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Best Russian Programmer Humor

Old News ;-)

Russian programmers vodka bottles classification:

0.1 (100 gr) - demo
0.25 (250 gr) - trial version
0.5 - Personal edition
0.75 - Professional edition
1.0 - Network edition
1.75 -Large area network edition
3.0 - Small Business edition
5.0 - Corporate edition

Poor man robotic arm

One old but very important for the organization server used to hang periodically and nobody was able to determine why. So it needs to be rebooted. It was a really old server without "wake on LAN", DRAC or other remote control cards. So one Russian guy has found the following solution: mount a mini Dell desktop on the same level as the server opposite to the reset button, install Linux on it and wrote a script which when server stopped to respond opens CD-ROM drive with eject command.

Then he drilled a tiny hole and put a small screw in the server reset button so that it stick out and positioned Dell mini-desktop in such a way that when CD-ROM opens, the door presses the reset button on the server which needs to be rebooted.

Norton Commander related Humor:

Due to tremendous popularity in the USSR Norton Commander also has some cultural influences. First of all the word "Norton" became almost synonym to orthodox file manager in Russian language. It also generated an elaborate series of computer humor stories like the story of conflict between Norton Commander and Digger (an addictive DOS game):

"You eat too long and way too much private Digger ! ... "

the Norton Commander speech to the DOS faithful in the face of growing number of Windows defectors (imitates arcane style of Politburo's announcements ("false values", "our enemies"))

"Comrades, we should reject false values which are instilled by our enemies ! The fact that a Windows GUI user is happier than a command line user is similar to the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one..."

and about the incompatibility of Norton Commander and alcohol (which is probably the best one of the series):

A drunk programmer is sitting behind the computer with Norton Commander on the screen. Both left and right panel displays the content of disk C:. "Why do I need two disks C: with exactly the same files?" thinks the drunk, it's only waste of disk space. Then he selects all the files and directories on the active panel and clicks F8.

Here is the actual entry from one of the freshman quizzes submitted to me on the first lab for the "Introduction to computing  " course in Kiev University of Commerce and Economics (which at this point replaced Norton Commander with Volkov Commander as a standard shell in all computer labs in 1992-1994):

Q: What is the name of OS in which you performed the assignment?

A: Volkov Commander.

Recommended Links

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• Softpanorama Bulleting Russian Computer Humor Archive
• Russian jokes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Russian and Soviet Humor
  • high-tech
• Twenty-five Signs of a Completely Americanized Russian Programmer
• Russian programmers
• Computer Humor/Review of The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll
• SOX-related slang
• Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society
• Ten Commandments of the Softpanorama IT Slackers Society
• THE TOP 25 THINGS PROGRAMMERS SAY
• Parody on Vissotski song (in Russian)
• Nesterenko Poetry (in Russian)
• Russian Linux Humn (in Russian)
• Last