Title: Dropped UDP Connection
General Information about Item:
- Genre and Sub Genre: Verbal Folklore: Joke
- Language: English
- Country where Item is from: United States
Informant Data:
- The informant is Jed Rosen ’19, who is a current Junior at Dartmouth College majoring in computer science. The informant has extensive history with computer science. He lives in San Fransisco and has worked for a startup, helping code some of their applications. Jed was interviewed on 10/26/17 in Streeter Hall.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context/Cultural Context: According to the informant this joke requires a high level of knowledge about computer networks. He learned the joke while taking a computer networks class at Dartmouth College. The joke is comical due to UDP being a process upon which information is sent between computers. If that process fails then the recipient will not receive any notification. The high level of knowledge required makes this joke very limited to certain select group of people that understand how computers communicate with each other over the internet. This joke can be used to test the knowledge of other computer scientists to see how much their fellow college knows about networking systems.
Item:
- This joke is widespread around Dartmouth campus among those who have taken the class computer networks. The structure of the joke is comprised of two parts. The lead in and then the punchline is compromised of silence.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Joke:
- “I have a really good UDP joke, but I don’t know if you will get it”
Informant’s Comments:
- Jed said that these types of jokes are very prevalent in computer science. Testing the knowledge of another person about how much they know in computers creates a competitive dynamic which is very evident in a lot of software engineering workplaces.
Collector’s Comments:
- When asking Jed for a piece of folklore he said that he maintained a small list of jokes that he has heard throughout his time coding. This collection of folklore that he has created is interesting. He fears that he will forget about these small jokes so he attempts to preserve them.
Collector’s Name: Scott Magnuson
Tags/Keywords:
- Verbal Lore, Joke