Scientists working in the computer room at Berkeley have identified a new species: Machina Programeus. This strange and enigmatic creature can easily be recognized by its somewhat diminished wardrobe selection, and the ever-present odor of coffee on its breath.
The male of the species often has a lack of interest for matching colors, while the female usually dresses for comfort rather than style. The male and female of this species rarely have a desire for the intimate company of one another, with the exception of sometimes satisfying certain primal urges. Rarely do they travel in pairs and do not function well in a time-based, scheduled environment.
They are gregarious creatures, often chattering on incessantly in a somewhat cryptic language, understood only by their own esoteric community. However, when communicating to members outside of their close-knit circle of understanding, they try to ease the usually unwilling participant into their world by incorporating various terminologies into their conversations; for example, in company meetings, you might hear, “I’ll talk to you ‘off-line’ about that, Phil.” Or, when dealing with mentally challenged individuals, you could hear, “I think the ‘FAT’ is missing from your brain.” And finally, when talking to their offspring, there’s the eternal “You march yourself right in there and ‘defrag’ your bedroom.”
Their diet is simple, yet satisfying, consisting of doughnuts, pizza, soda, hamburgers and, of course, coffee. They tend to frequent electronics stores and are usually found drooling over multi-gigabyte hard drives or Pentium motherboards, muttering to themselves, “If only I had 32 meg of memory, *then* I could keep NT from crashing.”
Their distant cousin, Machina System Managereous, can be nocturnal and is fiercely territorial, without exception. Some Machina Programeous are resentful of the Machina System Managereous because of the control they have over their functional environment. But this attitude is often destructive and only leads to feudal relationships and hours of relentless flaming.
If you ever find yourself alone in a room with a Machina Programeous, try to keep conversations limited to a subject matter unrelated to computer technologies or you may be trapped for hours, attempting to create an exit phrase such as, “Gee, look at the time,” or “I just remembered, I have to return that call.” However, many of these exit phrases are not new to the Machina Programeous and circumventions are readily employed when confronted with them.