DevTopics » Humor

How the World Works Lately

timm — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:33:57 +0000

An old joke floating around the Internet lately…

If a man cuts his finger off while slicing salami at work, he blames the restaurant.

If your father smokes three packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years and dies of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.

If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender.

If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television.

If your friend is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturer.

And if a crazed person breaks into a jet cockpit and tries to kill the pilot at 35,000 feet, but the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the crazed deceased blames the airline.

I must have lived too long to understand the world as it is anymore.

So, if I die while my old wrinkled ass is parked in front of this computer, I want all of you to blame Bill Gates!

Web Funny

Apple Sues the World for Patent Infringement

timm — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:56:05 +0000

Apple Inc. has filed a federal lawsuit against “the world” for violating its U.S. Patent 3,141,5926 “Removing a Booger by Performing Gestures with a Finger.” Apple is demanding licensing royalties from all world citizens who pick their nose, and a cease & desist order against Kleenex tissues for providing citizens with an alternate method to jailbreak boogers and avoid Apple’s patent.

This new legal action follows a similar lawsuit that Apple filed against rival phone maker HTC for allegedly violating 20 of Apple’s mobile phone patents. The Apple patents include “novel” inventions such as U.S. Patent 7,657,849 for unlocking a phone with a finger swipe.

It’s no surprise that our overwhelmed U.S. Patent Office granted Apple a patent for simply combining two unpatentable features: swiping a finger and unlocking a phone. So naturally on the heels of this legal coup, Apple has also patented using your finger to open a document, close an app, make a phone call, and pick your nose.

Apple’s litigious reaction to its competition is understandable. Apple’s iPhone has jumped to an early lead in the smartphone market, but tech analysts predict the Google Android open mobile platform will permanently overtake the iPhone in market share by 2012. This prediction makes sense given that Apple is following the same tightly-controlled, closed-platform approach with mobile phones that it took in the personal computer market, which ultimately resulted in Apple’s niche 10% market share, while an inferior Windows on an open-hardware platform grabbed the market monopoly.

Steve Jobs is quoted in a press release as saying, “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it.” The irony is not lost considering Apple owes its existence to technology invented by someone else: the graphical user interface from Xerox Labs.

In spite of all the legal ruckus, there are some benefits to this new Apple lawsuit. For example, parents whose children embarrass the family with incessant nose-picking now have another tool in the shed. The next time little Johnny goes fishing for a booger, his mother can threaten to dock his allowance to pay the Apple licensing fees.

P.S. – In case it wasn’t obvious, this article is a parody joke. I’m actually an iPhone fan, just not a fan of the current U.S. software patent system. Apple, I know you’re in a litigious mood lately, but please don’t sue me for poking fun at you!

P.P.S. – Tired of bogus patents? To combat these annoying and often dangerous legal weapons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched the Patent Busting Project to take down some of worst offenders.

Are Computers Male or Female?

timm — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:19:11 +0000

Here’s an old joke that’s been floating around the Internet again:

Why computers may be female:

No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
As soon as you commit to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

Why computers may be male:

In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.
They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves.
They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

Best iPad Jokes

timm — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:42:18 +0000

If all publicity is good publicity, then Apple is basking in the glow of its hot new gadget, the iPad, which is not only the talk of the tech world, but has also become the favorite butt of jokesters worldwide.

Following are some of the best jokes about the Apple iPad found online and especially on Twitter. Warning: Given the subject matter, these jokes are not always tasteful.

The iPad: Protecting your data from embarrassing incidents. (kathycacace)

Uncomfortable cramping and bloating? There’s an app for that. (Attagrrrl)

The iPad surfs the Web AND stops the bleeding. (tjakabon)

If I order an iPad, will my boyfriend and I have to worry if it arrives late? (fauxfruit)

If you and your friends all buy one, will they sync up? (andBegorrah)

So will iffy Wi-fi coverage be called iSpotting? (vlvtjones)

The 64-gig iPad will forever be known as the “Heavy Flow” model. (Johnpapa)

Does the Period Tracker app come free? (Lymed)

Mac’s iPad. Say it with me, folks. Maxipad. (TastyBites)

A friend tweeted that, "All this talk about the iPad is giving me iCramps," so I suggested iBuprofen. (betty.black)

Microsoft’s answer to the iPad is the “Technical Automatic Material Peripheral Onboard Notebook,” or TAMPON. Coming real soon. (franzenjim)

Steve, I’ma let you finish, but Moses had the greatest tablet announcement of all time. (WewillroastU)

I’m not buying an iPad. Period. (melizeche)

So the iPad has two data plans: Light Flow and Heavy Flow.

I haven’t heard this many period jokes since I was forced to watch “The View” last month. (TwittsMcGee)

I heard that for one week out of every month the iPad will be unresponsive and seem harsh when you touch it.

iPad: a bloody good idea.

And in an amazing feat of tech prescience, MadTV produced an Apple iPad parody video… three years ago! Check it out:

Reference

Christmas Computer Programming

timm — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:43:11 +0000

It’s holiday time, and hopefully most of you are home enjoying time with your family and loved ones. But if you’re like me, at some point over the holidays you will escape to your computer for a little diversion. So to keep you in the holiday spirit, here are some Christmas and Santa Claus-related goodies for computer programmers.

Stupid Pirate Asks Software Maker for Crack Code

timm — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:49:16 +0000

Many people steal software because they are too stupid to know that it’s wrong, or too dumb to get a job so they can pay for what they are stealing.

Though many pirates will tell you how smart they are because they’re getting stuff for free while the rest of us have to pay. It does sound smart, I guess, if you can get beyond that whole moral “stealing is bad” thing and the threat of bad karma.

But the stupidest pirate of all is the one that asks the software maker to help them steal their own software. Dushyant was dim enough to join the CodeSmith forums on the CodeSmith website and ask, “can any one post me the serial key to trick the CodeSmith Professional 5.1.1.8242”.

The CodeSmith moderator answered straight at first: “You will need to contact sales for a key (sales@codesmithtools.com).”

But the stupid pirate asked again. So the CodeSmith people decided to play with this dolt and responded: “enter this as the key: CS50P-0NLY4-1D10T-W0ULD-TRYT0-45KU5-TH15Q” which loosely translates as “only an idiot would try to ask us this question.”

You think Dushyant would finally realize he’s been served, but staying true to form, he responded, “The key you provided does not work to as serial key to crack the version.”

Read the thread at CodeSmith.com
Stupid-Is-As-Stupid-Does

Pizza Humor

timm — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:38:28 +0000

A pizza with radius z and crust height a, has a volume calculated by:

pi*z*z*a

From Stefan Tanase

Most Honest Software License Ever

timm — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:38:36 +0000

We all know that software licenses are a joke. They’re overly long, full of complex legalese, and completely indemnify the software manufacturer of any responsibility whatsoever. Software is perhaps the only mainstream business in the world where it’s both expected and accepted that its products are flawed.

So it’s quite refreshing to see a software license that’s short, to-the-point, and brutally honest:

Unwritten Laws of Technology

timm — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:23:13 +0000

We’ve discussed before the “21 Laws of Computer Programming.” Now PC World has come up with “35 Unwritten Laws of Technology.” Here are some of my favorites:

The likelihood that Windows will automatically install time-sucking critical updates is directly proportional to your need to get your PC started. — Steve Fox, PC World

Your backup plan is only as good as your last successful restore. — Michael Fisher, ElephantDrive.com via HARO

Fix a computer for a friend or family member, and you’ll be tech support for life. — Danny Allen, PC World

Your laptop’s battery life is inversely proportional to the amount of work you need to get done on a single charge. — Blair Hanley Frank, Macworld

iTunes will crash. That’s it. No, really. — Darren Gladstone, PC World

35 Unwritten Laws of Technology

You Can’t Trust Computer Salesmen

timm — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:30:59 +0000

Actual conversation at a national computer chain store:

Customer: Now what does this 512MB of RAM mean on this PC?

Salesman: Umm… RAM is what slows down your PC. See, it rams into your processing power, causing slowdowns. That’s why it’s called RAM.

Customer: Are you sure?

Salesman: Who’s the expert here?

From the Page-A-Day® calendar, 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said

Stupid Is As Stupid Does