hacker humour
humor
humour

   A distinctive style of shared intellectual humour found among
   hackers, having the following marked characteristics:

   1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and
   humour having to do with confusion of metalevels (see meta).
   One way to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front
   of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note,
   however, that this is funny only the first time).

   2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual
   constructs, such as specifications (see write-only memory),
   standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL),
   and even entire scientific theories (see quantum
   bogodynamics, computron).

   3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
   ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.

   4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.

   5. A fondness for apparently mindless humour with subversive
   currents of intelligence in it - for example, old Warner
   Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers,
   the early B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Humour
   that combines this trait with elements of high camp and
   slapstick is especially favoured.

   6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated
   ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism.  See has the X
   nature, Discordianism, zen, ha ha only serious, AI
   koan.

   See also filk and retrocomputing.  If you have an itchy
   feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one
   thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
   are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker.  These
   traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form)
   throughout science-fiction fandom.

   (1995-12-18)