1 Computers and Humor 1. Digital Photography: A Huge Part of Modern Life 2. Making Fun of Computers 3. Creativity Inspired by Computers 4. Digital-Related Humor in Ordinary Life 5. Humor-Related Challenges in Programming by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen

Don as ISEF Judge (Intel) International Science and Engineering Fair First Day vs. Second Day 2

Millennial Thinking 3

Prairie Dog & Colbert Photobombs 4

Sloth & Cat Tail Photobombs: 5

Yarn Bombing: 6

Evolution of the Cell Phone 7

Millenials: 8

What Could Be Making This Family Watch Video Clips Instead of TV? 9

Even the Kodak Company could not imagine how digital photography would change the world. One grandson is talking on his cell phone when he should be shaking hands at his wedding reception. Another grandson wins a swim meet. 10

HUMANS MAKE FUN OF NEW AND FRIGHTENING DEVELOPMENTS AS A WAY OF CALMING THEIR FEARS, e.g. FRANKENSTEIN and stories about vampires, monsters, zombies, and other “undeads” became fashionable at the same time as did medical disection. In the 1800s “Tall Tales” became popular when people moved west to lands that were indeed strange as compared to what they knew. And in the 1970s, urban legends became popular when people were faced with all kinds of new and scary technologies, including microwave ovens, rockets to the moon, organ transplants, and a lack of privacy. 11

Humor about Computers Peter Steiner’s 1993 cartoon in the New Yorker showed two dogs in front of a computer. One is remarking “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Even Steiner was amazed at how popular it became. It not only reflected, but helped shape world-wide attitudes. What do you think? Why did it become so famous? What complications underlie its “truthiness”? 12

An Identification-Related Experience of Kurt Vonnegut and Mary Schmich In August of 1997 a piece appeared on the Internet under Kurt Vonnegut’s name. Vonnegut’s wife was so pleased she forwarded it to their children. As Vonnegut began getting compliments, he announced that it was “funny and wise and charming,” but he never wrote it. It was in a Mary Schmich column in the Chicago Tribune. As long as readers thought the piece was Vonnegut’s, they viewed the Internet as a wonderful tool to keep people in touch with each other. But when they learned it was a hoax, their perception of the internet changed. The internet was now an unreliable hotbed of hoaxes and wild-eyed conspiracies. 13

Example of a gender-based computer joke: “No wonder you can’t write. You’re not plugged in.” This gender-based joke reflects the stereotype that men are focused on the new technology, while women are more likely to be looking at the ordinary details of life. 14 (Eschholz-Rosa-Clark [2009]: 105)

Another Gender-Related Computer Joke McPherson’s cartoon “All I did was hit the delete button” plays with the stereotype of older people’s (especially women’s) fears of new technology. Does such joking reinforce fears or help calm them? 15

Fear of I T Support: “ How Shall I Torture you today? Put you on the rack? Boil you in oil? Make you call a technical support line?” Who is Glasbergen targeting? Is he making fun of those of us who call for technical support? Or is it the people who offer the support? 16

HERE IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF GETTING SATISFACTION FROM MAKING FUN OF COMPUTERS? I have a spelling checker. It came with my PC. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot sea. Our Favorite spell-check mistakes include: Untied States, Worth nothing that, and Fraud 17

HUMOR IN CHAT GROUPS : Linguist Susan Herring studied one of the first kinds of humor on the Internet by comparing the frequency of the following kinds of humor: Imaginary situations: 20% Mock persona: 14% Teasing: 13% Irony: 6% Name play: 5% Silliness: 4% Real Situations: 3% Riddles: 2% Pretended mis- understandings 2% Puns 1% 18

19 WHERE DID THESE COMPUTER TERMS COME FROM? A huge network packet is a Godzillagram. Teenage techies are Munchkins. A mischievous program is called a Wabbit. A program that repeats itself indefinitely is said to be in Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mode. The meaning of life, truth, and everything is 42. A Trojan Horse is a trick program made to infiltrate a computer under the guise of a game.

Science Fiction as a Source Droid, from Android, has been a sci-fi term since the 1920s, but was popularized in the Star War series and used by techies almost as an insult when they talked about marketroids, sales droids, and trendoids for people more interested in making money than advancing science. The Vulcan Nerve Pinch for pressing on the control, alternate, and delete keys also came from Star Trek. What NASA calls telepresence, techies call Waldo from the title of a 1942 Heinlein story. 20

Science Fiction (continued) Code Police or Net Police are named after the “Thought Police” in George Orwell’s When someone asks for information that they can easily find for themselves, the Cyber Police might say, UTSL, which stands for Use the Source, Luke! from Starwars. Another word from Starwars is an Obi-Wan Error. It comes from the name Obi-Wan Kenobi and refers to an off-by-one code” as in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The computer was named HAL, which comes from IBM, but is the three letters before I, B, and M. 21

J. R. R. Tolkien as a Popular Source Computer techies referred to archaic systems, which printed only upper-case letters as Great Runes. The pre-1980s were Elder days. Hobbit described the high-order bit of a byte. An infamous 1988 bugging of the Internet was called The Great Worm, after two of Tolkien’s dragons. Tree-Killers, named after what Treebeard the Ent called Orcs in The Lord of the Rings print unnecessary paper copies. Elvish refers to any odd or unreadable typeface. 22

CREATIVE SPELLING ON LICENSE PLATES CAME BEFORE TEXTING In the ‘70s, truck drivers used creative spelling for their “handles” on CB (Citizen’s Band) radios. Personalized license plates soon followed. But the custom of leaving out vowels started centuries ago. Even today in Arabic it is the custom to skip most of the vowels when writing. 23

Text Messaging Has Expanded into a New Kind of Humor We Make Our Own Meanings Efficiency vs. Accuracy Last spring, a New York Times columnist wrote about sending consolation notes to his sister, who was getting a divorce, and to his mother, who was nursing his dad through a serious illness. He signed them LOL for “Lots of Love.” Then his teenage son stepped in and said, “Dad, LOL means “Lots of Laughs!” and so the poor man started all over with his notes. DID HE NEED TO DO THAT? 24

Humor-Related Challenges for Computer Programmers Human headline writers missed these ambiguities, So what can we expect from a computer? Christian Hempelmann has illustrated how it took seven pages of rigorous and systematic programming details to get a computer to generate this joke. Q: What did the egg say in the monastery? A: Out of the frying pan, into the friar. 25

The Importance of Real World Knowledge Explain why the following sentences are ambiguous to a computer but not to you. A cheesecake was on the table. It was delicious and was soon eaten. SIGN IN A CHURCH: For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs. NEWSPAPER AD: Our bikinis are exciting; they are simply the tops. It’s time to make smoking history! (Fromkin, Rodman, Hyames, p. 403) 26

A Joke Generated by Apple’s Joke Teller Given the command, “Computer, tell me a joke,” this is one of many responses you might get: COMPUTER: Knock, knock. YOU: Who’s there. COMPUTER: Thistle. YOU: Thistle who? COMPUTER: “Thistle be my last knock-knock joke. (Hemplemann, 333) 27

Identify the Trouble Spots in These Translation Errors BUCHAREST HOTEL: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. SWISS NUNNERY HOSPITAL: The nuns harbor all diseases and have no respect for religion. GERMAN HOTEL: All the water has been passed by the manager. ZURICH HOTEL: Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose. TURKEY: The government bans the smoking of children. 28

Facebook Humor: 29

Cell Phone Humor: Standing Behind You! 30

Cell Phone Humor: Damn Auto-Correct! 31

Lazy College Student Meme 32

Lincoln Meme 33

Philosophoraptor Meme 34

Success Kid Meme 35

NOW YOU TELL US ABOUT: HUMOR ON SOCIAL MEDIA HUMOR IN GAMES HUMOR ON U TUBE HUMOR ON BLOGS AND WHATEVER OTHER KIND OF HUMOR YOU HAVE FOUND. 36

37 Digital Humor Website *ANIMATOR VS. ANIMATION II: *CLEVERBOT: *DAMN YOU AUTOCORRECT (JAY LENO SHOW): tonight-show-with-jay-leno/ *THE THE IMPOTENCE OF PROOFREADING (TAYLOR MALI): *INTERNET SHOWS: “EQUALS THREE”:

*INTERNET SHOWS: “JAKE AND AMIR”: *LOLSPEAK: *MONTY PYTHON “SPAM”: *MY BLACKBERRY’S NOT WORKING: 38

*PHOTOBOMBS: *REDDIT: *RELATABLE POSTS: *TOP 50 POPULAR TEXT & CHAT ACRONYMS (NETLINGO): 39