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Humor Break:  Computers' Gender



Note:  Humor breaks are scattered throughout the Nicholas Johnson Home Page because of his belief in relief -- even from the scintillating content of his own page.  They are not his creation; they are from the Internet flow.  "Authors" are not deliberately omitted; almost always they are simply unknown.  Contributors are not identified to protect the innocent and preserve their privacy; they will, of course, be credited if they tell me they would like to be.  Enjoy.  Search the Nicholas Johnson Home Page to see how many "Humor Breaks" you can find.  If you'd like to contribute one yourself, or otherwise comment, please write me at 1035393@mcimail.com  Thanks.  -- Nicholas Johnson


Special Note (regarding political correctness):  This contribution to the Humor Breaks passes my "political correctness" test because it makes fun equally of both men and women.  If that is not enough to meet your standard (i.e., "If a man speaks in a forest and there is no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong?"), I apologize in advance and urge you not to read what follows.  -- Nicholas Johnson


And now for the question of the day---is your computer 'male' or 'female'?  You decide!
 
As you are aware, ships have long been characterized as being female (e.g., "steady as she goes" or "she's listing to starboard, Captain!").
 
Recently, a group of computer scientists (all male) announced that computers should be also be referred to as being female.  Their reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:
 

Five Reasons to Believe Computers are Female

 
1. No one but the Creater understands their internal logic.
 
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
 
3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative as "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to tell you."
 
4.  Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
 
5.  As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
 
HOWEVER, another group of computer scientists (all female) think that computers should be referred to as if they were male.  Their reasons follow:
 

Five Reasons to Believe Computers are Male

1.  They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.
 
2.  They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.
 
3.  As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer you could have obtained a better model.
 
4.  In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.
 
5.  Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.



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