running it against
the embankment narrowing avoiding going over a cliff.
They all got out, shaken by their narrow escape from death, but
otherwise unharmed.
The manager said "To fix this problem we need to organize a committee,
have meetings, and through a process of continuous improvement, develop
a solution."
The engineer said "No that would take too long, and besides that method
never worked before. I have my trusty pen knife here and will take
apart the brake system, isolate the problem and correct it."
The programmer said "I think you're both wrong! I think we should all
push the car back up the hill and see if it happens again."
Abort, Retry, Ignore?
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, System
manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, Longing for the
warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets. Having
reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer, I then invoked
the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store, Only this and
nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. "Save!"
I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!" One thing did
the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, Just, "Abort, Retry,
Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion? These were
choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before. Carefully I weighed the
choices as the disk made impish noises. The cursor flashed, insistent,
waiting, baiting me to type some more. Clearly I must press a key,
choosing one and nothing more, >From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, Praying for
some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key. But on the screen there still
persisted words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and
taunted, haunted, as my patience wore, Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as
hard. I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I
swore. Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations, Still
there came the incantation, just as senseless as before. Cursor
blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted. Getting
up I turned away and paced across the office floor. And then I saw a
dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night. A gasp of
horror overtook me, shook me to my very core. The lightning zapped my
previous data, lost and gone forevermore. Not even, "Abort, Retry,
Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go. What demonic
nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored, Beyond the
reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? But sure as
there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, You will be one day be
left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore, Pleading, "Abort, Retry,
Ignore?"
2 Programmers on a Highway
Two computer programmers are driving on a Highway. They switch on the
radio and there is a warning: Please note that a car is driving on
highway 75 against the traffic. The programmer near the driver looks at
him and says: One? There are hundreds of them.
You Might be Addicted to AOL if
* Tech Support calls "You" for help.
* Someone at work tells you a joke and you say LOL.
* You watch TV with the closed captioning turned on.
* You have called out someone's screen name while making love to your
significant other.
* You keep begging your friends to get an account "so we can hang out."
* Three words: Carpal tunnel syndrome.
* You want to meet a girl/guy and your first impulse is to turn on your
computer.
* you've ever gotten onto an airplane just to meet some folks face to
face.
* you have to get a second phone line just so you can call Domino's.
* You have ever joined "Si habla Espanol" (Spanish chat room) "just to
work on my Spanish."
* you've ever typed "drinking on AOL is better than drinking alone."
* you go into labor and you stop to type a special e-mail message
letting everyone know you're going to be away.
* you have a vanity car tag with your screen name on it (oops that's me
twice!).
* you no longer type with proper punctuation, capitalization, or
complete sentences.
* you have met over 100 AOLers.
* you begin to say heh heh heh instead of laughing.
* when someone says "What did you say?" you reply "Scroll up!"
* you find yourself sneaking away to the computer in the middle of the
night when your spouse is asleep.
* you turn down the lights and close the blinds so people won't know
you are online again.
* you know more about your AOL friends' daily routines than you do your
own spouse's.
* you find yourself lying to others about your time on-line and when
they complain that your phone was busy you claim it was off the hook
* you have an identity crisis if someone else is using an s/n close to
your own
* you would rather tell people your bloodshot eyes are from partying
too much instead of the truth (all night online).
* you change s/n's so much that you have to get your profile to see who
you are (identity crisis here).
* you open your home to 15 strangers for a week merely because they
have computers and cool s/n's.
* your kids are standing at your side saying "mommy, please come cook
dinner" and you would rather type another "LOL"
* you marry your cyberboyfriend/cybergirlfriend and you both sit at
your own computers and chat to each other every night from across the
room.
* you type messages to people while you are on the phone with them at
the same time.
* you won't work at a job that doesn't have a modem involved.
* your dog leaves you.
* you have to ask what year it is.
* you are doing things more and more that you swore you would never,
ever do when you first found chat.
* you write a letter like this..."dear tom, hiyas! how r u doin well i
gotta go bbl!"
* you name your pets after people with whom you talk online.
* you smile sideways. :-)
* you sign on and immediately get 10 messages from people who have you
on their buddy lists (::cringe::).
* you have a map on the wall with red thumbtacks to mark where people
you have met are.
* you look at an annoying person off-line and wish you had your ignore
button handy.
* you bring a bag lunch and a cooler to the computer.
* your significant other kisses your neck while you are chatting and
you think "uh oh, cybersex pervo."
* you have withdrawal symptoms if you are away from the puter for more
than a few hours.
* you use AOL lingo in everyday life (if you still have one... hehehe).
* you take a speed reading course to keep up with the scrolling.
* your buddy list has over 100 people on it.
* you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is get online
before you have your first cup of coffee.
* you have to inject No-Doz into your butt to keep it awake.
* you have your computer set up so that it goes directly into AOL's
welcome screen.
* you wait 6 hours online for a certain "special" person to come home
from work.
* you don't know where the time has gone.
* you end sentences with three (or more) periods while writing letters
in pen/pencil.
* your relationship online has gone farther than any real one you have
had.
* you get up at 2 am to go the bathroom but go turn on your computer
instead.
* you spell things out loud instead of actually saying the word.
* you don't even notice anymore when someone has a typo.
* when you enter a room and 23 people greet you with {{{Hugs}}} or
***Kisses***
* you stop typing whole words and use things like ppl, dunno and lemme
* your voicemail/answering machine message is "BRB, leave your s/n and
I will TTYL."
* you type faster than you think.
* you got your psychiatrist addicted to AOL, too, and are now
undergoing therapy in private rooms instead of at his office.
* you want to be buried with your computer when it dies...or vice versa
* you actually enjoy the fact that you are addicted.
* you can actually read and follow all the names of the cast that
scrolls up your tv screen at the end of a movie.
* people say, if it weren't for your super reflexes in your eyes and
fingers, you would have long been classified as a vegetable.
* you dream in text.
* being called a newbie is a *MAJOR* insult.
* there is absolutely no interesting chat any room and you are really
bored....yet you don't want to leave in case you miss something.
* you double click your tv remote.
* you can now type at more than 70 wpm.
* you think about starting a 12-step recovery group for AOL junkies.
* you are on the phone for a minute and need to do something else you
say "BRB" or "BBL"
* you check your e-mail and forget you have real mail aka snail mail
* you go into withdrawals during dinner
* you spend at least 30 minutes making sure you say goodbye to everyone
in a room
* you stop speaking in full sentences
* you have gone into an unstaffed tech support room and ended
up "giving" tech support to other AOLers
* you have to be pried from your computer with the Jaws-of-Life
* your last sexual experience was really just a "textual" experience
* you set your kitchen on fire while cooking dinner because you wanted
to "check your mail" and while you were there you "just wanted to see
who's on"
* you meet people from AOL in public and have no idea what their real
name is, so you call them by their s/n.
************************************************************************
Lule George William (Mr)
Network and Systems Administrator
Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi
P.O. Box 5498 Kampala
Uganda
---------------------------------------------
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