"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing."
- Dale Carnegie

Testing Jokes

There are a mixed bag of jokes out there.  If you're easily offended, don't look.

• The Jester Testers - Lightbulb jokes and more!  (great collection)
• Testing Quiz
• Software Testing Sucks - Testing Jokes
• Best April Fool's Day joke ever - Waterfall 2006 Conference
• The first Rapid Tester song I've heard (read the blog, download the mp3)

Not exactly humour, but worth noting:

• Software Engineering Proverbs

Cartoons

• Dilbert - by Scott Adams
• Bug Bash - by Hans Bjordahl
• xkcd - A webcomic with some interesting twists.  Check out: Exploits of a Mom
• How Projects Really Work - Create your own!
• The only valid measurement of Code Quality (OSNews.com)

Puzzles & Things to Think About

Exercise your brain to keep it sharp! Not into puzzles? Pick up some Mystery novels instead. Make critical thinking a part of your fun time and you'll soon discover that work can be fun too!

• Workroom Productions - Black Box Test Machines
• Quirkology - The Science and Fun of misdirection - check out the videos!  (Inattentive Blindness can keep you from seeing things you need to notice when testing.)
• eCardTricks has some handy online Magic tricks - including the Mind Reader! (Magic tricks and illusions exploit Inattentive Blindness - the bane of any tester!)
• Lateral Thinking puzzles: Brain Food, Analytical Puzzles and Problems, Nicola's Puzzles, and Edward de Bono's Games.
• Ouverture Facile - a flash riddle game with a growing difficulty.  Warning: addictive!
• Fun online puzzles - mixed bag.  There are different kinds of puzzles out there for different tastes.  Not everything has to be Sudoku or Mensa.
• Mighty Optical Illusions - some of the Google Earth illusions look like bugs.  Might make good training for testers.

©2008 Paul Carvalho.  Contact me at: paul [at] staqs [dot] c o m