Subject: Is your computer male or female?

As you are aware, ships have long been characterized as being female

(e.g., "Steady as she goes," or "She's listing to starboard,

Captain!"). Recently, a group of computer scientists (all males)

announced that computers should also be referred to as being

female.

Their reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:

Five reasons to believe computers are female:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers

is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. The message "Bad command or file name" is about as informative

as, "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not

going to tell you,"

4. Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for

later retrieval.

5. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself

spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

However, another group of computer scientists (all female) think

that computers should be referred to as if they were male. Their

reasons follow:

Five reasons to believe computers are male:

1. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.

2. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time

they are the problem.

3. As soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had waited

a little longer, you could have obtained a better model.

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

5. Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.