The Net is Slow

Oh, the network outside is frightful,
But on campus, it’s so delightful,
Our packets have nowhere to go,
Net is slow, net is slow, net is slow.

It doesn’t show signs of stopping,
All our packets, our hosts are dropping;
Bandwidth is turned way down low,
Net is slow, net is slow, net is slow.

When we finally connect to a site,
It’s time to go back to the dorm;
But if I could stay here all night,
I could submit their Web form.

The network is slowly dying,
And, I fear, we’re still denying,
But as long as Sprint is the way to go,
Net is slow, net is slow, net is slow.

You’ve been in graphics too long if…
by Chris Thornborrow

Most of your friends can pronounce Gouraud first time.
When you fist heard that some people used 16 million colours you wondered whatever for and continued to write colour-map tables for correct highlights on objects.
You remember comp.graphics when there weren’t enough articles for you to read, none of them included the word PC and nobody ever asked the difference between raytracing and rendering.
You insist that DOOM does not use raycasting. (Technically, as it was first introduced, and anyway, who plays games at your age?)
Your partner knows the difference between scientific visualisation and photorealistic rendering, even though they wouldn’t know a polygon from a camel.
You think an SGI Indy is OK for a quick hack but not a real graphics machine.
You remember discussing how one day there would be graphics hardware to support rendering in desktop machines and people laughed.
You watched the Last Starfighter in an empty theatre and marvelled thinking it was even better than TRON.
You remember thinking that parallel computers would solve your graphics problems.
You remember when you thought X was a high level graphics language.
You get drunk and suddenly get really excited examining the light reflected through the whisky.
You get despondent while walking in the woods and think “I’ll never be able to render this in real time.”
You once sat up all night watching your home computer calculate the mandlebrot set with 16 colours and a resolution of 200×200.
You sat up the next night with colleagues watching your home computer calculate the mandlebrot set with 16 colours and a resolution of 200×200.
Your address book has email entries for Benoit, James F, and Prof David R and Eric.
You think being a computer geek is only half way there.
You wonder how nature processes all those photons so quickly.
When people mention the word graphics you really insist they are more accurate in their terminology.
You get irritated by people who say, “Oh, graphics, that’s a solved problem” (even if they then go on to be precise about what they mean by the term “graphics”).
You own one or more of the following: a glass sphere, a prism, more then two copies of Foley and Van Dam, a computer which cost more than your car, a computer which cost more than your house, a pet named Phong, a graphics board from a defunct supercomputer (properly framed) or a Rubics Cube (original).
You get 75% or more of these jokes.

The Life Cycle of Software

1. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
2. Product is tested. 20 bugs are found.
3. Programmer fixes 10 of the bugs and explains to the testing department that the other 10 aren’t really bugs.
4. Testing department finds that five of the fixes didn’t work and discovers 15 new bugs.
5. See 3.
6. See 4.
7. See 5.
8. See 6.
9. See 7.
10. See 8.
11. Due to marketing pressure and an extremely pre-mature product announcement based on over-optimistic programming schedule, the product is released.
12. Users find 137 new bugs.
13. Original programmer, having cashed his royalty check, is nowhere to be found.
14. Newly-assembled programming team fixes almost all of the 137 bugs, but introduce 456 new ones.
15. Original programmer sends underpaid testing department a postcard from Fiji. Entire testing department quits.
16. Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.
17. New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires programmer to redo program from scratch.
18. Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free.
19. See step 2

Internet addictions

As the incidence and prevalence of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) has been increasing exponentially, a support group. The Internet Addiction Support Group (IASG) has been established. Below are the official criteria for the diagnosis of IAD and subscription information for the IASG.

A maladaptive pattern of Internet use, leading to clinically significant impairment or distress as manifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12-month period:

Diagnostic Criteria

(I) tolerance, as defined by either of the following:

(A) A need for markedly increased amounts of time on Internet to achieve satisfaction

(B) markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of time on Internet

(II) withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following

(A) the characteristic withdrawal syndrome

(1) Cessation of (or reduction) in Internet use that has been heavy and prolonged.

(2) Two (or more) of the following, developing within several days to a month after Criterion 1:

(a) psychomotor agitation

(b) anxiety

(c) obsessive thinking about what is happening on Internet

(d) fantasies or dreams about Internet

(e) voluntary or involuntary typing movements of the fingers

(3) The symptoms in Criterion B cause distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important other area of functioning

(B) Use of Internet or a similar on-line service is engaged in to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

(III) Internet is often accessed more often or for longer periods of time than was intended

(IV) There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control Internet use

(V) A great deal of time is spent in activitied related to Internet use (e.g., buying Internet books, trying out new WWW browsers, researching Internet vendors, organizing files of downloaded materials

(VI) Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of Internet use.

(VII) Internet use is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical, social, occupational, or psychological problem that is likely to been caused or exacerbated by Internet use (sleep deprivation, marital difficulties, lateness for early morning appointments, neglect of occupational duties, or feelings of abandonment in significant others)

Humorous Computer-Related Acronyms

IBM

I Blame Microsoft

Idiots Buy Me

Idiots Building Machines

I’ll Buy Macintoshes

It Bit Me

It Built Microsoft

It’s Better Manually

I’ve Been Mislead

I’ve Been Mugged

WINDOWS

Well, It Never Does Operate With Speed

When I Need Data Output Without Speed

While Idle, Needs DX or WorkStation

Will Install Needless Data On Whole System

WIN

Whoppingly Immense NOP

Worm Infestation Netware

MS-WINDOWS NT / WINDOWS NT

My Solitaire With Its New De-accelerator, Only With Some Network Technology

Well Intended, Netword De-accelerator, Only Works Sometimes, Never Totally

WINDOWS (as a) Network Trojan

Different Operating Systems Expectations

Macintosh: What You See Is What You Get

MS-DOS: You Asked For It, You Got It

UNIX: IfUHv2sk, UDntWnt2Kno

VMS: You Got It, All Of It, Want It Or Not

Random Abbreviations for Many Computer Companies

APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity

DEC: Dump Everything and Close

DEC: Do Expect Cuts

HCL: Hilarious Computer Logic

HP: Hot Pursuit

IBM: I Blame Microsoft

MAC: Most Absurd Computer

MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs

MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers

NEXT: Now EXchange for Trash

OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too.

WARP: What A Rot Program

Acronymns for Other Computer Terms:

AMIGA: A Merely Insignificant Game Addiction

BASIC: Bill’s Attempt to Seize Industry Control

CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months

COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language

DOS: Defective Operating System

ISDN: It Still Does Nothing

LISP: Lots of Infuriating & Silly Parenthesis

MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed

PCMCIA: People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

PENTIUM: Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics

SCSI: System Can’t See It

WWW: World Wide Wait