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Computer Gender

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David

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An English teacher was explaining to his students the concept of gender association in the English language. He stated that hurricanes at one time were all given feminine names and that ships and planes are usually referred to as "she."

One of the students raised his hand and asked, "What gender is a computer?" Not having a ready answer, the teacher divided the class into two groups, males in one and females in the other, and asked each group to decide whether a computer should be considered masculine or feminine. Both groups were asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.


The group of women concluded that computers should be considered masculine because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data but are still clueless.

3. They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The men, on the other hand, decided that computers should be considered feminine because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.
 
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You do actually get female parallel ports and male parallel ports... random information, eh? :)
 

bunnahabhain

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Harry Potter said:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

I understand their internal logic and I understand the Binary and Hexadecimal Number systems, along with Bit Masking, Logic Gates, Low Level Programming, High Level Programming and a number of other things.

So that got rid of that theory.
 

Tom B

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Jamie C. Steel said:
Harry Potter said:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

I understand their internal logic and I understand the Binary and Hexadecimal Number systems, along with Bit Masking, Logic Gates, Low Level Programming, High Level Programming and a number of other things.

So that got rid of that theory.

So do lots of other people, myself included.

BUT

The native language computers use to communicate with other computers is binary - noone understands that directly.
 

bunnahabhain

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I agree, the speed that computers talk in and the way they talk, it's impossible to listen or to decipher it, unless it is presented to you in a form that you understand, EG Binary, Hexadecimal or Denary.
 

yorkie

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Cockfosters said:
Jamie C. Steel said:
Harry Potter said:
1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

I understand their internal logic and I understand the Binary and Hexadecimal Number systems, along with Bit Masking, Logic Gates, Low Level Programming, High Level Programming and a number of other things.

So that got rid of that theory.

So do lots of other people, myself included.

BUT

The native language computers use to communicate with other computers is binary - noone understands that directly.
I agree with what you're saying, but as Jamie's being pedantic may I also be pendantic and point out that binary is a number system, not a language? <D ;) :lol:
 

Tom B

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Yes... but the binary is representing the data, so it's *sort* of a language.... <keeps trying ;)>
 

bunnahabhain

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I agree with Cockfosters on this one, it's a number systems representing a language.

EG:

0100100001100101011011000110110001101111 would represent "Hello" with each letter being an 8-Bit Number capable of up to 255 different combinations.

48656C6C6F in Hexadecimal BTW

Code:
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 Letter  Hexadecimal
 0  1  0  0  1 0 0 0    H        48
 0  1  1  0  0 1 0 1    e        65
 0  1  1  0  1 1 0 0    l        6C
 0  1  1  0  1 1 0 0    l        6C
 0  1  1  0  1 1 1 1    o        6F

It's rather simple when you get your head around it, still bloody difficult to use though, that took me a good 7 or 8 minutes to write just Hello in Binary and Hexadecimal, and even that was with the assistance of College's Curriculum Website.

I hate Binary.
 

bluecont

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All very well, but can you speak the languages of computers, sure you know what the characters mean.

- As an aside to cockfosters, the numbers are the data -

It might be better in a vague way, to compare the numbers to letters. You know what the letters mean, but if you had to intercept a data flow on a computer could you tell me what it was, and what it meant?

And a couple of questions:

Do you understand why computers hang, or so one?

Could you intercept the data flow on say my LAN and understand what my computer was saying without using a computer?

A few thoughts
Ian
 

Sprog

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CHRIST! It was just a light hearted attempt to make us all laugh..no need to try to tear it to shreads Jamie C. Steel.... :roll: :roll:

...It certainly worked for me, thats a good one!! :D

Keep um comming! ;) :idea:
 

bunnahabhain

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bluecont said:
Could you intercept the data flow on say my LAN and understand what my computer was saying without using a computer?

No I couldnt, that's because when Data has to travel through wires it needs a Carrier Signal to ensure it doesnt become corrupted, and it's a lot harder to decipher a Carrier Signal than raw Data.
 

yorkie

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Jamie C. Steel said:
No I couldnt, that's because when Data has to travel through wires it needs a Carrier Signal to ensure it doesnt become corrupted,
No it doesn't. We're talking about digital data in the form of Ethernet packets here. ;)
Jamie C. Steel said:
...and it's a lot harder to decipher a Carrier Signal than raw Data.
Carrier signals are not relevant here, and Bluecont's question remains. :)
 

91119

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Jamie C. Steel said:
EG:

0100100001100101011011000110110001101111 would represent "Hello"
That only works if the binary numbers are representing a set of ASCII characters. My memory is a bit hazy (there's not much need for a knowledge of binary while driving trains :lol:) so I stand to be corrected, but shouldn't the bit stream also contain parity and checksum bits?
 

bunnahabhain

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Yes you're right 91119, they represent the ASCII Characters.

And you've caught me out, it's impossible to decipher communication on a computer without having it being shown on a screen in one form or the other (Hexadecimal probably being the easiest to view other than plain English)
 

yorkie

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91119 said:
but shouldn't the bit stream also contain parity and checksum bits?
Yes, which is one of the reasons why download rates are never quite as high as people tend to think they should be ;)
 

bunnahabhain

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Especially with Cable internet, considering that it has to share with quite a lot of other programs, EG with NTL it has to share Bandwidth with the TV, etc etc.
 
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