“Think of the Internet as a highway.”
There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the “Information Superhighway.” They don’t know didley about the net. It’s nothing like a superhighway. That’s a rotten metaphor.
Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net…

A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.

No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant- vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.

AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitrogylcerin and idle at 120.

No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirtguns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.

State-of-the-art: Any computer you can’t afford.

Obsolete: Any computer you own.

Microsecond: The time it takes for your state-of-the-art computer to become obsolete.

G4: Apple’s new Macs that make you say, “Gee, it’s four times faster than the computer I bought for the same price a microsecond ago.”

Syntax Error: Walking into a computer store and saying, “Hi, I want to buy a computer and money is no object.”

Hard Drive: The sales technique employed by computer salesmen, especially after a Syntax Error.

GUI (pronounced “gooey”): What your computer becomes after spilling your coke on it.

Keyboard: The standard way to generate computer errors.

Mouse: An advanced input device to make computer errors easier to generate.

Floppy: The state of your wallet after purchasing a computer.

Laptop Computer: A device invented to force businessmen to work at home, on vacation, and on business trips.

Disk Crash: A typical computer response to any critical deadline.

System Update: A quick method of trashing ALL of your software.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have tobuy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, andyou would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car95″ or “CarNT.” But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from someone, and our computers were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards. She came back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her face. She called the teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen.

The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced. I started to type, “Leave me alone!” They both jumped back, silenced. “Whaa??” the teacher blubbered.

Then I typed, “I said leave me alone!” The kid got really upset. “I didn’t do anything to it, I swear!” It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.

Me: “Don’t touch me!”

Her: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit your keys that hard.”

Me: “Who do you think you are anyway?!” Etc.

Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair laughing. After they had realised what I had done, they both turned beet red. Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.

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

How does a UNIX expert have sex?

Unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep.

How do you know when a blonde’s been sending e-mail?

Envelopes in the disk drive.

Oprah Winfrey virus: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB and then slowly expands back to 200MB.

AT&T virus: Every three minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

MCI virus: Every three minutes it reminds you that you’re paying too much for the AT&T virus.

Politically Correct virus: Never calls itself a “virus”, but instead refers to itself as an “electronic microorganism.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger virus: Terminates and stays resident. It’ll be back.

Government Economist virus: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine.

New World Order virus: Probably harmless, but it makes a lot of people really mad just thinking about it.

Federal Bureaucrat virus: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.

Texas virus: Makes sure that it’s bigger than any other file.

Adam and Eve virus: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple.

Congressional virus: The computer locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.

Airline virus: You’re in Dallas but your data is in Singapore.

Freudian virus: Your computer becomes obsessed with marrying to its own motherboard.

Public Television virus: Your programs stop every few minutes to ask for money.

Elvis virus: Your computer gets fat, slow and lazy, then self destructs only to resurface at shopping malls and service stations across rural America.

Nike virus: Just does it.

Congressional virus #2: Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously, but doesn’t allow the user to accomplish anything.

Star Trek virus: Invades your system in places where no virus has gone before.

Health Care virus: Tests your system for a day, finds nothing wrong, and sends you a bill for $4,500.

Rules for surviving Web addiction =================================

1. I will have a cup of coffee in the morning and read my newspaper like I used to, before the Web.

2. I will eat breakfast with a knife and fork and not with one hand typing.

3. I will get dressed before noon.

4. I will make an attempt to clean the house, wash clothes, and plan dinner before even thinking of the Web.

5. I will sit down and write a letter to those unfortunate few friends and family that are Web-deprived.

6. I will call someone on the phone who I cannot contact via the Web.

7. I will read a book…think I still remember how.

8. I will listen to those around me and stop telling them to turn the TV down so I can hear the music on the Web.

9. I will not be tempted during TV commercials to check for e-mail.

10. I will try leave the house at least once a week, whether it is necessary or not.

11. I will remember that my bank is not forgiving if I forget to balance my chequebook because I was too busy on the Web.

12. I will remember I must go to bed sometime…the Web will always be there tomorrow!

My comments about the above rules, and how they’ll never work for me. =====================================================================

1. Drinking coffee ??!! Yeeuuurrkk !!! I hate coffee !! And reading the newspaper.. no way.. what a waste of a tree ! i can get the same information via the web.

2. Who has time for breakfast these days ??? If i have time for breakfast, then i have time to sleep-in just a few minutes longer! -

3. I don’t even get up before noon!. - Some days i don’t go to bed either!

4. Cleaning the house ?? - That’s womans work !.. That’s why i get my brother to do it !.. He acts like an old woman sometimes. - Washing my clothes ? - Hell.. i only put these things on four days ago… there’s at least another weeks wear i can get out of them before i think about washing them. Planning dinner? For me that is remembering where i put the Dial-a-kebab leaflet…

5. I can’t write properly, my joined up writing is illegible, even i have trouble reading it sometimes. As for having friends who don’t own a computer.. well.. last time i saw them was the day before i left college… in the late 1980’s !

6. As i said in reply (5), i don’t know anyone who doesn’t have access the the Web, Why would i want to contact someone who is technically challenged anyway??

7. Ok.. i do still read books, but that is only during my lunch break, as they don’t let staff use the works computers for surfing the web during the lunch time break, and calling the web via my laptop and my mobile phone costs an arm and a leg.

8. Hell.. i don’t have that problem… I have my own special sound-proofed room as my computer room, where i can cut-out all external noise coming from the rest of my house.

9. I more likely to be tempted to go and check what’s on the TV, while i wait for my e-mail to download.

10. Leave the house ? - Don’t you know all web addicts are really Agoraphobic, which is how they got to be a web addict in the first place !

11. That one is no problem, with all this modern up-to-date internet banking, i can balance my chequebook while i am on the web.

12. Bed.. what is that then ??? - Does crashing out on the sofa count ??

Morris had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes….#1,#2,#3.

“Open these if you run up against a problem you don’t think you can solve,” the departing CEO said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and Morris was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit’s end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, “Blame your predecessor.”

Morris, the new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press — and Wall Street — responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, “Reorganise.”

This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. Morris went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, “Prepare three envelopes.”