BSD Fortune - Quotes from the Jargon File
The Jargon file is a glossary of hacker slang. This page will randomly select a term from the jargon file. You can find out more about the Jargon file at Wikipedia or get the whole thing at Eric Raymond's home page. Eric maintains the Jargon File and published a printed version called "The New Hacker's Dictionary"
Randomly Generated Fortune
:hacker humor:: A distinctive style of shared
intellectual humor found among hackers, having the following marked
characteristics:
1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}). One way
to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her
with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that
this is funny only the first time).
2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs,
such as specifications (see {write-only memory}), standards
documents, language descriptions (see {INTERCAL}), and even
entire scientific theories (see {quantum bogodynamics},
{computron}).
3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.
5. A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive
currents of intelligence in it -- for example, old Warner Brothers
and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early
B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humor that combines this
trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially
favored.
6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas
in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See {has the X nature},
{Discordianism}, {zen}, {ha ha only serious}, {AI koans}.
See also {filk}, {retrocomputing}, and {A Portrait of J.
Random Hacker} in Appendix B. If you have an itchy feeling that
all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one thing that is
incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you are (a) correct and
(b) responding like a hacker. These traits are also recognizable
(though in a less marked form) throughout {{science-fiction
fandom}}.
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