Humor #26
Gullibility Virus
WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE! Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet! WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Council for Rigid Accuracy in Publishing (CRAP) announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes.
"These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.
"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous."
Another victim, now in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she could stand up at a Hoaxes Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check whatever you read," she says. Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:
* the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking
* the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others
* a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true
D.I. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility Virus, D.I. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected.
Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.
Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many sources, including
* Delphi's {<http://www.delphi.com/navnet/legends.html> Urban Legends Page}
* {<http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ciachoaxes.html> Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability}
* {<http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html> Symantec Anti Virus Research Center}
Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.
This message is so important, you should send it anonymously! Forward it to all your friends right away! Don't think about it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don't check it out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it! This story is so important, we're using lots of exclamation points! For every message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you're obviously thinking too much.)
Actual English subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong:
1. I am damn unsatisfied to be killed in this way.
2. Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep.
3. Gund wounds again?
4. Same old rules: no eyes, no groin.
5. A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries.
6. Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!
7. Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants.
8. Who gave you the nerve to get killed here?
9. Quiet or I'll blow your throat up.
10. You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken.
11. I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out!
12. You daring lousy guy.
13. Beat him out of recognizable shape!
14. I have been cared s***less too much lately.
15. I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!
16. Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected.
17. The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?
18. How can you use my intestines as a gift?
19. This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat.
20. Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your gynecologist for a thorough extermination.
21. Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
You Know You're Drinking Too Much Coffee When...
- You answer the door before people knock.
- Juan Valdez named his donkey after you.
- You ski uphill.
- You get a speeding ticket even when you're parked.
- You speed walk in your sleep.
- You have a bumper sticker that says: "Coffee drinkers are good in the sack."
- You haven't blinked since the last lunar eclipse.
- You just completed another sweater and you don't know how to knit.
- You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
- You sleep with your eyes open.
- You have to watch videos in fast-forward.
- The only time you're standing still is during an earthquake.
- You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.
- You lick your coffeepot clean.
- You spend every vacation visiting "Maxwell House."
- You're the employee of the month at the local coffeehouse and you don't even work there. - You've worn out your third pair of tennis shoes this week.
- Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.
- You chew on other people's fingernails.
- The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.
- Your T-shirt says, "Decaffeinated coffee is the devil's blend."
- You're so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas.
- You can type sixty words per minute... with your feet.
- You can jump-start your car without cables.
- Cocaine is a downer.
- All your kids are named "Joe".
- You don't need a hammer to pound nails
. - Your only source of nutrition comes from "Sweet & Low."
- You don't sweat, you percolate.
- You buy 1/2 & 1/2 by the barrel.
- You've worn out the handle on your favorite mug.
- You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.
- You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it's not plugged in.
- You forget to unwrap candy bars before eating them.
- Charles Manson thinks you need to calm down.
- You've built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
- People get dizzy just watching you.
- You've worn the finish off your coffee table.
- The Taster's Choice couple wants to adopt you.
- Starbucks owns the mortgage on your house.
- Your taste buds are so numb you could drink your lava lamp.
- You're so wired, you pick up AM radio.
- People can test their batteries in your ears.
- Your life's goal is to amount to a hill of beans.
- Instant coffee takes too long.
- You channel surf faster without a remote.
- When someone says. "How are you?", you say, "Good to the last drop."
- You want to be cremated just so you can spend the rest of eternity in a coffee can.
- You want to come back as a coffee mug in your next life.
- Your birthday is a national holiday in Brazil.
- You'd be willing to spend time in a Turkish prison.
- You go to sleep just so you can wake up and smell the coffee.
- You're offended when people use the word "brew" to mean beer.
- You name your cats "Cream" and "Sugar."
- You get drunk just so you can sober up.
- You speak perfect Arabic without ever taking a lesson.
- Your Thermos is on wheels.
- Your lips are permanently stuck in the sipping position.
- You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.
- You can outlast the Energizer bunny.
- You short out motion detectors.
- You have a conniption over spilled milk.
- You don't even wait for the water to boil anymore.
- Your nervous twitch registers on the Richter scale.
- You think being called a "drip" is a compliment.
- You don't tan, you roast.
- You don't get mad, you get steamed.
- Your three favorite things in life are...coffee before, coffee during and coffee after.
- Your lover uses soft lights, romantic music, and a glass of iced coffee to get you in the mood. - You can't even remember your second cup.
- You help your dog chase its tail.
- You soak your dentures in coffee overnight.
- Your coffee mug is insured by Lloyds of London.
- You introduce your spouse as your coffeemate.
- You think CPR stands for "Coffee Provides Resuscitation."
- Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup
. Bill Gates quotes:
Perhaps the Most Truthful: on Microsoft marketing: "There won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go."
Not on his mind while developing Win9X..circa 1981... "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
On the solid code base of Win9X... thanks WPW! "If you can't make it good, at least make it look good."
from "OS/2 Programmer's Guide" (forward by Bill Gates): "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. As the successor to DOS, which has over 10,000,000 systems in use, it creates incredible opportunities for everyone involved with PCs."
Bill Gates, Free Market and the LA Times Thanks GC! "There are people who don't like capitalism, and people who don't like PCs. But there's no-one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft"
From the back of an old Digitalk Smalltalk/V PM manual, 1990: "This is the right way to develop applications for OS/2 PM. OS/2 PM is a tremendously rich environment, which makes it inherently complex. Smalltalk/V PM removes that complexity and lets you concentrate on writing great programs. Smalltalk/V PM is the kind of tool that will make OS/2 the successor to MS/DOS".
from "OS/2 Notebook", Microsoft Press, (c) 1990--an excerpt from an interview with Bill Gates and Jim Cannavino, p. 614: Developer: Does the announcement [of the OS/2 joint development agreement between IBM and Microsoft] mean that Microsoft is curtailing any plans for future development of Windows? Gates: Microsoft has not changed any of its plans for Windows. It is obvious that we will not include things like threads and preemptive multitasking in Windows. By the time we added that, you would have OS/2.
There's a reason they threw it away... from "Programmers at Work" by Microsoft Press, interview with Bill (found on comp.os.os2.advocacy), Interviewer: Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer? Gates: No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system.
Only the finest Microsoft marketing! (submitted by BarryB): "If you don't know what you need Windows NT for, you don't need it."
On the Box of Windows 2.11 for 286 (submitted by GLDM) "New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager, preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
On code stability, from Focus Magazine (submitted by Benedikt Heinen Microsoft programs are generally bug-free. If you visit the Microsoft hotline, you'll literally have to wait weeks if not months until someone calls in with a bug in one of our programs. 99.99% of calls turn out to be user mistakes. [...] I know not a single less irrelevant reason for an update than bugfixes. The reasons for updates are to present more new features.
Unconfirmed quotes:
Microsoft's GUI innovations... 1983 (thanks E.R.) "Imagine the disincentive to software development if after months of work another company could come along and copy your work and market it under it's own name...without legal restraints to such copying, companies like Apple could not afford to advance the state of the art."
Even more 1984 predictions (thanks Scott Renyen) "The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh, not an IBM PC."
Submitted by: Charlie Tomberg
Communications....
A farmer gave his city-raised wife last-minute instructions before heading to town to do chores. "That fellow from Sematol will be along this afternoon to inseminate one of the cows. I've hammered a nail by the right stall so's you know which one I want him to impregnate."
Satisfied that even his urban wife could understand the instructions, the farmer left for town.
That afternoon the inseminator arrived and the wife dutifully took him to the barn and directly to the stall with the nail.
"This is the cow right here." she said.
"What's the nail for?" the guy asked.
The wife shrugged. "I guess it's to hang up your pants."
That Little Voice
A guy gets home from work one night and hears a voice. The voice tells him, "Quit your job, sell your house, take your money, go to Vegas." The man is disturbed at what he hears and ignores the voice.
The next day when he gets home from work, the same thing happens. The voice tells him, "Quit your job, sell your house, take your money, go to Vegas." Again the man ignores the voice, though he is very troubled by the event.
Every day, day after day, the man hears the same voice when he gets home from work, "Quit your job, sell your house, take your money, go to Vegas." Each time the man hears the voice he becomes increasingly upset.
Finally, after two weeks, he succumbs to the pressure. He does quit his job, sells his house, takes his money and heads to Vegas. The moment the man gets off the plane in Vegas, the voice tells him, "Go to Harrahs." So, he hops in a cab and rushes over to Harrahs.
As soon as he sets foot in the casino, the voice tells him, "Go to the roulette table." The man does as he is told.
When he gets to the roulette table, the voice tells him, "Put all your money on 17." Nervously, the man cashes in his money for chips and then puts them all on 17. The dealer wishes the man good luck and spins the roulette wheel. Around and around the ball caroms. The man anxiously watches the ball as it slowly loses speed until finally it settles into number . . . 21.
The voice says, "Darn."
More from Gates
At the 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 per gallon."
Recently, General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement, "Yes, but what good would the car be if it crashed twice a day?"
Recently, General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement, "Yes, but what good would the car be if it crashed twice a day?"
Last Updated Thursday, March 22, 2001