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

Title: What am I Coding

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 Kyle Hollorman ’19, who is a current Junior at Dartmouth College majoring in computer science. The informant has developed many programs, leading him to have a large exposure with computer science community. He actively participates in many programming forums and events leading to him having been  immersed in the culture of computer science. I interviewed Kyle in his residence on 10/26/17.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context/Cultural Context: The joke uses self-deprecation to make fun of the  knowledge of computer scientists. Computer Scientists are often regarded as very smart people, but often programmers build an application without fully understanding how the process behind the application actually work. The joke brings this to light and makes fun of the fact that computer scientists often do not often full understand their programs. The joke continues on and says that “hardware is something that you can kick”. This references computer scientists lack of involvement with machinery as they just write the code for the hardware.

Item:

• The Joke is an item that computer scientists frequently tell each other due to the seriousness that is associated with their high level of knowledge that is required. The joke is more simplistic in nature, compared to many other computer science jokes, but runs off of a theme of lack of control that is conveyed through self-deprecation The joke then continues to remove computer scientists from a separate group of engineerings that build the platforms a computer scientist’s code is run on.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

• What am I Writing – joke

Transcript of Joke:

• “An algorithm is a word that programmers use to explain when they don’t know how to explain what they did and that hardware is something you can kick”

Informant’s Comments:

• Kyle said he obtained this joke via a Hackathon conference when their program was not working and they thought it was due to the computer.

Collector’s Comments:

• This is a self-deprecating joke which is very common among other computer science and engineering jokes. Self-deprecation is used as a means to evade the serious work environment and shine light on the often weird nature of computer science.

Collector’s Name: Scott Magnuson

Tags/Keywords:

• Verbal Lore, Joke