Author Archives: Emily Wittkowske

Computer Science Joke

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

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My friend and I were working on creating algorithms for our homework. We got stuck and decided to look at the lecture notes for help. The notes went over how to improve the runtime on some basic sorting algorithms. I was having trouble understanding the quicksort algorithm, so my friend googled it to see if she could find an article, video, or picture to help me understand the concept. After sifting through the search results for a while she found a helpful article. I was still having trouble visualizing the concept so my friend switched to the images tab on google. We found a few helpful images and then this one catch her eye. She clicked on the image and began laughing. As soon as I processed what was happening I began laughing too.

One of the main problems that computer scientists face is improving the runtime of algorithms. Sorting algorithms take a particular precedence since they are used to improve the runtime of other more advanced algorithms. The meme plays on the fact that if you run a different sorting algorithm you can’t get the horrible runtime it receives. It doesn’t fix the problem but it makes life easier for a little while. My friend is a computer science major with a game development emphasis. As part of the computer science community she collects and forwards a myriad of folklore specific to this unique group. Computer science folklore is unique and reflects the beliefs and the culture of the group. Per my informant, as well as personal experience, computer science majors have a unique sense of humor that develops from the difficult coursework, the long hours spent on the computer coding, and the group dynamic required to get through the major. This humor is often expressed through memes and jokes only members of this group can understand and appreciate.

Computer Science Joke

Nationality: Hispanic
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

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My friend Adam found this while he was taking a break from working on an assignment. He began hysterically laughing at his computer and I looked at him mystified. It took a few moments for him to control his laughter. Then he showed me his computer screen with this picture on it. I too found this image incredibly funny. After I finished laughing I was curious to see why he thought the image was funny. He told me that he thought the image reflected the irony found in the computer science major lifestyle. Often, when working on assignments programmers find something that seems like it will be a blessing. For example, solving an error or finding a helpful example or explanation of a concept online. While this helps for a little while another problem often arises very closely after this first problem is solved. I thought this image was funny for another reason. As a computer science major, we often don’t talk about much else than computer science. When we try to talk about other things we often digress back to talking about some sort of computer science topic. In the image the little girl experiences a similar situation with the pony.  Her reaction in the last frame is very similar to my reaction when I realize that we have digressed back to a computer science topic.

Adam is a computer science and business administration major with a cybersecurity minor. As part of the computer science community he collects and forwards a myriad of folklore specific to this unique group. Computer science folklore is unique and reflects the beliefs and the culture of the group. Per my informant, as well as personal experience, computer science majors have a unique sense of humor that develops from the difficult coursework, the long hours spent on the computer coding, and the group dynamic required to get through the major. This humor is often expressed through memes and jokes only members of this group can understand and appreciate.

Math Proverb

Age: 46
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Tracy
Primary Language: English

A while ago I was trying to learn the quadratic formula for my algebra class. It was particularly hard for me to memorize the entire formula. There are a lot of variables and signs that are in the formula. I asked my mom for help remembering the formula. She then told me a pneumonic device that she used to learn the formula herself. She learned it from one of her math teachers. I have also heard this phrase from a number of different math teachers. There are slightly different versions of the phrase. “The negative boy couldn’t decide whether or not to go to the square party, but the square boy didn’t want to miss out on four awesome chicks and the party was all over at two am.” My mom has a degree in biochemistry and a Master’s degree in educations. She teaches math to high schoolers. She enjoys doing math puzzles and learning to code. As a result, she has collected an enormous amount of folklore. Predominantly from her students. Some of this folklore is unique to each niche while other pieces span multiple groups. This provides a unique perspective on folklore from these rather similar groups. I found this phrase very helpful for remembering all of the parts to the quadratic formula. It is much easier to remember this phrase than just the actual formula which is why is has been passed down from math teachers to students. For this piece of folklore, the math teachers are often the active bearers. The students who learn the phrase and master the formula often become active bearers when a teacher is not present. Students who do not know the phrase are the passive bearers.

Computer Science Joke

Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tracy
Primary Language: English

My sister was watching one of her favorite television shows, Naval Criminal Investigative Service or NCIS for short. During one of the episodes a camera panned to a poster on a back wall that contained this quote. She thought of me, paused the episode, and called me into the room. She then rewound the episode and told me to watch.  Right before the sign was about to appear she yelled “watch, watch, watch!” Then the quote appeared on the screen. “There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t.”  As soon as I saw the quote I started laughing. She then asked me to explain what it meant because she didn’t understand the joke. I then explained that 10 in binary means two. Thus the quote reads, “There are two types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t.”  This translation makes sense everyone. The humor of the joke comes from the fact that people who don’t understand binary won’t be able to understand the joke.

My sister is a political science and economics major. She plays water polo and is a member of many “fandoms”. A “fandom” is a group of people who follow, generally, a television show or a novel. Some of the fandoms that she belongs to follow shows such as Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service(NCIS). The group develops terminology that is only understood by other members of the group. For example, many fandoms “ship” certain characters. This means that the members of the fandom or just fans of the show want two characters to become a couple.

I thought it was thoughtful of her to pass on this saying to me even though she didn’t fully understand it.

Coding Joke

Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

“How do you comfort a JavaScript bug?………..You console it.”

 

My friend learned this piece from another computer science class. My friend is a computer science and business administration major with a cybersecurity minor. As part of the computer science community he collects and forwards a myriad of folklore specific to this unique group. Computer science folklore is unique and reflects the beliefs and the culture of the group. Per my informant, as well as personal experience, computer science majors have a unique sense of humor that develops from the difficult coursework, the long hours spent on the computer coding, and the group dynamic required to get through the major. This humor is often expressed through memes and jokes only members of this group can understand and appreciate.

He told the joke to me while we were working on an assignment together. We were writing JavaScript for our website project for a class that we are in together. We were trying to debug our JavaScript code. The bug was being particularly tricky to find and fix. Therefore, he remembered the joke. He then turned to me and told me the joke.

The humor of the joke comes from the wordplay on the words “bug” and “console”.  The normal use of the word bug refers to a small creature, usually an insect. However, in the computer science world it refers to a problem in the code that is often hard to find and sometimes hard to fix. In order to “comfort” or fix the bug, one must find it. Generally, in order to find the “bug” the programmer prints out statements to the console. This allows the programmer to find where the program is doing something incorrectly.

I found this joke particularly amusing because debugging programs is one of the main problems programmers face. The joke implies that it is easy to find the bug if you simply print it to the console. However, a majority of the time bugs are not that easy to find and fix. The irony as well as the word play make the joke.