@Shapeless,
There used to be a whole website, done by a Hungarian actually IIRC, you could send in your own versions. There were some really creative ones. But then he got the idea of publishing a book with them, so he took the site down, or left only a few samples up, I dont remember, so as not to give away the content he wanted to sell for free ... and then nothing. Doubt the book ever appeared.
1. Describe your problem:
__________________________________________
2. Now, describe the problem accurately:
__________________________________________
3. Speculate wildly about the cause of the problem:
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
4. Problem Severity:
A. Minor__
B. Minor__
C. Minor__
D. Trivial__
5. Nature of the problem:
A. Locked Up__
B. Frozen__
C. Hung__
D. Shot__
6. Is your computer plugged in? Yes__ No__
7. Is it turned on? Yes__ No__
8. Have you tried to fix it yourself? Yes__ No__
9. Have you made it worse? Yes__
10. Have you read the manual? Yes__ No__
11. Are you sure you've read the manual? Yes__ No__
12. Are you absolutely certain you've read the manual? No__
13. Do you think you understood it? Yes__ No__
14. If `Yes' then why can't you fix the problem yourself?
_________________
15. How tall are you? Are you above this line? __________________
16. What were you doing with your computer at the time the problem
occurred?
______________________________________________________
17. If `nothing' explain why you were logged in.
________________________________________________________________
18. Are you sure you aren't imagining the problem? Yes__ No__
19. How does this problem make you feel? ____________________________
20. Tell me about your childhood. ___________________________________
21. Do you have any independent witnesses of the problem? Yes__ No__
22. Can't you do something else, instead of bothering me? Yes_
Q: Why did the Comp. Engineer get X-mas and Halloween mixed up?
A: Because Oct(31) == Dec(25)
Heisenberg is speeding down the street and he gets pulled over by a cop. The officer asks, "do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg replies, "no, but i know exactly where i am!"
How do you recognize a field service engineer on the side of the road with a flat tire? ...
He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.
And the related problem:
How do you recognize a field service engineer on the side of the road who has run out of gas? ...
He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.
Three foreigners: a businessman, physicist, and mathematician, are talking about the country they're all visiting for the first time.
Suddenly, the businessman points out the window in surprise. "Look at that! The sheep in Scotland are black!"
Amused at how readily his new friend jumps to conclusions, the physicist corrects him: "No, all we can be certain of is that some of the sheep in Scotland are black."
The mathematician looks out the window himself, and corrects the both of them: "We know there exists a sheep in Scotland which is black on at least one side."
squidboots
Omg. Omg. Omg. I am so making these for the next bacteriology party I attend.
col381
You wild party guy you
squidboots
girl
col381
In that case: well hello there.. science girls are hot ;-)
nullxposur
shame on you sir. picking up girls on the intertubes! squidboobs, a/s/l? =D
yellowbkpk
nullxposur, how dare you! squidboobs? Her nick is obviously squidboots.
squidboots, a/s/l? =D
MarlonBain
Jesus christ, I haven't seen this many idiots trip over their dicks since the midget with huge dick special olympics.
privatehuff
Midgets with huge dicks? a/s/l? =D
nanofiggis
shame on your sir, picking up midgets on the intertubes!
jaxspider
nanofights, how dare you! midgets? The PC name is little people.
Little poeple, a/s/l? =D
Benjaphar
Jesus christ, I haven't seen this many idiots desperate for midget cock since the after party for Lord of the Rings premiere.
facilis
LotR Premiere After-Party Attendees? a/s/l =D
Phazon
Shame on your sir, picking up LotR Premiere After-Party Attendees on the intertubes!
Et cetera ...
A little sumpin' for the humanities geeks:
Alex, The Postmodernist
by MARK LEYNER
JENNY JONES: Boy, we have a show for you today! Recently, the University of Virginia philosopher Richard Rorty made the stunning declaration that nobody has "the foggiest idea" what postmodernism means. "It would be nice to get rid of it," he said. "It isn't exactly an idea; it's a word that pretends to stand for an idea." This shocking admission that there is no such thing as postmodernism has produced a firestorm of protest around the country. Thousands of authors, critics and graduate students who'd considered themselves postmodernists are outraged at the betrayal. Today we have with us a writer-a recovering postmodernist-who believes that his literary career and personal life have been irreparably damaged by the theory, and who feels defrauded by the academics who promulgated it. He wishes to remain anonymous, so we'll call him "Alex."
JENNY JONES TO ALEX: Alex, as an adolescent, before you began experimenting with postmodernism, you considered yourself--what?
[Close shot of ALEX. An electronic blob obscures his face. Words appear at bottom of screen: "Says he was traumatized by postmodernism and blames academics."]
ALEX (his voice electronically altered): A high modernist. Y'know, Pound, Eliot, Georges Braque, Wallace Stevens, Arnold Schoenberg, Mies van der Rohe. I had all of Schoenberg's 78's.
JENNY JONES: And then you started reading people like Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard--how did that change your feelings about your modernist heroes?
ALEX: I suddenly felt that they were, like, stifling and canonical.
JENNY JONES: That is so sad, such a waste. How old were you when you first read Fredric Jameson?
ALEX: Nine, I think.
[The AUDIENCE gasps.]
JENNY JONES: We have some pictures of young Alex. ... [We see snapshots of 14-year-old ALEX reading Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's "Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia." The AUDIENCE oohs and ahs.]
ALEX: We used to go to a friend's house after school--y'know, his parents were never home--and we'd read, like, Paul Virilio and Julia Kristeva.
JENNY JONES: So you're only 14, and you're already skeptical toward the "grand narratives" of modernity, you're questioning any belief system that claims universality or transcendence. Why?
ALEX: I guess--to be cool.
JENNY JONES: So, peer pressure?
ALEX: I guess.
JENNY JONES: And do you remember how you felt the very first time you entertained the notion that you and your universe are constituted by language-that reality is a cultural construct, a "text" whose meaning is determined by infinite associations with other "texts"?
ALEX: Uh, it felt, like, good. I wanted to do it again.
[The AUDIENCE groans.]
JENNY JONES: You were arrested at about this time?
ALEX: For spray-painting "The Hermeneutics of Indeterminacy" on an overpass.
JENNY JONES: You're the child of a mixed marriage-right?
ALEX: My father was a de Stijl Wittgensteinian and my mom was a neo-pre-Raphaelite.
JENNY JONES: Do you think that growing up in a mixed marriage made you more vulnerable to postmodernism?
ALEX: Absolutely. It's hard when you're a little kid not to be able to just come right out and say (sniffles), y'know, I'm an Imagist or I'm a phenomenologist or I'm a post-painterly abstractionist. It's really hard-especially around the holidays. (He cries.)
JENNY JONES: I hear you. Was your wife a postmodernist?
ALEX: Yes. She was raised avant-pop, which is a fundamentalist offshoot of postmodernism.
JENNY JONES: How did she react to Rorty's admission that postmodernism was essentially a hoax?
ALEX: She was devastated. I mean, she's got all the John Zorn albums and the entire Semiotext(e) series. She was crushed.
[We see ALEX'S WIFE in the audience, weeping softly, her hands covering her face.]
JENNY JONES: And you were raising your daughter as a postmodernist?
ALEX: Of course. That's what makes this particularly tragic. I mean, how do you explain to a 5-year-old that self-consciously recycling cultural detritus is suddenly no longer a valid art form?
JENNY JONES: Tell us how you think postmodernism affected your career as a novelist.
ALEX: I disavowed writing that contained real ideas or any real passion. My work became disjunctive, facetious and nihilistic. It was all metastatic irony, a pernicious banality palimpsest of media pastiche. I found myself indiscriminately incorporating any and all kinds of pop kitsch and shlock. (He begins to weep again.)
JENNY JONES: And this spilled over into your personal life?
ALEX: It was impossible for me to experience life with any emotional intensity. I couldn't control the irony anymore. I perceived my own feelings as if they were in quotes. I italicized everything and everyone. It became impossible for me to appraise the quality of anything. To me everything was equivalent--the Brandenburg Concertos and the Lysol jingle had the same value.... (He breaks down, sobbing.)
JENNY JONES: Now, you're involved in a lawsuit, aren't you?
ALEX: Yes. I'm suing the Modern Language Association.
JENNY JONES: How confident are you about winning?
ALEX: We need to prove that, while they were actively propounding it, academics knew all along that postmodernism was a specious theory. If we can unearth some intradepartmental memos--y'know, a paper trail-any corroboration that they knew postmodernism was worthless cant at the same time they were teaching it, then I think we have an excellent shot.
JENNY JONES wades into audience and proffers microphone to a woman.
WOMAN (with lateral head-bobbing): It's ironic that Barry Scheck is representing the M.L.A. in this litigation because Scheck is the postmodern attorney par excellence. This is the guy who's made a career of volatilizing truth in the simulacrum of exculpation!
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: You go, girl!
WOMAN: Scheck is the guy who came up with the quintessentially postmodern re-bleed defense for O.J., which claims that O.J. merely vigorously shook Ron and Nicole, thereby re-aggravating pre-existing knife wounds. I'd just like to say to any client of Barry-lose that zero and get a hero!
The AUDIENCE cheers wildly.
[Dissolve to message on screen: If you believe that mathematician Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's last theorem has caused you or a member of your family to dress too provocatively, call (800) 555-9455.]
[Dissolve back to studio. In the audience, JENNY JONES extends the microphone to a man in his mid-30's with a scruffy beard and a bandana around his head.]
MAN WITH BANDANA: I'd like to say that this "Alex" is the single worst example of pointless irony in American literature, and this whole heartfelt renunciation of postmodernism is a ploy -- it's just more irony.
[The AUDIENCE whistles and hoots.]
ALEX: You think this is a ploy?! [He tears futilely at the electronic blob.] This is my face!
The AUDIENCE recoils in horror.
ALEX: This is what can happen to people who naively embrace postmodernism, to people who believe that the individual -- the autonomous, individualist subject -- is dead. They become a palimpsest of media pastiche -- a mask of metastatic irony.
JENNY JONES (biting lip and shaking her head): That is so sad. Alex -- final words?
ALEX: I'd just like to say that self-consciousness and irony seem like fun at first, but they can destroy your life. I know. You gotta be earnest, be real. Real feelings are important. Objective reality does exist.
[AUDIENCE members whoop, stomp, and pump fists in the air.]
JENNY JONES: I'd like to thank Alex for having the courage to come on today and share his experience with us.
Join us for tomorrow's show, "The End of Manichean, Bipolar Geopolitics Turned My Boyfriend Into an Insatiable Sex Freak (and I Love It!)."
@Shapeless,
shapeless, that was a hoot.
In my mind, the old Monty Python gang was doing it
Evolution of Arithmetic Tests
1960s Arithmetic Test:
"A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of that amount. What is his profit?"
'70s new-math test:
"A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100. The set C of production costs contains 20 fewer points. What is the cardinality of Set P of profits?"
'80s "dumbed down" version:
"A logger cuts and sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost is $80, his profit is $20. Find and circle the number 20."
'90s version:
"An unenlightened logger cuts down a beautiful stand of 100 trees in order to make a $20 profit. Write an essay explaining how you feel about this as a way to make money. Topic for discussion: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?"
