Friday, August 14, 2009

Geek Humor

Given Mike's recent post describing engineers, and given the brief discussion I had with LiLu and Lemmonex at the most recent happy hour about really enjoying bad jokes, I thought I'd take this opportunity to pass along a couple of geek jokes from my past.

Now you'll need to be something of a geek to get these, and at least one of them comes from days as a chemistry major. I feel compelled to tell you up front that these are not particularly good jokes, so if you groan, I'll know you got them. If you laugh, I'll suspect you're just being kind.


1) An engineer and a mathematician are interviewing for the same job. First to be interviewed is the engineer. The interviewer says, "I have a question that I like to ask in order to help determine problem-solving abilities. Suppose there's a fire in my trash can and there's a bucket of water on the chair next to you. What would you do?" The engineer says, "I'd pick up the bucket of water and pour it on the fire." The interviewer says, "Good, good. Now suppose the bucket of water is next to my desk and the trash can on fire is on the chair next to you. What would you do?" The engineer thinks this is sort of ridiculous, but says, "Why, I'd pick up the bucket of water and pour it on the fire." The interviewer says, "OK, good. You can go. We'll be in touch." Next up is the mathematician. The interviewer eventually asks him the same question, "Suppose there's a bucket of water next to you on the chair and the trash can beside my desk is on fire. What would you do?" The mathematician says, "I'd pick up the bucket of water and pour it on the fire." The interviewer says, "Good, good. Now suppose the trash can on fire is on the chair next to you and the bucket of water is next to my desk. What would you do?" The mathematician says, "I'd move the trash can to the side of your desk, move the bucket of water to the chair next to me, and that would reduce it to a problem I've already solved."

2) An engineer and a mathematician are converging on a pretty woman. The mathematician says, "You know we can never actually reach her." The engineer responds with, "Yeah, but we can get close enough!"

3) Werner Heisenberg and Rene Descartes are ordering lunch at McDonald's. The counter person asks Descartes, "Would you like a hot apple pie with that?" Descartes answers, "I think not" and he disappears! The counter person turns to Heisenberg and says, "Did you see that?" Heisenberg answers, "Maybe."

4) Three Native American women had children. The first gave birth to a little boy on a buffalo skin. The second gave birth to a little girl on a mountain lion skin. The third one gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, on a hippopotamus skin. This just goes to prove that the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws of the other two hides.

5) [For my finale, the only thing I learned from 3 semesters of calculus] What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros? You get an elephant times a rhinoceros times the sine of theta. What do you get when you cross an elephant with a mountain climber? You can 't do that because a mountain climber is a scaler (scalar).

Please don't beat me up at the next happy hour.

30 comments:

urban bohemian said...

NERRRRRRRRRD!

Hammer said...

It's not a joke exactly, but your post reminds me of this story: http://catb.org/jargon/html/magic-story.html

Gilahi said...

Urban Bohemian - Really? Pot/kettle, man.

Hammer - I had a similar experience with a console that wouldn't work no matter what we did. Someone jokingly suggested that maybe it was the table it was sitting on. It was 2:00 in the morning by then and we were all a little punch-drunk, so one of us held up the console while two others switched out the tables. You guessed it. It worked like a charm. We took the table out behind the building and burned it. Really.

Cyndy said...

#4 was particularly cute.

Gilahi said...

Cyndy - Thanks. You have my permission to use it on your next Comedy Central special.

Mike said...

Don't forget that story about Heisenberg insulting that woman that wound up suing him. And as any treky knows, the judge made Heisenberg compensate her.

Gilahi said...

Mike - Sorry, you completely lost me there.

Mike said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transporter_(Star_Trek)

Capabilities and limitations

Gilahi said...

Mike - You win. I have been out-geeked. Urban Bohemian, please take note.

urban bohemian said...

I can't say anything about Mike... I actually got the joke.

Gilahi said...

Urban Bohemian/Mike - Maybe YOU guys are the ones that should be worried about getting beaten up at the next happy hour...

Mike said...

UB and I should probably stay away from each other. It could cause a rip in the space time continuum.

I think this is the first time I've ever typed continuum. I had to look up the spelling only to find out there are two U's in it. Probably from the rip.

Gilahi said...

Mike - One of very few words that have a double u. Vacuum being another. I can't imagine UB causing a rip in anything. He's a pretty nice guy.

rachaelgking said...

Oooo, I'm stealing #3... though I'm sure I'll screw it up.

Gilahi said...

LiLu - Enjoy.

Bilbo said...

f(x) walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "You'll have to leave, we don't cater to functions here."

f'(x) walks into a bar, and the bartender says, "You'll have to leave, we don't cater to functions here." (It looks like the same joke but it's not...it's a derivative).

Gilahi said...

Bilbo - Even after all my geek jokes, I'm embarrassed to admit that I laughed out loud at this.

Melissa B. said...

I guess I've spent too many years as a high school English teacher...

Gilahi said...

Melissa - Is that it, or do you just not want to admit that you got these "jokes"?

Gilahi said...

Man, talk about geekiness... I just figured out how to do blog stuff from a DSi.

Anonymous said...

Actually I liked the jokes! This is Eminence Grise from Bilbo's Blog. Check the second comment I put there on his posting about fear and trembling. It may be important...

Eminence Grise

Gilahi said...

Eminence - Glad you liked them! Feel free to spread them around. I responded to your comment on Bilbo's blog.

I think it might be fun to start a practice of having private conversations on other people's blogs.

Mike said...

This has been sitting there too long. I was hoping you would do another post so I wouldn't have to do this. And I know this is a stretch, but ....

Two U's in the time space continuum? See, there is one of you on each side of the time space continuum. So if there is a rip, you can see the other you. So there are two you's in the time space continuum. You's know what I mean?

Gilahi said...

Mike - Trying to understand here, but my brain doesn't work too well in a vacuum.

Mike said...

I know what you mean. That really sucks doesn't it?

Gilahi said...

Mike - Like a black hole.

And I hope you can avoid a nervous breakdown while fighting the urge to make a comment on that.

Mike said...

I'm turning this series over to urban bohemian. This last one is killin' me.

Gilahi said...

Mike - Wise beyond your years, that's what you are.

FoggyDew said...

Here's one of my favorite geek jokes: What’s the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer? A mechanical engineer designs weapons and civil engineer designs targets.

Oh, and another: What did the mathematician do when he got constipated? He worked it out with a pencil.

Gilahi said...

Foggy - The second one, at least, is pretty old. I liked the first one, though!

 
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