Unix Jokes / Recent Jokes
The UNIX Philosophy
Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the
other numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
driver makes a mistake, a GIANT? lights up in the center of the
dashboard. "The experienced driver," says he, "will usually know
what's wrong."
Original source unknown; found on Joseph Evans' (Electrical and
Computer Engineering professor at Kansas University) door.
Customer calls a UNIX consultant with a question.
Customer: What is the command that will tell me the revision code of a program?
UNIX consultant: Yes, that's correct.
Customer: No, what is it?
UNIX consultant: Yes.
Customer: So, which is the one?
UNIX consultant: No. 'which' is used to find the program.
Customer: Stop this. Who are you?
UNIX consultant: Use 'who am i' not 'who r yoo'. You can also 'finger yoo' to
get information about yoo.
Customer: All I want to know is what finds the revision code.
UNIX consultant: Use 'what'.
Customer: That's what I am trying to find out. Isn't that true?
UNIX consultant: No. 'true' gives you 0.
Customer: Which one?
UNIX consultant: 'true' gives you 0. 'which programname'.
Customer: Let's get back to my problem. What program? How do I find it?
UNIX consultant: Type 'find / -name it -print' to find 'it'. Type 'what program'
to get the revision code.
Customer: I want to find more...
HOW TO GET A TAN WITH A BLOWTORCH
HOW TO BE FUNNY by Gilbert Gottfried
MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS by O J Simpson
ZAGAT'S GUIDE TO CITIES WITHOUT A STARBUCKS
THE ENGINEER'S GUIDE TO FASHION
TO ALL THE MEN I'VE LOVED BEFORE by Ellen DeGeneres
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REALITY AND DILBERT
FAST & EFFICIENT WINDOWS PROGRAMS
HUMAN RIGHTS ADVANCES IN CHINA
THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY by Dennis Rodman
THE WILD YEARS by Al Gore
BEATING A DRUG ADDICTION by Darryl Strawberry
AMELIA EARHART'S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN
AMERICA'S MOST POPULAR LAWYERS
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR LIBERAL ARTS MAJORS
DETROIT - A TRAVEL GUIDE
DIFFERENT WAYS TO SPELL BOB
DR. KEVORKIAN'S COLLECTION OF MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES
EASY UNIX
ETHIOPIAN TIPS ON WORLD DOMINANCE
EVERYTHING MEN KNOW ABOUT WOMEN
EVERYTHING WOMEN KNOW ABOUT MEN
FRENCH HOSPITALITY
GEORGE FOREMAN'S BIG BOOK OF BABY NAMES
HOW TO SUSTAIN A MUSICAL CAREER by more...
Quoted from Unix World, November, 1989:
The grim reality is that every life ends with a death. Funeral homes
exist to make that fact a little more tolerable.... UNIX can help
here, too. The Gordon Funeral Chapel, for instance, does much of its
accounting on an AT class, multiuser machine running XENIX....
. .. For example, Gordon says his system has to be able to classify two
kinds of customer, "at-need," those who are actually deceased, and
"pre-need," those who have made arrangements for funerals while still
living. Moreover, the system has to be able to convert one kind of
customer to the other as the need arises...
I think UNIX is the most intelligent OS ever designed.
It has its own way of responding to your questions.
Here is a (actual) Question/Answer session in a UNIX machine.
(I swear that these are real responses given by the UNIX
machine I am using at my company)
[dps013: dps-dps]
[dps013: dps-dps] man: why did you have a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.
[dps013: dps-dps]
[dps013: dps-dps] [Where is jummy hoffa?
Missing ].
[dps013: dps-dps] got a light?
No match.
[dps013: dps-dps] ^how did your sex change^operation go?
Modifier failed.
[dps013: dps-dps]
The following are strange error messages you can get Unix to generate.
They were culled during the summer of 1988 from rec.humor. As
we all know, real error messages have two parts: a message code, and a
return code. Ideally, the message code is hexadecimal, the return code
is octal, and the manual explaining the error messages uses decimal.
But Unix (tm), in keeping with its characteristic lexical confusion,
produces error messages which, although designed to make the system
appear sentient, and conversational, ultimately make the system seem as
stupid as it is. Note that the '%' prompt indicates that the command
should be issued from the C shell, and the '$' prompt indicates the
Bourne shell. Enjoy.
% rm meese-ethics
rm: meese-ethics nonexistent
% ar m God
ar: God does not exist
% "How would you rate Reagan's incompetence?
Unmatched ."
% [Where is Jimmy Hoffa?
Missing ].
% ^How did the sex change^ more...
> Making all his UNIX. plans
> For nobody. He's a real UNIX Man
> Sitting in his UNIX LAN
> Making all his UNIX. plans
> For nobody.
>
> Knows the blocksize from du(1)
> Cares not where /dev/null goes to
> Isn't he a bit like you
> And me?
>
> UNIX Man, please listen(2)
> My lpd(8) is missin'
> UNIX Man
> The wo-o-o-orld is at(1) your command.
>
> He's as wise as he can be
> Uses lex and yacc and C
> UNIX Man, can you help me
> At all?
>
> UNIX Man, don't worry
> Test with time(1), don't hurry
> UNIX Man
> The new kernel boots, just like you had planned.
>
> He's a real UNIX Man
> Sitting in his UNIX LAN
> Making all his UNIX. plans
> For nobody. ..
>
>
>