Researching for Burns Night, or What Sex is a Computer?

[curiouswombat]

I am doing a speech at the Burns Night Supper this year. I shall be replying to the 'Toast to the lassies'. I've been doing a bit of a read through some of the relevant poetry to get me started, and even looked at a few other people's speeches on line, and some suggestions for humerous bits to use.

During this research I came across the following -

There has been some debate recently as to what gender a computer is, after all if ships are `she' or `her' what sex is the humble computer.
Masculine say women
• In order to get their attention you have to turn them on.
• They have a lot of data but remain clueless.
• They are supposed to help you to solve problems but half the time they are the problem.
• As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer you could have had a better model.

Feminine say the men
• No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
• The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.
• Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for latter retrieval.
• As soon as you make a commitment to one you find yourself spending half your cheque on accessories for it.

OK - not got much to do with Burns - but it made me giggle.

Comments

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

My daughter always gives them male names - as she does her memory sticks etc. so that she gets messages like 'Cuthbert wants to communicate with Ulysses' (Ulysses was named when she was doing Classical Civilisation at school!)

Her boyfriend's computer is called Colin, so he must agree too!

As mine has HP written on it I think I should start calling it Harry Potter.