Encyclopedia of Humor

Top ten ways the Internet could get worse

10. Rigorous user screening process abolished by America On-Line.

9. “MAKE MONEY FAST” posts protected by 1st amendment, declare internet lawyers Canter & Siegel.

8. Home shopping “network”.

7. Netrek corporate sponsorships. Out: Orion, Pollux, Klingus. In: Planet Bud, Toyota Prime, Intelworld.

6. Sun internet servers replaced with pentiums.

5. Dan Quayle appointed head of “bandwidth expansion tiger team”.

4. Free netcom account with purchase of big mac.

3. Gameboy web browsers.

2. Tipper Gore cancelbot unleashed onto the net.

AND THE NUMBER ONE WAY THE INTERNET CAN GET WORSE:

1. Two words: “Microsoft Network”

Costello calls Abbott with some questions about UNIX.

Costello: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?

Abbott: Yes, that’s correct.

Costello: No, what is it?

Abbott: Yes.

Costello: So, which is the one?

Abbott: No. ‘which’ is used to find the program.

Costello: Stop this. Who are you?

Abbott: Use ‘who am i’ not ‘who r yoo’. You can also ‘finger yoo’ to get information about ‘yoo’.

Costello: All I want to know is what finds the revision code?

Abbott: Use ‘what’.

Costello: That’s what I am trying to find out. Isn’t that true?

Abbott: No. ‘true’ gives you 0.

Costello: Which one?

Abbott: ‘true’ gives you 0. ‘which programname’

Costello: Let’s get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?

Abbott: Type ‘find / -name it -print’ to find ‘it’. Type ‘what program’ to get the revision code.

Costello: I want to find the revision code.

Abbott: You can’t ‘find revisioncode’, you must use ‘what program’.

Costello: Which command will do what I need?

Abbott: No. ‘which command’ will find ‘command’.

Costello: I think I understand. Let me write that.

Abbott: You can ‘write that’ only if ‘that’ is a user on your system.

Costello: Write what?

Abbott: No. ‘write that’. ‘what program’.

Costello: Cut that out!

Abbott: Yes. those are valid files for ‘cut’. Don’t forget the options.

Costello: Do you always do this?

Abbott: ‘du’ will give you disk usage.

Costello: HELP!

Abbott: ‘help’ is only used for Source Code Control System (SCCS).

Costello: You make me angry.

Abbott: No, I don’t ‘make me’ angry but I did ‘make programname’ when I was upset once.

Costello: I don’t want to make trouble, so no more.

Abbott: No ‘more’? ‘which’ will help you find ‘more’. Every system has ‘more’.

Costello: Nice help! I’m confused more now!

Abbott: Understand that since ‘help’ is such a small program, it is better not to ‘nice help’. and ‘more now’ is not allowed but ‘at now’ is. Unless of course ‘now’ is a file name.

Costello: This is almost as confusing as my PC.

Abbott: I didn’t know you needed help with ‘pc’. Let me get you to the Pascal compiler team.

SYSTEM CRASH (to the tune of “The Monster Mash”)

I was working in the lab, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight,
Some smoke from our VAX began to rise
And suddenly, to my surprise…

[chorus]
(There was a crash) There was a system crash
(A mighty crash) I heard the disk heads smash
(A system crash) It came down in a flash
(There was a crash) A fatal system crash

The lab manager then appeared from his room,
Said: “I don’t want to be a prophet of doom,
But we had one like this just the other day
Which blew up 4 megs and the SBA”

[chorus]

The system had just been booted, diagnostics
had all run through, When a power fluck made it
all run amuck, then SCOTTY and IRVING blew too

So we’d lost all our VAXes in less than one night
When a VP came in and said: “hey, that’s all right,
I’ll loan you a Venus – here’s what to do
When you call up Support, tell them Gordon sent you…

[chorus]

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)

Dear Sir,

I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office, We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry.

Ten things Bill Gates would like to change about the automotive industry

10. New seats would require everyone to have the same body size.

9. We’d all have to switch to Microsoft Gas.

8. The U.S. government would get subsidies from an automaker–a first.

7. The oil, alternator, gas, and engine warning lights would be replaced by a single “General Car Fault” warning light.

6. Sun Motorsystems would make a car that was solar-powered, twice as reliable, five times as fast, but ran on only 5% of the roads.

5. You would be constantly pressured to upgrade your car.

4. You could have only one person in the car at a time, unless you bought Car 95 or CarNT – but then you would have to buy more seats.

3. Occasionally your car would die for no apparent reason and you would have to restart it. Strangely, you would just accept this as normal.

2. Every time the lines on the road were repainted, you’d have to buy a new car.

1. People would get excited about the new features of Microsoft cars, forgetting that the same features had been available from other carmakers for years.