A Little Wednesday Morning Humour :)

[Kyuuketsuki]

I didn't know they had IT engineers back then

The French revolution is winding down, and to celebrate, the French bring three high profile prisoners from the Bastile for public execution.

Now, according to the law, if there is a malfunction of the guillotine, it is seen as divine intervention by God, and the prisoner is to be released and pardoned.

The first prisoner is a doctor who provided care and comfort for the enemies of the state. He prays to God, asks for ‘his’ forgiveness, and places his head in the cradle. The executioner looses the blade which comes whizzing down toward the prisoners head....and stops inches from his neck. God has saved him! He thanks God for the pardon and is left to go free.

The second prisoner is a lawyer who helped to inteprete laws in ways that would be favorable to the enemies of the state. He approaches the guillotine, says his prayers and lays his head down. Again the executioner looses the blade, and again it stops inches from the neck of it’s intended victim. the Lawyer gets up, thanks God and is release to go on his way.

The last prisoner is an engineer, who helped to design war machines for enemies of the new state. He walks confidently over to the guillotine, looks up, points and says, ‘I know why it is the other two didn't die ... there's a knot in the rope just there ........"

Who says that IT engineers can't solve things?

Kyu

[leo-rcc]

The Oldest Profession…

A medical doctor, an engineer, and a management consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The doctor started… "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken from Adam’s body. This must have required surgery, and so I can claim with a high degree of confidence that mine is the oldest profession in the world."

The engineer responded, and said, "But earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most impressive application of civil engineering. Therefore, dear doctor, you are wrong: mine is surely the oldest profession in the world."

The management consultant leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"

[Kyuuketsuki]

The management consultant leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?"

Yeah ... heard an alternate version of that (mine was an engineer, a biologist and a lawyer as I recall (could've been a politician) with the lawyer getting that line in

Here's one:

Brewster The Rooster
There was this farmer, and his hens had stopped producing eggs. Well, he talked to a buddy of his who offered to sell him a rooster that would help up his production. His price was $150.00, but came with a money-back guarantee. Now this farmer had already spent $200.00 on two previous roosters that didn't work out on account of they couldn't satisfy his hens.

Anyhow, he gambled and bought this third rooster, who's name (you guessed it) was Brewster.

Well, he got Brewster home an' threw him in the henhouse. There was all this cacklin' & squawkin', and the farmer thought, poor Brewster, he ain't a gonna make it.

He comes back to the henhouse 1/2 an hour later and everythings' quiet. He takes a peek in there, and all the hens are satisfied & fast asleep.

Suddenly, he heard a terrible racket out in the barn, so he ran to it and ripped the doors open. To his surprise, there was Brewster with all the cows lined up, and he was trying his best to mate with them! "God Damn It!" the farmer said, "Brewster, you're going to kill yourself!" Brewster didn't pay him no mind, and kept right on at it.

Well, the farmer had some more work to do, so he left him there, and came back a couple of hours later. He opened up the barn doors, and durned if the cows weren't fast asleep! So he went to check on the horses, and they were tired out & fast asleep too!!!

Then he heard a ruckus from out behind the barn, and rushed to see what was the matter. Sure enough, it was Brewster, and he had all the pigs lined up, and he was still going strong!!! He cried "BREWSTER! You're Going To Kill Yourself!!!" And with that he tried to pull him off, but there weren't no budging him.

Well, it was about the time for Farmer to turn in, so he did. The next morning, he came out into the backyard, tripping over his satisfied & sleeping dog. After checking on all the animals & finding them in the same condition, he started looking for Brewster. But Brewster was nowhere to be found. Finally heading out to the fields, he found him, as a result of the vultures circling over Brewster.

Brewster was lying on his back, ....both legs in the air,...tongue dried & hanging out, ....one eye open & glassy, ...one wing over his chest, and the other splayed out on the ground. Farmer took a ragged breath and said "Brewster, I told you once, I told you a million times, You were going to kill yourself, and now look at you!!!!"

Brewster slowly opened up his other eye, brought the wing on his chest up to his beak as he tried to speak. Farmer leaned closer so he could hear Brewster's last words....

Brewster opened up his beak, pointed up to the vultures, and said: " Shhhh. Go'way. They're about to land. "

Kyu

[leo-rcc]

Well yeah, you don't think I was going to be original or something right?

The Airplane

A programmer and an engineer were sitting next to each other on an airplane. The programmer leans over to the engineer and asks if he wants to play a fun game. The engineer just wants to sleep so he politely declines, turns away, and tries to sleep. The programmer persists and explains that it's a real easy game. He explains, "I'll ask a question and if you don't know the answer you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question and if I don't know the answer I'll pay you $5." Again, the engineer politely declines and tries to sleep.

The programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "OK, if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50!" Now, that got the engineer's attention, so he agrees to the game. The programmer asks the first question, "what is the distance from the earth to the moon?" The engineer doesn't say a word and just hands the programmer $5.

Now, it's the engineer's turn. He asks the programmer, "what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?" The programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the engineer and hands him $50. The engineer politely takes the $50, turns away, and tries to return to sleep.

The programmer, a little miffed, asks, "Well? What's the answer to the question?" Without a word, the engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the programmer and returns to sleep.

---

This is also an old one, but one of my favorites:

The Train

On a train to a large computer convention, there was a bunch of computer programmers and a bunch of computer engineers. Each of the programmers had a train ticket. The group of engineers had only ONE ticket for all of them. The programmers started laughing, figuring the engineers were going to get caught and thrown off the train.

When one of the engineers, the lookout, said, "Here comes the conductor," all of the engineers went into the bathroom. The programmers were puzzled.

The conductor came aboard, said, "Tickets, please," and got tickets from all the computer programmers. He then went to the bathroom and knocked on the door and said, "Ticket, please." The engineers stuck the ticket under the door. The conductor took it and moved on. A few minutes later, the engineers came out of the bathroom. The programmers felt really stupid.

On the way back from the convention, the group of programmers decided that they would try that method, too. They bought one ticket for the whole group. They met up with the engineers in the same car.

Again, the programmers started snickering at the engineers. This time, NONE of the engineers had tickets. When the lookout said, "Conductor coming!" all the engineers went to one bathroom and all the computer programmers went to the other bathroom.

Before the conductor came on board, one of the engineers left their bathroom, knocked on the programmers bathroom and said, "Ticket, please."

I'm just copying over jokes from one of my other forums now, but hey. Its early.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Oh so we're in a competition to see who can post the best jokes eh? LOL ... OK ... er ... um ... how about this:

TO: ALL EMPLOYEES
FR: MANAGEMENT
RE: SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING

In order to assure the highest levels of quality work and productivity from employees, it will be our policy to keep all employees well trained through our program of SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (S.H.I.T.). We are trying to give employees more S.H.I.T. than anyone else.

If you feel that you do not receive your share of S.H.I.T. on the job, please see your manager. You will be immediately placed at the top of the S.H.I.T. list, and our managers are especially skilled at seeing that you get all the S.H.I.T. you can handle.

Employees who don't take their S.H.I.T. will be placed in DEPARTMENTAL EMPLOYEE EVALUATION PROGRAMS (D.E.E.P. S.H.I.T.). Those who fail to take D.E.E.P. S.H.I.T. seriously will have to go to EMPLOYEE ATTITUDE TRAINING (E.A.T. S.H.I.T.). Since our managers took S.H.I.T. before they were promoted, they don't have to do S.H.I.T. anymore, and are all full of S.H.I.T. already.

If you are full of S.H.I.T., you may be interested in a job training others. We can add your name to our BASIC UNDERSTANDING LECTURE LIST (B.U.L.L. S.H.I.T.). Those who are full of B.U.L.L. S.H.I.T. will get the S.H.I.T. jobs, and can apply for promotion to DIRECTOR OF INTENSITY PROGRAMMING (D.I.P. S.H.I.T.).

If you have further questions, please direct them to our HEAD OF TRAINING, SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (H.O.T. S.H.I.T.).

Thank you,

BOSS IN GENERAL, SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (B.I.G. S.H.I.T.)

Kyu

[leo-rcc]

Noah's Ark

Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a flood."

And the Lord spoke to Noah and said "In six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am telling you to build yourself an Ark" said the Lord. And in a flash of lightning He delivered the specifications for the Ark.

"OK," said Noah, trembling in fear and fumbling with the blueprints.

"Six months, and then it will start to rain" said the Lord. "You should have your Ark completed, or learn how to swim for a very long time."

And six months passed. The skies began to cloud up and rain began to fall. The Lord saw that Noah was sitting in his front yard, weeping. And there was no Ark.

"Noah," shouted the Lord, "Where is your Ark?" A lightning bolt crashed into the ground next to Noah, for emphasis.

"Lord, please forgive me," begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the Ark construction project, and your plans didn't meet Code. So I had to hire an engineer to redraw the plans.

"Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system.

"My neighbors objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, So I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.

"Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the Spotted Owl. I had to convince U.S. Fish & Wildlife that I needed the wood to save the Owls. But they wouldn't let me catch any owls. So, no owls.

Then the carpenters formed a union and went on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or a hammer. Now we've got 16 carpenters going on the boat, and still no owls.

"Then I started gathering up the animals, and got sued by an animals rights group. They objected to me taking only two of each kind.

"Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed Flood. They didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being.

"The Army Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plan. I sent them a globe.

"Right now I'm still trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many Croatians I'm supposed to hire, the IRS has seized all my assets claiming I'm trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country, and I just got a notice from the state about owing some kind of use tax.

"I really don't think I can finish the Ark for at least another five years," Noah wailed.

The sky began to clear. The sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth?" Noah asked, hopefully.

"Wrong!' thundered the Lord. "But being Lord of the Universe has its advantages. I fully intend to smite the Earth, but with something far worse than a Flood. Something Man invented himself."

"What's that?" asked Noah.

There was a long pause, and then the Lord spaketh his last Word: "Government."

[Kyuuketsuki]

I forwarded that one

In Prison

IN PRISON you spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK you spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON you get three meals a day.
AT WORK you only get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK you get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

IN PRISON a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK you must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK you get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON you get your own toilet.
AT WORK you have to share.

IN PRISON they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK you cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON all expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON you spend most of your life looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON there are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK they are called managers.

Kyu

[leo-rcc]

Major discourse regarding the science of Santa!

Santa Claus: an Engineering Analysis.

1. No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has seen.

2. There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload by 85% of the total, leaving 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at least one good child per house.

3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Asusming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth, which, of course, we know to be false, but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept, we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, for a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, at tops 15 miles per hour.

4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming each child gets nothing more than a medium sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the "flying reindeer" can pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth - 5,353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized with 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a 4,315,015 pound force.

The counter argument:

Santa Claus: An Engineering Analysis
REBUTTAL

If people are going to attempt to apply science to the question of Santa, the least they can do is to get it right. The so-called "Engineer" that wrote the paper suggesting that Santa Claus is dead had it all wrong.

A) In paragraph 5, the Engineer states that "600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance." Assuming that this true, it may well be that the reindeer are protected by some sort of heat shield, which is the basis of the "red nose" legend. More to the point, the "air resistance" theory is a vast oversimplification, and a sloppy one at that. In comparing a parachute to a javelin, one can see that there is no simple, direct, predictable relationship between the weight of an object and its air resistance. The air resistance theory completely ignores many possible configurations of Santa's team that could greatly reduce air resistance.

Paragraph 5 is invalidated all the more when one considers paragraph 1, which states that most of the 300,000 unclassified species on the earth are insects and microorganisms. This suggests that it is overwhelmingly probable that any unknown species (such as flying reindeer) is extremely small (possibly even microscopic), with correspondingly low air resistance.

Also, note that various small species (e.g. bumblebee) have been known to accomplish feats of aviation that have proven quite difficult for science to explain. Furthermore, many small species (e.g. ants) possess strength that is immense proportional to their size. Also note that every known species has a body structure capable of withstanding whatever stresses are created at the top speed at which the creature is capable of traveling.

Therefore, contrary to the Engineer's conclusion, the possible existence of unknown, very small, very strong, flying creatures is indicated, and all of the Engineer's statistics on the mass, speed, capacity, and durability of standard Reindeer are therefore irrelevant.

B) If we accept the notion that Santa moves from East to West (an assumption that the Engineer makes in Paragraph 3) then we must also assume that he is moving in a vaguely North-South traversing path as he works his way West. This implies that, if he chose to, he could make several stops at the Pole to re-load the sleigh, and therefore it is not necessary for him to carry the entire payload all at once as described by the Engineer.

The reader may raise the objection that most depictions of Santa's procedures include a single annual departure from the Pole. However, one must also consider that these same depictions contain many other omissions and simplifications, such as the implication that Santa spends several minutes on each delivery. Even using unrealistically favorable figures, this is mathematically impossible. This and other examples force us to consider these depictions to be strictly allegorical. This makes sense, since a documentary would not be much fun for the target audience.

C) Consider that most chimneys are too small to accommodate an average-sized man, let alone a 250 (plus) pound man. This implies that Santa has a way of entering and exiting dwellings through access paths much smaller than those that would otherwise be required. If the same technique that Santa uses to transport himself and the gifts past locked doors also decreases mass (or makes it irrelevant), then the payload problem is completely solved. (Note that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.)

D) If we accept the notion that Santa's intelligence gathering is good enough for him to determine who is bad/good, sleeping/awake etc., then it stands to reason that Santa also knows enough about health problems, travel plans, hurricanes, floods, drive-by shootings, fires, volcanoes, earthquakes, bus crashes, burglaries, etc. etc. etc. to be able to defer or advance some of his deliveries for days or even weeks, thus considerably extending the 31 hour time limit (as mentioned by the Engineer in paragraph 3) for perhaps 3 to 5 percent of children.

E) In paragraph 3, the Engineer admits to the assumption that Christian homes are randomly distributed over the entire surface of the planet. In reality, a majority of the earth's surface is covered by the oceans, and a great portion of what is left is covered by mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, glaciers, smaller bodies of water, and other natural and man-made features that render the space uninhabitable by humans -- or at least extremely sparsely populated by Christians, who largely tend to live in communities with homes placed in neat rows on level ground, or in densely populated vertical blocks in urban areas.

Also, many families tend to gather for the Holidays, thus decreasing the number of Christian dwellings that are actually occupied on December 24-25. Therefore, the aforementioned assumption leads to an *staggering* overestimate of the number of times Santa must travel distances exceeding 60 feet. Also note that this more realistic model includes trans-oceanic voyages during which Santa could take a "bathroom break."

F) In paragraph 3, the Engineer says that Santa has a very short time in which to "park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. "In the previous paragraph, I dispensed with the notion that Santa must actually park and exit the sleigh, enter and exit the dwelling, and then enter and drive the sleigh for each delivery. As far as the snacks go, it is clear that between the households where the parents eat the snacks prior to Santa's arrival and the households that don't leave snacks at all, Santa has to deal with a snack in only a small proportion of cases. This means that at every stop Santa must, at a minimum, fill stockings and distribute gifts. The other tasks are performed in much smaller proportions.

G) In paragraph 2, the Engineer presents the assumption that roughly 10 children out of 35 are "good." Given my personal observations, I conclude that this would lead us to overestimate of the number of Christian households containing at least one "good" child by an order of magnitude at the absolute minimum. This, more than anything else, decreases the number of stops that Santa must make.

In conclusion - all of the Engineer's calculations are based on figures that are massively skewed, always choosing the worst-case value. The distances to be traveled, the number of stops to be made, the amount of work to be performed, and the amount of cargo to be carried are all FAR smaller than the Engineer estimates.

Santa has NOT been burned to a cinder, he has NOT been squished by the acceleration of his sleigh, and (though I'm quite certain he won't be visiting that Engineer's house,) Santa Claus IS coming to town!

[Tiberius]

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who might have designed the human body.

One said, "It must have been a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."

Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has lots of electrical connections."

The last said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

[Kyuuketsuki]

Well that's the first time I've seen the Santa physics one rebutted!

Kyu