Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Are Computers Male or Female?

As you are aware, ships have long been characterized as being
female (e.g., "Steady as she goes" or "She's listing to
starboard, Captain!")

Recently, a group of computer scientists (all males) announced
that computers should also be referred to as being female. Their
reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:

Five reasons to believe computers are female:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other
computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as
informative as, "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm
certainly not going to tell you."

4. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory
for later retrieval.

5. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

*** However, another group of computer scientists, (all female)
think that computers should be referred to as if they were male.
Their reasons follow:

Five reasons to believe computers are male:

1. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.

2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
time they ARE the problem.

3. As soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had
waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.

4. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

5. Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.

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