Lightbulb jokes

• "How many [Lionel Fanthorpe] pseudonyms does it take to change a lightbulb, to replace it, to reinstate it, to substitute for it, to exchange it, to swap it, to put another it its stead...?"

  -- Dave Langford, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story", in The Silence of the Langford

• "How many humans does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "100,001. One to change the lightbulb, the rest as biological ancestors to produce him."

  -- James P. Hogan, in "Minds, Machines and Evolution". 1981

• "How many internet mail list subscribers does it take to change a light bulb?"
  "1,331:
  1 to change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed.
  14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.
  7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.
  27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.
  53 to flame the spell checkers.
  156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list.
  41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.
  109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb.
  203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped.
  111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list.
  306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.
  27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.
  14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs.
  3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list.
  33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too."
  12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversey.
  19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."
  4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ.
  1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup.
  47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion was meant for, leave it here.
  143 votes for alt.lite.bulb."
• "How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "There is nothing wrong with that lightbulb and my client demands an immediate apology and damages!"

  -- Terence Chua, rec.music.filk, March 2000

• "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "Just the one, but it will take a long time, and the bulb has to really want to change."
• "How many radio astronomers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "None. They aren't interested in that short wavelength stuff."

  -- from Betty Ragan's .sig

• "How many system managers does it take to change a light bulb?"
  "None. They just deny access to everyone to the area served by the light bulb in question."

• "How many topologists does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "It really doesn't matter, since they'd rather knot."

  -- from Canonical List of Math Jokes

• "How many Zen Masters does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "None. The universe changes it, and the Zen Master just keeps out of the way."

• Larry Niven's Known Space lightbulb, and other, jokes

Programming Languages

• "How many C programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "Three, and the bulb would have to be removed and reinserted several times before they got it to work. And no-one would be able to change the bulb after that."

• "How many Ada programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "One, but before they could start, 87 bureaucrats would have to write proposals justifying the expense of changing it."

• "How many Lisp programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "None. The programmer writes the basic code, then the bulb changes itself."

• "How many Forth programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "The light bulb changes the programmers."

• "How many Pascal programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "We buy a new lamp: it's too much trouble to change the bulb."

• "How many Prolog programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "No."

• "How many Microsoft programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
  "None. When the bulb blows, darkness becomes the de facto standard."

sources: Usenet, sigs, trad., Guardian (some of the programming language ones)