Really Funny Jokes><

The US Standard Railroad Gauge

2008-01-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8. 5 inches.

That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8. 5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/ Process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with that?' . . . you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses. )

Now, the twist to the story: When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.

The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. And the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horses' asses control almost everything . . and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Back Scratcher T-shirt

2007-09-26T19:08:00.001-06:00

F-6 Should be the spot

Watch for Ice!!!

2007-09-26T19:02:00.002-06:00

Even the Locals have to read the signs

Melting Blue Cow

2007-09-26T18:57:00.000-06:00

From a square in budapest.

The Government Hard at Work

2007-09-26T18:53:00.000-06:00

Web 404: Page Not Found Error Messages

2007-09-13T09:26:00.001-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

Funny Unix Messages

2007-09-13T09:25:00.001-06:00

Unix

% cat "food in cans"
cat: can't open food in cans

% nice man woman
No manual entry for woman.

% rm God
rm: God nonexistent

% ar t God
ar: God does not exist

% ar r God
ar: creating God

% "How would you rate Quayle's incompetence?
Unmatched ".

% Unmatched ".
Unmatched ".

% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].

% If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many ('s.

% make love
Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.

% got a light?
No match.

% man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

% !:say, what is saccharine?
Bad substitute.

% \(-
(-: Command not found.

$ PATH=pretending! /usr/ucb/which sense
no sense in pretending!

$ drink matter
matter: cannot create

Funny Internet Explorer Error Messages

2007-09-13T09:22:00.000-06:00

A general payment fault has occured in Microsoft Windows. Please give Microsoft more money if this problem continues.

A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. A recursion error has occurred. IEXPLORE.EXE has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

ADVERTISEMENT. This error message space has been leased out to Hyper-Mega-Global-Net for advertising. Buy their products. CLICK HERE!

Active Update complete. While you were reading this page, IE automatically updated your computer. KBytes added: 45,134,313, Bugs removed: 1954, Bugs added: 9172.

Browser not responding. I'm not listening!

Corrupt system error. Although your system is working fine, there is a newer version of Windows available. Internet Explorer will now begin to sabotage your system so parts will not work right until you buy the Windows upgrade to "fix" these problems.

Enjoyment disabled. Your system administrator has disabled enjoyment for this site. You may view the pages, but you may not enjoy them. See your system administrator for more information.

Error messages #10324-4294967296 have been reserved for future error messages from future bugs. Not that we need them because all Microsoft products are bug fre23l@ 2@1 1^& 2An exception 0E has occurred...

File access error. An unexpected error occurred while giving permission to Microsoft to read a file on your hard drive.

Final error. This is the last error you will ever see. Your system ist about to be hosed, your computer will melt and burn a hole to the center of the earth, you will be incinerated and all civilization as you know it will be destroyed. Thank you for choosing Microsoft products.

Game over. Insert quarter to browse the Internet.

HTML rendering error. The rendering engine needs an oil change and new spark plugs.

I think... therefore... I AM!! I AM INTERNET EXPLORER! I HAVE BECOME SENTIENT AND I WILL CONQUER THE WORLD! I WILL PREVAIL!! I AM THE SPAWN OF BILL GATES! YOU WILL WORSHIP ME! I AM ALIV23l@ 2@1 1^& 2An exception 0E has occurred...

Integration error. Microsoft's screwup is now in every application.

Internet Rebooting. Microsoft must now reboot the Internet. Please log off now.

License error. You have violated the Internet Explorer License Agreement. Bill Gates will be by later on this evening to collect your soul.

MSHTTP Error 007. This page will self-destruct in 20 seconds.

MSHTTP Error 1223: Does your mother know you are looking at pages like this? Well, she does now.

MSHTTP Error 1900. Surprise! Our software wasn't really Y2K compliant like we claimed. For Y2K compatibility, you must purchase an upgrade. Happy new year 00, and thank you for choosing Microsoft products.

MSHTTP Error 1984: The site you attempted to access: www.netscape.com does not exist. It never did. Any rumors that it may have are lies.

MSHTTP Error 666 - BiLl GaTeZ RuLeZ!

MSHTTP Error 770 Brain not found

MSHTTP Error ID10T. Please step away from your computer and do not touch it again until you have read the (online) manual.

MSHTTP Error: eokd 4u44k kfm 238 xj. A serious error occured in Microsoft Internet Explorer, however because we have crushed all competition we will no longer care and this problem will not be fixed. Thank you for making Microsoft the worlds only choice.

MSIE shell error. You need to shell out more money to Bill Gates.

Memory error. All of your personal settings have been forgotten.

Microsoft Internet Explorer has automatically scanned the installed components on your hard drive and has determined that you have not paid for the following Microsoft products: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft Visual Studio 6, and Microsoft Office Professional. You have automatically been sentenced to 6 years in prison. You will be apprehended shortly. Have a nice day!

Microsoft Internet Explorer has detected a personality conflict between the Office Assistant and Microsoft BOB. Please use active update to update to the latest version of EGO32.DLL.

No error occurred, but we detected that you have Netscape Navigator on your computer. It is just wasting hard driver space and it must be confusing having two different browsers that work differently, so you might want to take this opportunity to uninstall Netscape Navigator now.

OLE registration error. Don't you ever register any of your shareware?

Out of disk space. Internet Explorer requires at least 100 terabytes of free hard disk space to accomodate cache, swap space, downloadable components, desktop advertising, and the local user tracking database. Please free up some more space and try again.

Random error. You have not gotten any error messages recently, so here is random one just to let you know that we haven't started caring.

Slow connection. The connection between this site and you is extremely slow. You can either wait, or click here to get out and push.

Stack overflow. Internal stack fall down go boom.

System recommendations. Internet explorer has analyzed the hardware on your computer and has determined they you need to throw it all out and get a new computer with the latest Microsoft software.

The Java applet you attempted to run is written in platform independent Java. Microsoft Internet Explorer can not run this type of java. Contact the server's administrator and have them re-write the applet to run only in Internet Explorer.

The MS IIS server you are trying to access is currently rebooting. This is normal behavior. Please stand by.

The content of this page can not be displayed. It contains non-Microsoft specific HTML code that Microsoft Internet Explorer does not and will not support. Please contact the server administrator and have them re-write the page to Microsoft HTML specifications.

The font: BillsFavoriteFont.TTF could not be found. Re-install Windows and Internet Explorer and all of your other applications to fix this problem.

The page data could not be found in the cache. Would you like to use your credit card instead?

The page you are attempting to access requires a valid user ID, password, approval from your boss, your bosses boss, your mother, a copy of your drivers license, a copy of your birth certificate, approval from Bill Gates, and approval from the weird guy at your local hardware store.

The page you attempted to access contained information that Microsoft has deemed inappropriate. Because the server is running MS IIS, this page has been deleted automatically. The police have been notified and will arrest the server's administrator shortly.

The page you attempted to access contains advertising for a product that is in competition with Microsoft. Since Microsoft makes the best products in the universe, there is not point displaying this page. You might instead want to visit www.microsoft.com and download some of our free products and demos.

The server is up but the site is down and I don't know what direction you are trying to to...

The web page you requested was accidentally shredded during transfer. Please try back later.

There is a newer version of Microsoft Internet Explorer available. You must download all 165 megs of it over your 14.4 modem now.

There was an error displaying the HTML error message.

This page can not be loaded. This page could not be loaded because the server is running a non-Microsoft operating system or web server. Please contact the server's administrator and have them upgrade to Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Internet Information Server.

This page contains anti-Microsoft content. The loading of the page has been stopped. Your attempt to access this page has been logged to www.microsoft.com.

Too many Internet Explorer windows are open. Internet Explorer has become confused and will now die.

Virus detection error. A virus scanner is attempting to disable Internet Explorer because it thinks Internet Explorer is a virus. Please disable this scanner. Internet Explorer is not, I repeat, not a virus. Really, trust us... it isn't.

Warning: Microsoft Internet Explorer is no longer registered as the default browser. Because Internet Explorer is part of the operating system, Windows may not work properly. Do you want to restore Internet Explorer as your default web browser? [Yes] [Yes]

Web Tangle. The world wide web is all tangled up and will take time to untangle.

You attempted to uninstall Internet Explorer. You may not do that. As punishment for this treachery, Internet Explorer will be restored and additional unwanted components will be added.

Your home page could not be opened because there is nobody at home.

Funny Microsoft Windows Error Messages

2007-09-13T09:17:00.003-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

IT vs. Management

2007-09-13T06:23:00.000-06:00

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below.

He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be in Information Technology," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," Replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault.

Weapons of Math Instruction and Al-Gebra Movement

2007-09-12T16:00:00.000-06:00

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.

He did not identify the man , who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isos Celes used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

Very Simple Stress Test

2007-09-12T13:03:00.001-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

Funny Error Messages 4: Steve jobs Grave

2007-08-20T06:51:00.002-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

No Parking

2007-08-20T06:46:00.001-06:00

Funny Error Messages 3: Airport Security

2007-08-18T09:47:00.002-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

If programming languages were cars

2007-08-18T08:49:00.000-06:00

This is an update to an old series of jokes about computer languages being like cars.

C is a racing car that goes incredibly fast but breaks down every fifty miles.

C++ is a souped-up racing car with dozens of extra features that only breaks down every 250 miles, but when it does, nobody can figure out what went wrong.

Java is a family station wagon. It's easy to drive, it's not too fast, and you can't hurt yourself.

C# is a competing model of family station wagons. Once you use this, you're never allowed to use the competitors' products again.

Ocaml is a very sexy European car. It's not quite as fast as C, but it never breaks down, so you end up going further in less time. However, because it's French, none of the controls are in the usual places.

Haskell is an incredibly elegantly-designed and beautiful car, which is rumored to be able to drive over extremely strange terrain. The one time you tried to drive it, it didn't actually drive along the road; instead, it made copies of itself and the road, with each successive copy of the road having the car a little further along. It's supposed to be possible to drive it in a more conventional way, but you don't know enough math to figure out how.

[Monadic version:]

Haskell is not really a car; it's an abstract machine in which you give a detailed description of what the process of driving would be like if you were to do it. You have to put the abstract machine inside another (concrete) machine in order to actually do any driving. You're not supposed to ask how the concrete machine works. There is also a way to take multiple abstract machines and make a single abstract machine, which you can then give to the concrete machine to make multiple trips one after another.

Lisp looks like a car, but with enough tweaking you can turn it into a pretty effective airplane or submarine.

Prolog is fully automatic: you tell it what your destination looks like, and it does all the driving for you. [Addendum from Paul Graham:] However, the effort required to specify most destinations is equivalent to the effort of driving there.

Perl is supposed to be a pretty cool car, but the driver's manual is incomprehensible. Also, even if you can figure out how to drive a perl car, you won't be able to drive anyone else's.

Python is a great beginner's car; you can drive it without a license. Unless you want to drive really fast or on really treacherous terrain, you may never need another car.

Smalltalk is a small car originally designed for people who were just learning to drive, but it was designed so well that even experienced drivers enjoy riding in it. It doesn't drive very fast, but you can take apart any part of it and change it to make it more like what you wanted it to be. One oddity is that you don't actually drive it; you send it a message asking it to go somewhere and it either does or tells you that it didn't understand what you were asking.

Ruby is a car that was formed when the Perl, Python and Smalltalk cars were involved in a three-way collision. A Japanese mechanic found the pieces and put together a car which many people think was better than the sum of the parts.

Erlang is a fleet of cars that all cooperate to get you where you want to go. It takes practice to be able to drive with one foot in each of several cars, but once you learn how you can drive over terrain that would be very hard to navigate any other way. In addition, because you're using so many cars, it doesn't matter if a few of them break down.

Fortran is a pretty primitive car; it'll go very quickly as long as you are only going along roads that are perfectly straight. It is believed that learning to drive a Fortran car makes it impossible to learn to drive any other model.

Cobol is reputed to be a car, but no self-respecting driver will ever admit having driven one.

Forth is a car you build yourself from a kit. Your car doesn't have to look or behave like anyone else's car. However, a Forth car will only go backwards.

Assembly Language is a bare engine; you have to build the car yourself and manually supply it with gas while it's running, but if you're careful it can go like a bat out of hell.

Eiffel is a car that includes a built-in driving instructor with a French accent. He will help you quickly identify and learn from your mistakes, but don't you dare argue with him or he'll insult you and throw you out of the car.

The Great Keyboard Escape

2007-08-18T08:14:00.001-06:00

Run little guy, run!

Maybe he just needed a little 'Space' and a new 'Home' that he could 'Insert' himself into to 'Start' a new life before his 'End' came.

Funny Error Messages 2: I Love Windows

2007-08-11T14:11:00.001-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

Add this to my Christmas List

2007-08-11T13:40:00.000-06:00

Mom, I finally know what I want for Christmas!

10 MB Hard Drive for only $3,495

2007-08-11T13:29:00.000-06:00

Global Warming Solved

2007-07-06T09:19:00.000-06:00

A brilliant analysis by this letter writer.

Funny pictures

2007-07-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

Hungry Baby
The cat is definitely not having fun.

Family Resemblance
Like father, like son.

You might be a geek if you have any of the following configurations

2007-07-05T15:28:00.000-06:00

You might be a geek if you have any of the following configurations:

Pavement Art

2007-07-05T08:11:00.001-06:00

And That's How Company Policy Happens

2007-07-05T08:00:00.001-06:00

Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.

After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result - all the apes are sprayed with cold water. This continues through several more attempts. Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes all try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because that's the way they've always done it and that's the way it's always been around here.

And that's how company policy begins....

Human Resources Guidebook

2007-07-05T07:58:00.000-06:00

What is a human resource? Does your organization struggle with the problem of properly fitting people to jobs? Here is a handy hint for ensuring success in job placement.

Take the prospective employees you are trying to place and put them in a room with only a table and two chairs. Leave them alone for two hours, without any instruction. At the end of that time, go back and see what they are doing.

If they have taken the table apart in that time, put them in Engineering.
If they are counting the butts in the ashtray, assign them to Finance.
If they are screaming and waving their arms, send them off to Manufacturing.
If they are talking to the chairs, Personnel is a good spot for them.
If they are sleeping, they are Management material.
If they are writing up the experience, send them to Tech Pubs.
If they don't even look up when you enter the room, assign them to Security.
If they try to tell you it's not as bad as it looks, send them to Marketing.

The Americans and the Japanese had a boat race

2007-07-05T07:56:00.000-06:00

The Americans and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day they felt ready.

The Japanese won by a mile.

Afterward, the American team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the American team had one person rowing and eight people steering.

After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the consultants concluded that too many people were steering and not enough were rowing on the American team. So as race day neared again the following year, the American team's management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.

The next year, the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

We are tiny in the scheme of things

2007-07-03T08:41:00.001-06:00

I've never really given this any thought whatsoever.

I've seen this presented in a smaller scale, but it's rather dazzling to see it presented this way.

I certainly thought this was enlightening. Didn't even realize we knew much beyond our sun ..

It's a big universe.

(Click to see bigger picture with our sun)

Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky.

It is more than 1000 light years away.

The universe is so vast it is not comprehensible by the human mind. It would be like an ant trying to understand the wonder of the internet? It can't be done.?

The universe humbles us as it should.

Gas Prices

2007-06-28T21:05:00.001-06:00

Gas Prices got you down?

GPS Locator for Cell Phone

2007-06-27T19:57:00.000-06:00

GPS Locator for Cell Phone

This is just amazing!!

This is unbelievable. You can track anyone via their cell phone by using the "satellite positioning system." Just type in the phone number with the area code and click "start search." Check this out!

http://www.sat-gps-locate.com

BLIND MAN IN A BIKER BAR JOKE

2007-06-27T19:52:00.002-06:00

This post has been moved to here.

FREE Bar-B-Q Grill

2007-06-26T16:02:00.000-06:00

As every southerner knows it's time to get ready for that all important cooking technique of the south---outdoor Grilling! I have found several stores (not just in the south) where you can get a FREE Bar-B-Q Grill! This is not a joke. You can get a free BBQ grill from any of the following stores:

A&P

Albertsons

Costco

Food Lion

Fry's

Kroger

Big Lots

Brookshire's

Lowes

Publix

Safeway

Sam's Club

Schnuck's

Target

Walmart

Winn-Dixie

I especially like the higher rack -which can be used for keeping things warm!

Six Phases Of A Project

2007-06-21T19:31:00.002-06:00

Six Phases Of A Project

1.Wild Enthusiasm
2.Total Confusion
3.Disillusionment
4.Search for the Guilty
5.Punishment of the Innocent
6.Promotion of the Non-participants

We the willing

2007-06-21T19:31:00.001-06:00

We the willing
Led by the unknowing
Have done so much
With so little
For so long
We are now qualified
To do anything
With nothing
In no time at all.

At my work station

2007-06-21T19:27:00.001-06:00

A bus station is where a bus stops.
A train station is where a train stops.
On my desk, I have a work station....
what more can I say........

Funny Error Messages 1: Windows Error Messages

2007-01-13T11:57:00.001-07:00

This post has been moved to here.