Mr. or Mrs. Computer

Is your computer male of 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 conclusions follow:

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 retieval.

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) claim that computers should be referred to as if they were male. Their reasons follow:

1. They have lots 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 realise 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.