Aug 12

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

Jun 03

Last week I purchased a cheeseburger at McDonalds for $1.58.  I handed $2.08 to the young woman behind the counter.  She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while staring blankly at her register.  I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me back two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help.  While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she started crying in frustration.  Why do I tell you this?  Because of the evolution in teaching math in the United States over the past six decades:

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May 28

Return to Sender A Michigan couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter.  They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier.

Because of their hectic jobs, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules.  So the husband left Michigan and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down to join him the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel.  There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife.  However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, sent the email.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband’s funeral.  He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack.  The widow decided to check her email for messages from relatives and friends.

After reading the first message, the widow screamed and fainted.  Her son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, then read the computer screen:

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May 21

Want to snoop on your friends’ porn viewing habits?  Then follow these simple steps:

Step 1.  Copy and paste some code into a widget on your website or blog.

Step 2.  Send you friends to the webpage where you put the widget.  Their porn history will be captured in the widget.

Step 3.  See what porn sites your friends have been visiting by looking at the widget you put on your website.

How does this work?  The widget takes advantage of a security leak in the web style sheets (CSS).  Your web browser displays links you have visited in a different color.  The code mentioned above displays a list of porn sites and detects which sites have been visited based on the link color.  The best/worst part of this trick is that will likely never be fixed because it is a fundamental feature of the Web browser.

We installed this on one of our blogs, and it failed to catch any of the porn sites that we’ve visited.  I guess ProgrammersLoveMeganFox.com isn’t considered porn.

I Caught You Watching Porn

May 18

Since terrorists have no problem violating the human rights of innocent citizens, it’s difficult to imagine a terrorist being dissuaded by Google’s App Engine Terms of Service:

2. Your Account and Use of the Service

2.1. You must provide accurate and complete registration information any time you register to use the Service. You are responsible for the security of your passwords and for any use of your account. If you become aware of any unauthorized use of your password or of your account, you agree to notify Google immediately.

2.2. Your use of the Service must comply with all applicable laws, regulations and ordinances, including any laws regarding the export of data or software. You agree not to use the Service in the design, development, production, or use of missiles or the design, development, production, stockpiling, or use of chemical or biological weapons.

Apr 21

Let’s face it: computer programmers became cool with the dot-com wave.  It wasn’t just the Artist-Formerly-Known-as-Prince who was partying in 1999, it was all those pimple-faced anonymous geeks who built the Netscapes, Googles and other.coms of the world.

Thanks to these successful entrepreneur coders, there’s no longer shame in admitting that you are a programmer geek.  In fact, it means that you are a member of an exclusive club of brilliant logicians who are all just one killer app away from retiring rich and living large.

As a result, the image of geeks in movies, TV and pop culture has shifted away from the dorky “Revenge of the Nerds” virgins with thick glasses.  Now the geeks start dot-coms, stop bad guys, save the world, make millions, and get the (real live, not virtual) girl.

This short quiz will help you see if you’ve got what it takes.  The more questions you answer “yes”, the more you are programmed to be a geek.

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Apr 20

Apparently I’m a major geek because this made me LOL.

From xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language

More funny stuff

Apr 16

From xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language

Apr 09

At five minutes and six seconds after 4 AM on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be:

04:05:06 07/08/09

Apr 07

It seems like everybody these days has a Facebook page.  Well, not everybody.  In fact, some very important people — who probably have very interesting lives worth exploring on Facebook — are nowhere to be found on the world’s most popular social networking site.

So in the interest of posterity, PC World carefully approximated what those missing Facebook pages might look like.  They included both important figures from history and current events.

And some are pretty funny and rude, such as the Facebook page for Microsoft co-founder and former Chairman Bill Gates:

Bill Gates' Facebook page

Facebook Pages We’d Like to See