On the way to a sales call, a salesman, a project manager, and a programmer were kidnapped. When their employer refused to pay the ransom, the kidnappers granted each a last wish before killing them. The salesman said, "I still want to make the pitch I prepared for today. It's awesome and will only take an hour." The project manager said, "I still want to present my Powerpoint for this project. It's only 92 slides." The programmer said, "Kill me first."
The thing about this joke is that the accountant is (kinda) right. Suppose they pass one field with about 1000 sheep and lots and lots of fields with ~5 sheep. Someone who thinks "about 1000" + 5 = "about 1000" is going to get a very wrong answer, and someone who thinks "about 1000" + 5 = "about 1005" is going to do much better.
This is also why, when combining floating-point values of different widths, it is better to say single + double -> double than single + double -> single, and why the concept of "significant figures" as commonly taught in schools is dangerous.
My favorite was originally about the DEC minicomputer Field Services organization, known as "field circuses":
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer
with a flat tire?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
is flat.
Q: How can you recognize a field circus engineer
who is out of gas?
A: He's changing one tire at a time to see which one
is flat.
Q: How can you tell it's *your* field circus engineer?
A: The spare is flat, too. [1]
That particular organization may be long gone, but you can definitely spot the behavior. E.g., when calling front-line tech support and being asked to reboot and reinstall things that clearly don't matter.
An mechanical engineer, physicist, and computer programmer are in a car driving down a steep mountain when the brakes fail. The careens around bends picking up speed until they finally reach the bottom and the car rolls to a stop.
The engineer hops out of the car and begins inspecting the brakes for the source of the failure. The physicist grabs a pad of paper and starts calculating the maximum angular momentum and friction coefficients.
The computer programmer looks at the car, then at the mountain and says, "let's push it up to the top and see if it happens again."
Oh god! From the enterprise code I've seen, American large companies must be hotbeds of communism!
And now that I think about it, enterprise systems may be fully realized soviet states. There are long queues for often meager returns, there are a large number of factories that produce mysterious junk, security policies are both incomprehensible and harsh, and to get anything done, you have to know somebody.
>If you're happy and you know it, missing quote
missing quote
>IfYoureHappyAndYouKnowItNotAVerb
Not a verb
>If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it, If you're happy and you know it, syntax error
syntax error
At a place where I used to work, someone had a car with one of those Virginia "Internet C@pital" license plates. The design has changed over the years, but this one put the @ in a big blue dot right in the lower center of the license plate. Sadly, I can't find a pic of this person's plate, or even that style of plate, anymore.
Before I click, just a quick bet with myself this excellent question has been closed.
[edit] yep, locked. Thanks NullUserException! Now another quick bet with myself that someone will reply to this comment defending S.O.s repeated closure of interesting questions.
No one's complaining about the lack of cat photos and memegenerator links on Hacker News, but here we are again decrying Stack Overflow trying to keep its signal to noise ratio high.
The historical lock is an appeasement for those who like to binge on candy all day long and not realise a site built on 90% candy is no place for quality.
You're laying bets all over the place. How about putting forth a cogent argument why these type of questions need to reside on Stack Overflow and not on reddit or Hacker News?
I get incredible value out of Stack Overflow. Do you not?
Does the fact that this question is locked diminish its value or the value of Stack Overflow in any way?
Of course, Stack Overflow is not made for interesting questions. Notice that I am not defending this descision, I am merely stating it. You know this, which is why you were accurately able to predict that this question would be closed. Why is this interesting enough to warrant commenting that this is the case also today?
I spend 12+ hours a day coding, across a variety of technologies that I'm only semi-familiar with. Stack Overflow saves my sanity on an hourly basis.
It seems like 9/10 of the useful questions are closed by mods, though the answer is usually there anyway. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the quality there is still high.
When I teach introductory computer science courses, I like to lighten the mood with some humor. Having a sense of fun about the material makes it less frustrating and more memorable, and it's even motivating if the joke requires some technical understanding to 'get it'!
When put in this context, I think the question has some value. Being honest, programming can be very dry at times. The most mirth inducing stuff I have read in relation to programming is when programmers complain about programming languages, I think SO had a question addressing this issue.
An electrical engineer from GE, a chemical engineer from DuPont and a Windows kernel developer from Microsoft are in a car, driving along a desert road.
At some point the car malfunctions and comes to a stop. The following discussion ensues:
GE guy: "It's because there are some crossed wires in the electrical system that regulates the engine."
DuPont Guy: "Don't be ridiculous, this is clearly caused by a wrong mix of gasoline and oxygen going into the cylinders."
MS guy: "Why don't we all get out of the car, close the doors, reopen the doors, get back into the car, and try again."
An electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer and a software engineer from Microsoft are riding in a car, when they start down a steep hill. Halfway down the brakes go out and the car crashes into a tree at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, no one is hurt, so they get out and start analyzing what happened.
Electrical engineer: Clearly a short-circuit in the ABS system caused the brakes to go out.
Mechanical engineer: No, no, it was an over-pressure situation that caused a brake line to rupture.
They both turn to the Microsoft guy and ask him for his opinion:
Microsoft guy: I don't know, but let's push the car back to the top of the hill and try it again.
Two regular expressions are sitting at a bar and having a drink. A big, context-sensitive string walks over and steals the drink from the first regex. The second says to the first "Are you going to let him bully you like that?" The first replies "Yeah, I'm no match for him."
To go off topic a bit here - all these SO articles that are not pinpointed programming questions are always closed or locked. You can no longer ask these kind of open ended, leading to a debate kind of questions on SO anymore. The questions have to be very focused and narrow so that someone can answer it to get points. Its really disappointing but that is just the way the community took it in - pedantic.
On SO, mod points are granted by how many "points" you have. The idea is that if you have that many points, you got them by asking good questions, writing good answers, and generally being a good citizen on the site. But if you allow jokes or open-ended questions, then people get tons of points and mod powers even it they don't really contribute to the content of the site.
It would help if they allowed open-ended questions that are marked "community wiki" (which means the author doesn't get points for the post). But you'd still end up with a lot of off-topic content getting upvoted on the front page which would be annoying.
[+] [-] JonnieCache|12 years ago|reply
The barman replies "Hello, you'd like a beer?"
"Yes," replies the TCP packet, "I'd like a beer."
I'd tell you my UDP packet joke, but I'm not sure you'd get it.
[+] [-] TacticalCoder|12 years ago|reply
A neutrino walks into a bar."
(read on /. years ago IIRC)
[+] [-] MDCore|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codereflection|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edw519|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ojbyrne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedufer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crntaylor|12 years ago|reply
An engineer and an accountant are on a train when they pass between two fields of sheep.
"Boy, there are a lot of sheep in those fields." says the engineer.
"There are 1,005" says the accountant.
"How do you know?"
"Well, there are about 1,000 in that field, and there are 5 in the other one."
[+] [-] gjm11|12 years ago|reply
This is also why, when combining floating-point values of different widths, it is better to say single + double -> double than single + double -> single, and why the concept of "significant figures" as commonly taught in schools is dangerous.
[+] [-] NAFV_P|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|12 years ago|reply
[1] The Jargon File is full of little gems like this. http://zvon.org/comp/r/ref-Jargon_file.html#Terms~field_circ...
[+] [-] phurley|12 years ago|reply
The engineer hops out of the car and begins inspecting the brakes for the source of the failure. The physicist grabs a pad of paper and starts calculating the maximum angular momentum and friction coefficients.
The computer programmer looks at the car, then at the mountain and says, "let's push it up to the top and see if it happens again."
[+] [-] tjr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quarterto|12 years ago|reply
The class system has dissolved and the state controls everything.
[+] [-] wpietri|12 years ago|reply
And now that I think about it, enterprise systems may be fully realized soviet states. There are long queues for often meager returns, there are a large number of factories that produce mysterious junk, security policies are both incomprehensible and harsh, and to get anything done, you have to know somebody.
[+] [-] dspeyer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mck-|12 years ago|reply
Logn time
[+] [-] program|12 years ago|reply
The assembly panel is very funny.
[+] [-] edw519|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Millennium|12 years ago|reply
The license number was "CAR JPG".
I SO wish I had a pic to prove this.
[+] [-] DjangoReinhardt|12 years ago|reply
I don't see the '@' anywhere which leads me to believe this may be a fake/photoshop. Still, quite interesting... :)
[+] [-] Piskvorrr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _hgt1|12 years ago|reply
[edit] yep, locked. Thanks NullUserException! Now another quick bet with myself that someone will reply to this comment defending S.O.s repeated closure of interesting questions.
[+] [-] insteadof|12 years ago|reply
The historical lock is an appeasement for those who like to binge on candy all day long and not realise a site built on 90% candy is no place for quality.
You're laying bets all over the place. How about putting forth a cogent argument why these type of questions need to reside on Stack Overflow and not on reddit or Hacker News?
[+] [-] maggit|12 years ago|reply
Does the fact that this question is locked diminish its value or the value of Stack Overflow in any way?
Of course, Stack Overflow is not made for interesting questions. Notice that I am not defending this descision, I am merely stating it. You know this, which is why you were accurately able to predict that this question would be closed. Why is this interesting enough to warrant commenting that this is the case also today?
[+] [-] EarthLaunch|12 years ago|reply
It seems like 9/10 of the useful questions are closed by mods, though the answer is usually there anyway. I'm not sure what to make of that, but the quality there is still high.
[+] [-] libria|12 years ago|reply
Surely you can make a good case for it on meta.stackoverflow.com?
[+] [-] yen223|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DjangoReinhardt|12 years ago|reply
Also, if you are betting with yourself, doesn't it mean that you lose when you win?
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] NAFV_P|12 years ago|reply
When I teach introductory computer science courses, I like to lighten the mood with some humor. Having a sense of fun about the material makes it less frustrating and more memorable, and it's even motivating if the joke requires some technical understanding to 'get it'!
When put in this context, I think the question has some value. Being honest, programming can be very dry at times. The most mirth inducing stuff I have read in relation to programming is when programmers complain about programming languages, I think SO had a question addressing this issue.
[+] [-] dserban|12 years ago|reply
At some point the car malfunctions and comes to a stop. The following discussion ensues:
GE guy: "It's because there are some crossed wires in the electrical system that regulates the engine."
DuPont Guy: "Don't be ridiculous, this is clearly caused by a wrong mix of gasoline and oxygen going into the cylinders."
MS guy: "Why don't we all get out of the car, close the doors, reopen the doors, get back into the car, and try again."
[+] [-] mindcrime|12 years ago|reply
An electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer and a software engineer from Microsoft are riding in a car, when they start down a steep hill. Halfway down the brakes go out and the car crashes into a tree at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, no one is hurt, so they get out and start analyzing what happened.
Electrical engineer: Clearly a short-circuit in the ABS system caused the brakes to go out.
Mechanical engineer: No, no, it was an over-pressure situation that caused a brake line to rupture.
They both turn to the Microsoft guy and ask him for his opinion:
Microsoft guy: I don't know, but let's push the car back to the top of the hill and try it again.
[+] [-] Malus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Flow|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qbrass|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BerislavLopac|12 years ago|reply
Because Oct 31 == Dec 25.
[+] [-] pmelendez|12 years ago|reply
I was hoping that were a joke :(
[+] [-] yalogin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|12 years ago|reply
It would help if they allowed open-ended questions that are marked "community wiki" (which means the author doesn't get points for the post). But you'd still end up with a lot of off-topic content getting upvoted on the front page which would be annoying.