Are you a Computer Scientist (or Engineer)?

Date Received: 11 Apr 1996

100 ways of knowing you're a computer scientist:

  1. Asked about your religion you reply "Unix"
  2. You are your own nameserver
  3. You know what a nameserver is
  4. You think knowing C means your bi-lingual
  5. You regard emacs users as the enemy
  6. You regard vi users as your friend
  7. You regard everybody else as DOS users
  8. You have installed Linux at least three times
  9. You load Doom so you can play DOS
  10. You write your homepage using vi and not some wimpy HTML converter
  11. You can translate this sentence
  12. The number of times you've used Windows 3.11 you can count on one hand
  13. You wish your brain had its own IP address
  14. You know at leat 30 ftp sites off the top of your head
  15. You think working at Microsoft is degrading
  16. You've hit the power switch on a Mac to eject a disk
  17. When asked about Macs you reply "Sorry I don't play with toys"
  18. You follow software version numbers the way people do baseball stats
  19. You check your mail at least 10 times daily
  20. You subscribe to mailing lists just to fill your mailbox
  21. Nobody sends you e-mail
  22. You've fake mailed somebody
  23. You know what ports 7, 23, 25, 79 and 80 mean
  24. You do all your assignments the night before
  25. You are still trying to discover what that Formal Logic and Discrete Math course was good for
  26. People walk up to you and say "You always seem to be logged in"
  27. You've hacked somebody's account
  28. You have made "free" phone calls
  29. You know root's password on some system
  30. You know root's password on some system that isn't your own
  31. You log in as root and proceed to go through your own home directory deleting files for a power trip
  32. You log in as yourself and proceed to go through other people's home directories for a power trip
  33. You have told a friend "Gee, the security on this system sucks. Here let me show you"
  34. Your high school comp. sci. teacher was an idiot
  35. You've lectured a computer teacher, pointing out all the mistakes they made in their lesson
  36. You've done this in front of the class
  37. All computing activity must take place within easy reach of caffeine
  38. You have drank beer and programmed at the same time
  39. You've written better code while under the influence of alcohol
  40. You have told a Microsoft joke
  41. You worry that if you drop out now you'll become another Bill Gates
  42. Your comp. sci. TA gives you low marks because they are jealous of your superior programming abilities
  43. You have downloaded dirty JPEGs before you were 18
  44. You remember unix passwords but not your bank card PIN numbers
  45. You can pick out a computer conversion a mile away
  46. You have beaten somebody up for saying "information superhighway"
  47. You put somebody's surfboard where the sun don't shine for saying "Surf the net"
  48. You picked comp sci to meet women
  49. You never date
  50. Your last girlfriend was on a CD-ROM
  51. You have more then 5 unix accounts
  52. You post all your unix accounts in your .sig file
  53. Your homepage contains the phrase "this Web page is still under construction"
  54. You drool over computer specs
  55. You drool over yourself
  56. You've worn your clothes more then once without washing them
  57. You never wash your clothes
  58. You wear glasses or should be wearing glasses
  59. You have told an engineer joke
  60. You think engineers are a joke
  61. You cringe when an engineer uses a computer
  62. Nobody uses your computer except for yourself
  63. People have died for using your computer without your permission
  64. You've done hardware repair over the phone
  65. You've introduced yourself using your e-mail address
  66. You broke out laughing in Jurassic Park when the girl said, "Hey this is Unix. I know Unix"
  67. You associate GUIs with computer illiteracy
  68. You associate Microsoft with computer illiteracy
  69. Your mouse collects dust
  70. You can count in base 2 : 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192
  71. Your hard drive is all neatly organized but everything around your computer is a mess
  72. There are at least 6 empty Coke cans surrounding your computer
  73. You haven't seen sunlight in the last 72 hours
  74. You think Star Trek is real
  75. You can't do math
  76. Everybody thinks you are weird
  77. Everybody else is weird and your normal
  78. You have collected at least 200 computer viruses
  79. You wrote 50 of your viruses
  80. Root has sent you mail asking what were you doing
  81. Sys Admins snoop your tty sessions "just in case"
  82. You snoop your sysadmin's tty sessions "just in case"
  83. You wrote your resume in PostScript
  84. You ftp'ed all your Linux disks
  85. You only read the manual after you have screwed something up
  86. You never comment your code
  87. Your user documentation is just a print out of the source code
  88. You are thought of as a god when the computer goes down
  89. You send mail to people using mail
  90. You know Microsoft is the biggest threat to democracy since communism
  91. You watch idiot's guide to computers television shows just to pick out all the mistakes and to realize how smart you are
  92. People engage in conversations with you just to realize how dumb they are
  93. You have turned an English essay into a computer science project
  94. You always make sure you have an ASCII table handy
  95. You don't know what the word "backup" means
  96. You have a fond affection for Digital VT100 terminals
  97. You're still a virgin
  98. You never brush your teeth
  99. You haven't figured out how to program a VCR
  100. You would rather step in sh*t at Reynolds then sleep with it at Thornbrough. (for all non-University of Guelph comp. sci's it means "You'd rather be a comp. sci major then an engineer.")

Date Received: Wed, 17 Apr 1996

You know you are an engineer if...

  1. If a team of you and your co-workers have set out to modify the antenna on the radio in your work area for better reception
  2. If Dilbert is your hero
  3. If people groan at the party when you pick out the music
  4. If random people on the street walk up to you and ask you computer questions, and this doesn't seem at all peculiar at the time.
  5. If the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work and you rush up to the front to fix it
  6. If the only jokes you receive are through e-mail
  7. If the salespeople at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions
  8. If the thought that a CD could refer to finance or music never enters your mind
  9. If you are aware that computers are actually only good for playing games, but are afraid to say it out loud
  10. If you are convinced you can build a phazer out of your garage door opener and your camera's flash attachment
  11. If you can name 6 Star Trek episodes
  12. If you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie
  13. If you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary
  14. If you can type 70 words a minute but can't read your own handwriting
  15. If you can't remember where you parked your car for the 3rd time this week
  16. If you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that actually takes five minutes to run
  17. If you did the sound system for your senior prom
  18. If you don't even know where the cover to your personal computer is
  19. If you email your s.o. cool urls even though she's sitting 25 feet away.
  20. If you ever burned down the gymnasium with your Science Fair project
  21. If you have "Dilbert" comics displayed anywhere in your work area
  22. If you have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal
  23. If you have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work
  24. If you have a lan in your house so all the machines can share the internet access.
  25. If you have a neatly sorted collection of old bolts and nuts in your garage
  26. If you have a pager that only your computer knows the number of.
  27. If you have ever owned a calculator with no equal key and know what RPN stands for
  28. If you have ever purchased an electronic appliance "as-is"
  29. If you have ever saved the power cord from a broken appliance
  30. If you have ever taken the back off your TV just to see what's inside
  31. If you have introduced your kids by the wrong name
  32. If you have memorized the program schedule for the Discovery channel and have seen most of the shows already
  33. If you have modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven
  34. If you have more email addresses than "normal" people have pairs of socks.
  35. If you have more friends on the Internet than in real life
  36. If you have more functioning computers in your home than permanent residents, even if you count the cat.
  37. If you have more toys than your kids
  38. If you have never backed-up your hard drive
  39. If you have used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than hanging coats and taping ducts
  40. If you introduce your wife as "mylady@home.wife"
  41. If you know how to take the cover off of your computer, and what size screw driver to use
  42. If you know the direction the water swirls when you flush
  43. If you know what http:/ stands for
  44. If you look forward to Christmas only to put together the kids' toys
  45. If you need a checklist to turn on the TV
  46. If you own "Official Star Trek" anything
  47. If you own a set of itty-bitty screw drivers, and you actually remember where they are
  48. If you own more CD-ROMs than you do music CDs.
  49. If you own one or more white short-sleeve dress shirts
  50. If you put someone on hold so you can check your email.
  51. If you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires
  52. If you see a good design and still have to change it
  53. If you spend more on your home computer than your car
  54. If you stare at an orange juice container because it says CONCENTRATE
  55. If you still own a slide rule and you know how to work it
  56. If you think that when people around you yawn, it's because they didn't get enough sleep
  57. If you thought the real heroes of "Apollo 13" were the mission controllers
  58. If you truly believe aliens are living among us
  59. If you use a CAD package to design your son's Pine Wood Derby car
  60. If you want an 8X CDROM for Christmas
  61. If you window shop at Radio Shack
  62. If you've ever tried to repair a $5.00 radio
  63. If your 4 basic food groups are: 1. Caffeine 2. Fat 3. Sugar 4.Chocolate
  64. If your checkbook always balances
  65. If your father sat 2 inches in front of your family's first color TV with a magnifying lens to see how they made the colors, and you grew up thinking that was normal
  66. If your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight
  67. If your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the decimal point in the right place
  68. If your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies
  69. If your lap-top computer costs more than your car
  70. If your significant other knows that the way to contact you at work is by email, even though you have an 8 line phone on the wall behind the monitor.
  71. If your spouse sends you an e-mail instead of calling you to dinner
  72. If your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory
  73. If your wrist watch has more computing power than a 486DX-50
  74. If your wristwatch has more buttons than a telephone
  75. If, at Christmas, it goes without saying that you will be the one to find the burnt-out bulb in the string

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