Computer Stupidities

Tech Support: "May I ask what operating system you are running today?" Customer: "A computer." Tech Support: "What operating system are you running? Windows 95?" Customer: (a little too excited) "95, 97, 98, I've got them all!" Friend: "I heard about this thing called 'Linux'." Me: "Oh, I use Linux." Friend: "What is it?" Me: "An operating system." Friend: "Like Firefox?" Overheard in a software shop: Woman #1: "What this Linux thing?" Woman #2: "It's a program that if you have it on your computer, you can't turn the computer off." Woman #1: "Oh." From a Windows 95 user: Customer: "I think my computer doesn't know what it is doing." Tech Support: (pause) "Why? What is the problem with the system?" Customer: "Well, it keeps asking me, 'What is this?'" Him: "Where're all my files?" Me: "What files?" Him: "The ones I was keeping in the trash." My Friend: "Yesterday, I reprogrammed my computer." Me: "Okay...." My Friend: "Not my Mac, but my PC. It has Windows Vista." Me: "Yes, and what language did you use?" My Friend: (pause) "English." Me: "English?" My Friend: "Yeah, English." I was helping a friend with some code. In the code, I found the line:         x = x; and removed it. I made some further changes and send the code back to him. He told me he still had errors. So he sent me his code again, and again I found the same line. I asked him why he kept putting that in there, and he replied, "So x doesn't lose its value."  (this one is my fvrt.) One time a girl in my introduction to programming class told me that she hated Microsoft and started using UNIX to compile her programs. Later on, she emailed me and said she hated UNIX now, too, because it would compile her program but not allow her to retrieve her data. So I asked her to send her code to me, and I would take a look at it. I stumbled upon this:             int addandsubtract (int a, int b)             {                     return (a + b);                     return (b - a);             } I asked her the purpose of this function, and she told me she wanted to first get the sum of a and b and then get the difference. She didn't understand why this wouldn't work, and it took me an hour or so to explain why.  Customer: "When I touch the sound card board at the back of my PC, I can feel electric current." Tech Support: "Then don't touch it."