Help Desk Humor

(L)users

Users /nm./: collective term for those who use computers. Users are divided into three types: novice, intermediate and expert.
Novice Users: people who are afraid that simply pressing a key might break their computer.
Intermediate Users: people who don't know how to fix their computer after they've just pressed a key that broke it.
Expert Users: people who break other people's computers.
— From the Jargon File.

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why ? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material." — Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explaining how the Internet works (2006).

"Science is supposedly the method by which we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. In computer science, we all are standing on each others' feet." — G. Popek.

"Press CTRL-ALT-DEL now for an IQ test." — (At the time of Win95/98/ME)

"Reading, Pa., county controller Judith Kraines complained at a commissioners' meeting in January about having to type letters and do other business on a typewriter because her computer was old and no one had been able to get it to work for two years. 'If we had a computer', she said, 'letters would go out faster'. Three days later, she announced that the computer she was complaining about in fact had not been plugged in to any electrical outlet and that when the plug was inserted and the computer was turned on, it worked fine." — Elected luser of the year.

"Los Angeles County officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms 'master' and 'slave' regarding computer hard drives, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive. Additionally, the term 'e-mail' will now be called 'e-person letter', 'dumb terminals' will now be 'CPU-challenged monitors' and 'Unix' will be referred to as 'sexually dysfunctional operating system'. Obviously, 'fingering' is now banned entirely." — Kevin Fizz.

"Artificial intelligence ? No thank you, I don't need crutches." — Szylowicz (my former assembler teacher).

"Artificial Intelligence usually beats natural stupidity."

"If computers had invented humans as part of a BI program (biological intelligence), humans would have been tossed aside as barely having achieved perfect game play at Tic-Tac-Toe." — Epine.

"If you don't want to be replaced by a computer, don't act like one." — Arno Penzias.

"1f y0u c4n r34d 7h15, y0u r34||y n33d 70 637 |41d."

"This manual says what our product actually does, no matter what the salesman may have told you it does." — In a californian graphic board manual, 1985.

"I sit looking at this damn computer screen all day long, day in and day out, week after week, and think: Man, if I could just find the 'on' switch..." — Zachary Good.

"Smith & Wesson — the original point and click interface."

"They say one of a baby's first non-verbal forms communication is pointing. Clicking must be somewhere just after that."

"Foolproof systems don't take into account the ingenuity of fools." — Gene Brown.

"Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it."

"Remember, the problem is not that people are stupid; the problem is that modems are cheap." — Vince Sabio.

"Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users ?"

"Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ('What else could it be?') I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer." — John R Searls.

"There is unexpected beauty hidden everywhere in this world — one just has to be open to seeing it. Remember that the next time you sneeze on your monitor." — Nathan Walton.

Login: yes
Password: i dont have one
password is incorrect

Login: yes
Password: incorrect

"On the negative side, I've been getting charged for a ton of stuff I didn't order lately. On the positive side, I did win that 'Who's Got the Best Password' contest on AOL last week." — Spike Donner.

"Making fun of AOL users is like making fun of the kid in the wheel chair."

"I can only imagine the deprivation and loneliness you will feel from a lack of human companionship when your 1000 free AOL hours run out." — Nate B.

"The only business that is ever threatened by improved technologies are those that need to be left behind."

"It's like being a doctor, but without getting my paws all gooky." — Dogbert the Network Administrator.

"Morons. These people who live in my apartment complex are connected to my wireless. They must think they're super-cool hackers by breaking into my completely unsecure network. Unfortunatly, the connection works both ways. Long story short, they now have loads of horse porn on their computer." — Mootar from bash.org.

"MMORPG players are freaks. If I ever have kids, and I catch them doing anything with a computer except for normal stuff like porn and hacking into school to change their grades, I will beat their asses like a red headed step child." — CF.

"I've always wondered if there was a Hezbollah version of minesweeper where you get points for blowing up on your first move." — James Lileks.

"I went to a gentleman's cybercafe — and they offered me a 'laptop dance'."

"I can't uninstall it, there seems to be some kind of 'Uninstall Shield'."

Helpdesk: Double click on "My Computer"
User: I can't see your computer.
Helpdesk: No, double click on "My Computer" on your computer.
User: Huh?
Helpdesk: There is an icon on your computer labeled "My Computer". Double click on it.
User: What's your computer doing on mine?

"It took me many years but I have gained access to the root account and have removed the user God." — Saros (Jeff Batten).

"Prolonged contact with the computer turns mathematicians into clerks and vice versa." — Alan J. Perlis.

"Dude, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm afraid you've been hacked — the FTP server at 127.0.0.1 has all your personal files. See for yourself; just log in with your normal id...." — Classic joke on new Unix users.

"Note to self: www.manpages.com is NOT an online resource to get *nix man pages'" — Techdeck.

"I went to the gf's work last week, they had no antivirus. 279 viruses. The best part was they showed me their backup strategy: they use custom software and they backed up the application by dragging the desktop icon (a shortcut) to their cdrw. They had 2 years worth of shortcuts." — gweebz0r.

"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an exercise for your kill-file." — Bertil Jonell.

"Gentlemen, I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven." — Thomas Jefferson.

"Crap... Someone knocked over my recycle bin... There's icons all over my desktop..." — billiam.

"Relax, its only ONES and ZEROS !"

"Qrpelcgvat ebg13 ivbyngrf gur QZPN! Cercner gb or fhrq!!"

"Who were the beta testers for Preparations A through G ?" — Bumper Sticker.

"If it's there and you can see it — it's real.
If it's not there and you can see it — it's virtual.
If it's there and you can't see it — it's transparent.
If it's not there and you can't see it — you erased it !"

"Back up my hard disk ? I can't find the reverse switch !"

"I have NOT lost my mind — I have it backed up on tape somewhere."

"What do you mean by 'RAM DISK is not an installation procedure' ?"

"'INSERT DISK THREE' ? But I can only get two in the drive !"

"Daddy, why doesn't this magnet pick up this floppy disk ?"

"Daddy, what does FORMATTING DRIVE C mean ?"

"See daddy ? All the keys are in alphabetical order now."

"Worth noting: running 'reboot -h' does NOT produce a helpful usage message."

"If you can't beat your computer at chess, do what I did — try kick-boxing." — Matt Larson.

"rm -rf /bin/laden"

"No printing is permitted of this book.
This book cannot be given to someone else.
This book cannot be read aloud." — License terms for Adobe ebooks.

"Ban cryptography ! Yes. Let's also ban pencils, pens and paper, since criminals can use them to draw plans of the joint they are casing or even, god forbid, create one time pads to pass uncrackable codes to each other. Ban open spaces since criminals could use them to converse with each other out of earshot of the police. Let's ban flags since they could be used to pass secret messages in semaphore. In fact let's just ban all forms of verbal and non-verbal communication — let's see those criminals make plans now !"

"Cryptanalysis is the study of turning other peoples' harmless mistakes into catastrophic errors."

"Cracking the Italian codes was something you did at the pub over a beer. It was both relaxing and enjoyable..." — Peter Hilton, WW2 British codebreaker.

"Why is it 'marketing' when a company helps itself to my information against my will and 'piracy' or 'industrial espionage' if I helped myself to THEIR information against their will ?" — Causality.

"Phase 1: Uncritical acceptance.
Phase 2: Wild enthusiasm.
Phase 3: Dejected disillusionment.
Phase 4: Total confusion.
Phase 5: Search for the guilty.
Phase 6: Punishment of the innocent.
Phase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants." — Harsh Reality of IT Project Life Cycle.

"Q: What is the difference between a computer and a woman ?
A: A woman won't accept a 3 and 1/2-inch floppy !"

"I don't care if you ARE getting a PhD in it ! Get away from that damn computer and go find a woman !" — Paul Tyma's dad.

"If some unemployed punk in New Jersey can get a cassette to make love to Elle McPherson for $19.95 this virtual reality stuff is going to make crack look like Sanka !" — Dennis Miller.

"When I was a teenager, Mom said I'd go blind if I didn't quit doing *that*. Maybe she was right — since the invention of internet porn, computer monitors keep getting bigger and bigger. !" — Bill Ervin.

"Hey ! It compiles ! Ship it !"

"Internet Explorer Tip: when it says 'turn off images', it only refers to inline images. Which is why it's safe to go to Goatse but not Tubgirl. I think it's obvious how I figured this out." — Bivens.

"Broadband sucks in the sense that goatse loads before i can close the window..." — Ich.

"Ooops. My brain just hit a bad sector."

"Those who can't write programs, write help files."

"Smash forehead on keyboard to continue..."

"Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue..."

"The world is coming to an end... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS !"

"Jesus saves... So why the fuck didn't I ?"

"Yeah, Jesus tried to save me, but there was no space left on his memory card." — arucardegungrave.

"Yo moma is such a whore, if she was a chmod she'd be 777 because everyone has access..."

"Yo moma is like HTML: Tiny head, huge body."

"I tried setting my hotmail password to penis. It said my password wasn't long enough. :(" — Raven.

"Technology is always first developed for one of four things:
The Military

Sexual Urges

Easy Money

Security (making sure the above services are properly paid for).
If we can't have sex with it, blow it up, or make loads of cash off of it, we're just not interested." — tcd004.

"You know you're a geek when... You try to shoo a fly away from the monitor with your cursor. That just happened to me. It was scary." — Juuso Heimonen.

"I rigged my cellular to send a message to my PDA, which is online with my PC, to get it to activate the voicemail, which sends the message to the inbox of my email, which routes it to the PDA, which beams it back to the cellular. Then I realized my gadgets have a better social life than I do !" — Tom Ostad.

"Kids today have so many advantages I never had. There's no telling what I could've accomplished with a home computer and a handgun." — LeMel Hebert-Williams.

"We will never become a truly paper-less society until the Palm Pilot folks come out with WipeMe 1.0." — Andy Pierson.

"I don't understand why cheerleaders won't talk to me. Maybe I don't throw five touchdowns against Newport High, but let's see one of those football morons program in assembly language. !" — Chris Lipe.

"She said she was hot for me, so i gave her a spare heatsink. She didn't seem happy. I just dont understand women." — MrRoboto1024.

"Procter & Gamble, for example, uses an SGI system to study the aerodynamics of Pringle's potato chips. !" — From a ZDnet article.

"Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more user-friendly... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover." — Bill Gates

"Remember when...? A computer was something on TV from a science fiction show. A window was something you hated to clean and RAM was the cousin of a goat... Meg was the name of my girlfriend and gig was your middle finger upright. Now they all mean different things and that really mega bytes. An application was for employment. A program was a TV show. A cursor used profanity. A keyboard was a piano. Memory was something that you lost with age. A CD was a bank account. And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy you hoped that nobody found out. Compress was something you did to the garbage not something you did to a file. And if you unzipped anything in public you'd be in jail for awhile. Log on was adding wood to the fire. Hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse pad was where a mouse lived and a backup happened to your commode. Cut you did with a pocket knife. Paste you did with glue. A web was a spider's home and a virus was the flu. I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper and the memory in my head. I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash but when it happens they wish they were dead !"

"The ultimate metric that I would like to propose for user friendliness is quite simple: if this system was a person, how long would it take before you punched it in the nose ?" — Tom Carey.

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value." — Carl Sagan.

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." — Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." — Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"I see no progress in this industry. These clocks are no faster than the ones they made a hundred years ago." — Henry Ford, while visiting a museum.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18 000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1 000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1½ tons." — Popular Mechanics, March 1949.

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.

"But what... is it good for ?" — An engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the microchip in 1968.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." — Ken Olson, president/founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things. What businessman knows about point sizes on typefaces or the value of variable point sizes ? Who out there in the general marketplace even knows what a 'font' is ? The whole concept and attitude towards icons and hieroglyphs is actually counterrevolutionary — it's a language that is hardly 'user friendly'. This type of machine was developed by hardware hackers working out of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. It has yet to find popular success. There seems to be some mysterious user resistance to this type of machine." — John C. Dvorak on why the Macintosh would fail, San Francisco Examiner, 1984/02/19.

"The Mac finder really puts the 'stupid' in 'Keep It Simple, Stupid'."

"Macintosh computer are easy to use. It's also easy to stick your hand in a wood chipper."

"Steve Jobs may have the apple, but Bill Gates has the entire orchard !"

"A Mac vs. PC commercial you'll never see: 'Whatcha doin, PC?' 'I'm playing this new game'. 'Oh really, which one?' 'Any'. 'Oh'. (silence) (fade)." — ez76.

"I want to see the Korean girl who works at the iPhone factory v. the Zune tattoo guy." — MdHatter about Apple commercials.

"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." — Jack Valenti, MPAA president, testimony to the House of Representatives, 1982.

"Wanted: Expert Java programmers, 5+ years experience." — Posted in 1998.

via gdargaud.net

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