- haven't seen that one..Seen on Quora
Seen on Quora
- haven't seen that one..
Seen on Quora
I loved this story:
What is the most British thing ever?
Being polite at all times
My parents have had the same, lovely gardener called Rob, for over twenty years.
Every time Rob comes to do the garden my mum makes him a cup of tea and takes him out a couple of biscuits - always the same plain digestives, which seem to be his favourite, and he always polishes them off.
Last weekend, Rob approached my dad after he’d been brought his usual cuppa. He looked rather embarrassed and asked if it were possible to have another type of biscuit… anything other than a digestive.
It seems he had never really liked digestives after all. In fact he rather disliked them. But being British, of course he would always eat what he was given, and it took him twenty years to finally work up the courage to complain.
What is the most British thing ever?
Being polite at all times
My parents have had the same, lovely gardener called Rob, for over twenty years.
Every time Rob comes to do the garden my mum makes him a cup of tea and takes him out a couple of biscuits - always the same plain digestives, which seem to be his favourite, and he always polishes them off.
Last weekend, Rob approached my dad after he’d been brought his usual cuppa. He looked rather embarrassed and asked if it were possible to have another type of biscuit… anything other than a digestive.
It seems he had never really liked digestives after all. In fact he rather disliked them. But being British, of course he would always eat what he was given, and it took him twenty years to finally work up the courage to complain.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
Seen on Quora
One to make you groan..
What if you have been kidnapped by a gigantic bottle of pills from outer space? What should you do?
If it’s a bottle of Omega 3 capsules you may get away with only superfishoil injuries.
What if you have been kidnapped by a gigantic bottle of pills from outer space? What should you do?
If it’s a bottle of Omega 3 capsules you may get away with only superfishoil injuries.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
Seen on Quora
Y2K joke
This one has a personal connection as I was an IBM systems programmer involved in the work on the Y2K so-called bug for GE Corporate's S390 mainframe computers at their data centre in Kingswood near Bristol. I didn't actually work on the code but worked on testing and applying the changes throughout 1999. It wasn't a bug actually but a shortcut to save two bytes of data for every date entry, so 12th August 1970 became 120870. This was because in the 60s and 70s memory was very costly. This was all very well but what happens when 311299 comes around? The 99 flips over to 00 and 1st January 2000 is read as 010100, i.e. 1st January 1900. The reason why no one worried about this in 1970 was that everyone thought no one would still be using the same code thirty years later. But come 1995 or thereabout people started to get a bit jittery because they were still using the same code. Even then it wasn't until 1998 that people started serious work on fixing it. It was a colossal task made even harder when often the source code was long gone and hex dumps of the machine code had to be perused byte by byte to find the date entries and reassemble it. Either that or rewrite the program from scratch. But it got done and come the day mostly disaster didn't happen, so much so that the general public said it was all a load of rubbish. This got the same reaction from IT workers as teachers do when they are told they are lucky to have such long holidays.
In my case there was one instance when a batch of data records on tape were magnetically marked incorrectly for expiry so the tapes could be reused. I was on a night shift at that time so my instruction to the operators were "Put them aside for the morning programmers to fix". So this was one bit of testing that slipped through the net. I imagine what the morning crew did was to copy the data onto new tapes marked with the correct expiry date.
Preamble over, the joke:
In 1999, a COBOL programmer was being worked half to death fixing the Y2K bug. On one of his very few days off, he was sitting in a bar nursing an entire bottle of Jack and complaining about his workload to his best friend. “Sam, I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”
Sam looked at him. “John, I think I know a way out of your problem. My friend Robert is an expert in suspended animation. We can take you to his lab and place you in it until 2001, at which point the work will all be done and you’ll be able to go back to your normal life.” John thought that was a great plan so that’s what they did.
On the day they woke John up, he was surrounded by doctors, business executives and college professors who were all in a state of excitement.
“So…what’s up with the world?” John asked.
“Everything is just great,” the lead doctor said. “We’ve solved the problems of war, hunger and poverty. There’s no more pollution. Everyone lives in peace and harmony.”
“So, they fixed all that in two years? Impressive!”
“Uhh…no…we woke you up a little later than that.”
“Why is everyone here so excited?”
“Well John, it’s the year 9998…and your records say you know COBOL.”
This one has a personal connection as I was an IBM systems programmer involved in the work on the Y2K so-called bug for GE Corporate's S390 mainframe computers at their data centre in Kingswood near Bristol. I didn't actually work on the code but worked on testing and applying the changes throughout 1999. It wasn't a bug actually but a shortcut to save two bytes of data for every date entry, so 12th August 1970 became 120870. This was because in the 60s and 70s memory was very costly. This was all very well but what happens when 311299 comes around? The 99 flips over to 00 and 1st January 2000 is read as 010100, i.e. 1st January 1900. The reason why no one worried about this in 1970 was that everyone thought no one would still be using the same code thirty years later. But come 1995 or thereabout people started to get a bit jittery because they were still using the same code. Even then it wasn't until 1998 that people started serious work on fixing it. It was a colossal task made even harder when often the source code was long gone and hex dumps of the machine code had to be perused byte by byte to find the date entries and reassemble it. Either that or rewrite the program from scratch. But it got done and come the day mostly disaster didn't happen, so much so that the general public said it was all a load of rubbish. This got the same reaction from IT workers as teachers do when they are told they are lucky to have such long holidays.
In my case there was one instance when a batch of data records on tape were magnetically marked incorrectly for expiry so the tapes could be reused. I was on a night shift at that time so my instruction to the operators were "Put them aside for the morning programmers to fix". So this was one bit of testing that slipped through the net. I imagine what the morning crew did was to copy the data onto new tapes marked with the correct expiry date.
Preamble over, the joke:
In 1999, a COBOL programmer was being worked half to death fixing the Y2K bug. On one of his very few days off, he was sitting in a bar nursing an entire bottle of Jack and complaining about his workload to his best friend. “Sam, I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”
Sam looked at him. “John, I think I know a way out of your problem. My friend Robert is an expert in suspended animation. We can take you to his lab and place you in it until 2001, at which point the work will all be done and you’ll be able to go back to your normal life.” John thought that was a great plan so that’s what they did.
On the day they woke John up, he was surrounded by doctors, business executives and college professors who were all in a state of excitement.
“So…what’s up with the world?” John asked.
“Everything is just great,” the lead doctor said. “We’ve solved the problems of war, hunger and poverty. There’s no more pollution. Everyone lives in peace and harmony.”
“So, they fixed all that in two years? Impressive!”
“Uhh…no…we woke you up a little later than that.”
“Why is everyone here so excited?”
“Well John, it’s the year 9998…and your records say you know COBOL.”
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
Seen on Quora
While most of this was in a foreign language, the info on the 'bug' is really interestingeccles wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 7:11 pm Y2K joke
This one has a personal connection as I was an IBM systems programmer involved in the work on the Y2K so-called bug for GE Corporate's S390 mainframe computers at their data centre in Kingswood near Bristol. I didn't actually work on the code but worked on testing and applying the changes throughout 1999. It wasn't a bug actually but a shortcut to save two bytes of data for every date entry, so 12th August 1970 became 120870. This was because in the 60s and 70s memory was very costly. This was all very well but what happens when 311299 comes around? The 99 flips over to 00 and 1st January 2000 is read as 010100, i.e. 1st January 1900. The reason why no one worried about this in 1970 was that everyone thought no one would still be using the same code thirty years later. But come 1995 or thereabout people started to get a bit jittery because they were still using the same code. Even then it wasn't until 1998 that people started serious work on fixing it. It was a colossal task made even harder when often the source code was long gone and hex dumps of the machine code had to be perused byte by byte to find the date entries and reassemble it. Either that or rewrite the program from scratch. But it got done and come the day mostly disaster didn't happen, so much so that the general public said it was all a load of rubbish. This got the same reaction from IT workers as teachers do when they are told they are lucky to have such long holidays.
In my case there was one instance when a batch of data records on tape were magnetically marked incorrectly for expiry so the tapes could be reused. I was on a night shift at that time so my instruction to the operators were "Put them aside for the morning programmers to fix". So this was one bit of testing that slipped through the net. I imagine what the morning crew did was to copy the data onto new tapes marked with the correct expiry date.
Preamble over, the joke:
In 1999, a COBOL programmer was being worked half to death fixing the Y2K bug. On one of his very few days off, he was sitting in a bar nursing an entire bottle of Jack and complaining about his workload to his best friend. “Sam, I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”
Sam looked at him. “John, I think I know a way out of your problem. My friend Robert is an expert in suspended animation. We can take you to his lab and place you in it until 2001, at which point the work will all be done and you’ll be able to go back to your normal life.” John thought that was a great plan so that’s what they did.
On the day they woke John up, he was surrounded by doctors, business executives and college professors who were all in a state of excitement.
“So…what’s up with the world?” John asked.
“Everything is just great,” the lead doctor said. “We’ve solved the problems of war, hunger and poverty. There’s no more pollution. Everyone lives in peace and harmony.”
“So, they fixed all that in two years? Impressive!”
“Uhh…no…we woke you up a little later than that.”
“Why is everyone here so excited?”
“Well John, it’s the year 9998…and your records say you know COBOL.”
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I understood it but then I knew it anyway. People did work very hard and then other ungrateful people said fuss about nothing was most unfair.
30 years. Things were built to last back then. These days lucky to get 30 days before nagging to upgrade code aren't we.
30 years. Things were built to last back then. These days lucky to get 30 days before nagging to upgrade code aren't we.
Seen on Quora
I wonder how HF musicians might play this, pianissimo?
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
Seen on Quora
What is a funny joke that only an engineer would understand?
A blonde waitress in a pub complains to one of her customers, a mathematician. “Your friend thinks I am stupid”. The mathematician replies: “I’ll prove to him that you are not. I’ll ask you a question and you must reply “a third of x power 3”.”
The friend enters. They order a beer. The friend, also a mathematician, remarks: “she is really stupid, isn’t she.” The first mathematician says: “It’s not nice to say such a thing. And I bet it is untrue.”
And then he asks the lady: “What is x squared integrated?” The waitress obediently replies “a third of x power 3”. And she adds “plus a constant”.
A blonde waitress in a pub complains to one of her customers, a mathematician. “Your friend thinks I am stupid”. The mathematician replies: “I’ll prove to him that you are not. I’ll ask you a question and you must reply “a third of x power 3”.”
The friend enters. They order a beer. The friend, also a mathematician, remarks: “she is really stupid, isn’t she.” The first mathematician says: “It’s not nice to say such a thing. And I bet it is untrue.”
And then he asks the lady: “What is x squared integrated?” The waitress obediently replies “a third of x power 3”. And she adds “plus a constant”.
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)
(Terry Pratchett 1948-2015)