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My great grandfather was ahead of his time. To save on money he would send out completely empty telegrams. Thus the invention of the hollowgram...
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One service I wonder if was known in other countries: For celebrations, like anniversaries or marriages or church confirmations or childbirths, you could send a greeting telegram with a standard text. The text was selected from a catalog so large that the chances of receiving identical texts from two greeters was fairly small.
Over the telex network was transmitted nothing but 'STX329 42 John Maria'. At the receiving telex station, standard text 329 was then printed out on standard formula 42 (which was usually with a pre-printed picture in full color), the text followed by the name(s) of the sender(s), John Maria.
Standard telegrams were delivered on small format paper slips - simple forms for time and date and a few lines of text. These greeting telegram forms were like A4 size. When my parents married, they received so many such telegrams that it filled a thick book: They had it bound, with gold print on the brown leather back of the thick volume.
These standardized greeting telegrams of course had at price tag higher than the few words transmitted (the standard text could be several lines, maybe even a short poem, and would be very expensive to transmit in full), yet a lot cheaper than any everyday telegram. I don't remember how long it was offered - the service was closed down in 1980.
Maybe this greeting telegram service was used only in Norway. Or, did you have a similar service, where you paid a comparatively low fee for a (possibly lengthy) standard greeting, in other countries?
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trønderen wrote: Maybe this greeting telegram service was used only in Norway. Or, did you have a similar service, where you paid a comparatively low fee for a (possibly lengthy) standard greeting, in other countries?
I wouldn't know. Never got a telegram in my life. My only contact with telex service was during the early '80s when I made a system for distributing telex messages using a PDP11 instead of telex machines.
In those days airlines had their own private telecommunication networks (one of them was SITA) and people would receive telex messages on punched tape on one machine, read the destination address, put it in another machine and forward it. I had the hunch that a computer could do that better and faster. In the process I learned more than I wanted to know about Baudot code and message dispatching intricacies.
Mircea
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In the late 1970s we built a Message Switch / Data Interchange system for QANTAS.
The Message Switch component was a replacement for torn-tape switching, including passenger manifests.
Baudot NNNN and ZCZC were used as start/end of message markers, easily visible on the tape with a couple of nulls each side.
The apocryphal story is that the previous systems of multiple airlines fell in a heap when a Polish Symphony Orchestra went on a world tour.
The Data Interchange component I sometimes think was Randall's inspiration xkcd: Standards[^]
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Yep, I was doing the same thing in another corner of the world. Fun days... 
Mircea
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There used to be a similar service in Israel, but with a much smaller selection of messages.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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The picture and colour features sound novel, but I think every country had a standardized code that you could send, which would then be translated into the actual text on the receiving side before being printed and delivered: Indian standard telegram codes
This lives on in gamerdom, for instance, if you type 11 in AoE2 chat, it's a laugh: Taunts | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom
Cheers,
Vikram.
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: This lives on in gamerdom, for instance, if you type 11 in AoE2 chat, it's a laugh: Taunts | Age of Empires Series Wiki | Fandom
In network forums for Norwegian librarians, there was a tradition for using Dewey codes in their arguments. I have even seen debates so heated that people threw Dewey insults at each other: You are nothing but a 564.68!
Maybe this was/is common in other languages as well. One good thing is that Dewey based arguments can be understood by anyone, regardless of language. Except that you must be fluent in the Dewey language
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Had BB not made some incredibly stupid design decisions with their OS, I'd actually still be able to make use of my Playbook, like playing MP3s all day or showing my router's real-time bandwidth usage page.
But no, they've gone out of their way to make sure the display powers down to save the battery (even when plugged in), with no way of telling it not to do that--the longest it'll go, as I recall, is 10 minutes. I've seen all sorts of workarounds being discussed on many different forums, but even those, over the course of years, are no longer applicable or simply never worked for me.
I have an Android 4.x tablet that I can still use for these simple tasks. The Playbook is a comparatively nicer device, but has these artificial limitations built into it that render it completely useless.
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I have decided to discontinue dad joke of the day 
But I am going to introduce two new ideas for here that I will do.
Your choice...
Funny video clip of the day...
or...
Programming Joke of the day...
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I don't find funny what others find funny.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Please only post things you actually create; do not repost/share anything which was created by others.
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None of the above?
You have to remember that most of the regulars here are both adults (in some cases senior citizens) and developers (in many cases of long standing): they have heard most "programming jokes" many, many times before, and know how to find "funny video clips".
So if you want to be interesting, popular - whatever it is that you want - then posting stuff we already know isn't likely to do that ... Stop treating this as Twatter or FarceBook and you'll probably fit in better. Just a thought.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Said the person who had the ToTD for years* 
* Those were, admittedly, mostly funny.
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Instead of spending time daily on things which may seem unnecessary by others, better spend a quality time of a couple of months to produce a solid article on a programming topic of your choice. And post it.
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"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Message Closed
modified 5-Jan-22 15:59pm.
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oofalladeez343 wrote: bring joy....like memes do
Really? 
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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No, I think the answer is: None of the above. As @OriginalGriff already mentioned, most of us have heard all the programming jokes we want. TBH you are more likely to be flagged as a spammer if you persist.
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Quote: These might be bad or good, much like the Dad Jokes.
The Dad jokes were not Dad jokes, they were just bad.
Quote: but like memes do
Memes do not bring joy to (most) adults.Quote: And if you have any suggestions for themes of jokes, let me know.
Please stop.
You've had a couple of good suggestions here ...Amarnath S: Instead of spending time daily on things which may seem unnecessary by others, better spend a quality time of a couple of months to produce a solid article on a programming topic of your choice. And post it.
Richard MacCutchan: No, I think the answer is: None of the above. As @OriginalGriff already mentioned, most of us have heard all the programming jokes we want. TBH you are more likely to be flagged as a spammer if you persist.
OriginalGriff: So if you want to be interesting, popular - whatever it is that you want - then posting stuff we already know isn't likely to do that ... Stop treating this as Twatter or FarceBook and you'll probably fit in better. Just a thought.
Personally I was thinking along the same lines of Richard - and almost flagged you as a troll. Others may be less patient
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Maybe he means d(e)ad jokes? 
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If you're learning programming in school I suggest posting a daily this is what I learned today can anyone comment, improve or extrapolate.
You'd get a much friendlier crowd.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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I'd imagine that there would be lots of 'interesting' comments if they began posting something like this.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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If he posted in the Lounge, sure. But posting in the appropriate programming language discussion might better received.
Keep Calm and Carry On
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You would rrather have jokes?
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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