<nitpick> That's Clarke. </nitpick>
Order of Kilopi
<nitpick> That's Clarke. </nitpick>
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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No, that's the other guy.Originally Posted by Trebuchet
"I'm planning to live forever. So far, that's working perfectly." Steven Wright
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I know the writer was Arthur Clarke, the guy who called our office didn't spell it that way, though.
The greatest journey of all time, for all to see
Every mission makes our dreams reality
And our destiny begins with you and me
Through all space and time, the achievement of mankind
As we sail the sea of discovery, on heroes’ wings we fly!
Mostly Harmless
Do you have any idea of how expensive that would be? I saw a formula for that some place.
Solfe
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Back in the '70s, I replaced just about all of the mechanical light switches in the family home at the time with silent mercury switches.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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Does it really amuse you, or does it bug you?
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
Doctor Who
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One of my projects just got a new scheduler, last name Tribble.
I told him I'd avoid making any Star Trek references and he thanked me.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
Doctor Who
Moderation will be in purple.
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Honored MemberBugs are amusing... If developers did clean work I wouldn't have a job!
(Systems Operations Engineer)
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You said you'd avoid making any Star Trek references "after this one," right? <grin>
Speaking of names, when I was working for the city and doing some transcription, I once typed up a letter addressed to one Felipe Eduardo O'Brien. I found that name amusing.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn
Honored MemberOnce worked with a fellow with the last name of Gross. After we got to know each other, he asked that since I was a known smart-aleck, why I hadn't made a crack about his name.... I had to admit that I didn't think I was smart enough to come up with something he hadn't heard yet. Got a grin :>
Mostly HarmlessI worked with three people with the initials CB, DC and DD.
One day, CB jumps out her seat and walks away saying "Some people... I have to walk away from this." It was a little out of character to say the least.
About 20 minutes later, DC hops out his chair raging. He received an email that clearly offended his email etiquette sensibilities. He was so angry, he could barely explain what the issue was. He was spluttering about "Idiots".
While DC is trying to explain the problem to me, DD fires off a steady stream of cuss words and calls someone on the phone.
The problem? A new employee received a chain email. The text of the email was something to the effect of "if x number of people forward this email to everyone they know, <insert famous person here> will pay a certain child's medical bills." This newbie tried to send this email to everyone in the company address book. The companies contact list was massive, so there was a safeguard in place to prevent this from happening by accident. She came up with a new plan and spent the entire morning selecting all of Aa names then the Ab names and so on, so the software wouldn't reject the email. She did the same for the B's, the C's, the D's, and by the time DD called her, she was working on the E's.
Later, DD and DC asked me how I dealt with such when I was in their position. I pointed out that my last name ended in V, it was unlikely that anything so foolish would ever get to me.
Solfe
Established Member
The fact that Being John Malkovich would likely have been Being Steve Buscemi had they been unable to get Malkovich for the role. A lot of things become amusing if you imagine Steve Buscemi in place of someone else.
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Google's Doodle today is a very generic "Hurray for Sports" image. On the opening day of the London Olympics. I suspect they're making a subtle dig at the insane copyright protection the games have been doing. If so, good for them!
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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The mayor of London yesterday, in an interview; holding/sloshing around a glass of water as if it were as interesting as anything he had to say. As if it were a prop.
Frankly I found the glass of water more interesting than him.
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Isaac Asimov wrote that the first time he heard the term "Clark Orbit" he couldn't figure out for whom that was named. When it was explained as his well-known colleague Arthur, he responded "No fair! You didn't pronounce the silent 'e' in his name!"
Bad Post-Doc
Graham's last name is Berry. As you can imagine, he has suffered through a lot of food-related jokes in his life. The only one which I've been around for which was ever funny was our coworker who decided that Graham needs his own breakfast cereal: Graham Berry's Berry Grahams. In and of itself, not funny. The coworker demonstrating what the trading cards would look like? Hilarious. They were all essentially the same; it was Graham giving the camera a thumbs-up and a big, cheesy grin. "Graham drawing a picture" was one hand holding a pen while the other did the thumbs-up gesture. "Graham answers a call," similar. "Graham poses for trading card picture," both thumbs up. Things got very weird on the call floor after all the highers-up in the company went home for the day.
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Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
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When I got drafted, two of the Drill Instructors were Sgt Lilly and Sgt Berry. A fruit and a flower. Which they decidedly were not!
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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The way my dog loves to go swimming. She pulls me to a spot of shore which is not beach and walks in until she floats and then just swims back and forth, parallel to shore.
Mostly HarmlessAustin is back at his grandmother's for the summer. Now it appears he can make his own airplanes.
This isn't exactly trivial, but funny none the less.
When I was in my mid-teens, my sister gave me a very average looking hamster. In my mid twenties, the hamster got sick so I took him to the vet. The vet told me he was doomed, they simply don't live that long. Or course, the hamster passed away within a few days.
I called my sister in Toronto to let her know my pet died. She was very fond of him for some reason. In response, she asked about my room mate. Perplexed, I answered "he's away with the national guard." She told me it was my room mates fault, she and my friends had been replacing the hamster for years.
Solfe
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Solfe, that's awesome.
Honored MemberAgree with awesome - immortal hamster!
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There was this fellow I worked with back circa 1980, a fellow computer programmer. But he was eccentric, whereas I'm not, of course.
He had these reference notes for our system clipped into a black, three-ring binder on his desk, and referred to it often. What I found odd was that there was a neatly-printed label stuck on the cover that bore one word: "Front".
He explained: "Well, the book looks the same front and back, and I got tired of picking it up and opening it and finding it was upside down, so I labeled the front."
I suspect that most of us would have done one of the following things:
(1) Industrious solution. As you're going to take the trouble to type or print a label that says "Front," go the extra distance and put the title of the bloody book on there.
(2) Lazy solution: As you only need to identify the front side, well then, stick any old thing at all (odd piece of tape, postage stamp, blank label) on there and be done with it.
(3) Real Lazy solution: Do nothing at all. (So the universe is unfair. You have a 50% chance of getting the right side up, and therefore a 75% chance of getting the wrong side, according to Murphy’s Law. Live with it.)
(A really dumb solution might be to put a "Front" sticker on one side and a "Back" sticker on the other -- please get them correct! That would be dumb because you'd not only have to note the sticker, but take the time to read it as well.)
But how many of you would prepare a label that just says "Front"? I don't know, maybe he had a whole sheet of "Front" labels to cope with similar situations.
Honored Member
I think the described solution is a perfectly logical way of fixing a minor otherwise repeated annoyance and at the same time an indication that he was in possession of that most undervalued but indispensable virtue of a programmer, laziness..
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Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
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Is he in Texas?
I told the story to one of my daughters. She had a very odd expression when she said "that's awful" about the hamster exchange program.
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Ah, Unix.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov
You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views.
Doctor Who
Moderation will be in purple.
Rules for Posting to This Board
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I'm afraid I'd have been sorely tempted to print out another "Front" label and stick it on the back.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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I think I'd just remove his "Front" label and replace it upside-down.
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I don't normally say "awesome" but... thirded!
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We didn't do much Unix in those days. We were supposed to manage data bases via Cobol extensions. This guy could write in Assembler code for the IBM 360 without thinking about it too hard.
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It's easy. You just make sure that you take everybody else's money. How do you think monarchy and nobility got started?Do you have any idea of how expensive that would be? I saw a formula for that some place.
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