Here’s a great example of engineers over thinking a problem.

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.

To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and billions of dollars to develop a pen that would work.

Their research produced a pen the effectively writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 Celsius.

The Russians used a pencil.

A young Programmer and his Project Manager boarded a train headed through the mountains on their way to a business meeting.

They can find no place to sit except for two seats right across the aisle from a young woman and her grandmother. After a while, it is obvious that the young woman and the young programmer are interested in each other, because they are giving each other looks.

Soon the train passes into a tunnel and it is pitch black. There is a sound of a kiss followed by the sound of a slap.

When the train emerges from the tunnel, the four sit there without saying a word.

The grandmother is thinking to herself, “It was very brash for that young man to kiss my granddaughter, but I’m glad she slapped him.”

The Project manager is sitting there thinking, “I didn’t know the young tech was brave enough to kiss the girl, but I sure wish she hadn’t missed him — hitting me instead.”

The young woman was sitting and thinking, “I’m glad the guy kissed me, but I wish my grandmother had not slapped him!”

The young programmer sat there with a satisfied smile on his face. He thought to himself, “Life is good. How often does a guy have the chance to kiss a beautiful girl and slap his Project manager on the same day!”

1. For every function, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.
2. To err is human. To blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human; in fact it is downright natural.
3. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.
4. If at first you don’t succeed, blame your computer.
5. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked fine.
6. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions.
7. The number two cause of computer problems is computer users.
8. A computer program will always do what you tell it to do, but rarely what you want it to do.
9. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.
10. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it’s probably obsolete.
11. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.
12. When the going gets tough, upgrade.
13. When you need to send an email quick, that’s when the mail server is down.

Any time you feel dumb, don’t worry.

Check out the following excerpts from a “Wall Street Journal” article by Jim Carlton. Lots of people are dumber than you.

1. Compaq is considering changing the command “Press Any Key” to “Press Return Key” because of the many calls asking where the “Any” key is.
2. A technical support rep had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on, and was then heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door to his room.
4. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn’t get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the “send” key.

A group of ten top software engineers is sent to a class for aspiring managers.

The teacher walks in and asks this question:

“You work for a software company which develops avionics (software that controls the instruments of an airplane). One day you are taking a business trip. As you get on the plane you see a plaque that says this plane is using a beta version of the software your team developed. Who would get off the airplane?”

Nine developers raised their hands. The teacher looked at the tenth and asked, “Why would you stay on?”

The tenth said, “If my team wrote the software, the plane would not get off the ground, much less crash.”

1. And now the tasting test …
2. And now shake it a little bit …
3. In which glass was my mineral water?
4. Why does that stuff burn with a green flame?!?
5. And now the detonating gas problem.
6. This is a completely safe experimental setup.
7. Now you can take the protective glass away …
8. Where do all those holes in my kettle come from?
9. And now a cigarette …
10. Don’t worry, nothing ever happened during the testing phase…

In Computer Heaven:

The management is from Intel,
The design and construction is done by Apple,
The marketing is done by Microsoft,
IBM provides the support,
Gateway determines the pricing.

In Computer Hell:

The management is from Apple,
Microsoft does design and construction,
IBM handles the marketing,
The support is from Gateway,
Intel sets the price.