366
votes

I'm looking for Chuck Norris Facts style answers. In case anyone is curious, this question was inspired by Jon's own comment to this question.

EDIT: If you're into cryptography, you may enjoy these facts.

Now with official sanction from the powers that be!

locked by Robert Harvey Sep 22 '11 at 0:57

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  • 354
    Who the hell is Jon Skeet? – thenduks Apr 21 '09 at 20:37
  • 40
    @thenduks: Leave now before he comes and sees your ignorance. – Kredns Apr 22 '09 at 23:28
  • wow, +35k views: this is a dangerous form of popularity-you'll certainly see for yourself, once there's a "Is it possible to disprove the theorem that Jon Skeet cannot be downvoted" question on SO ;-) – none May 20 '09 at 13:28
  • 2
    Could someone explain to those poor lost souls how much they are mistaken? They refer to "Chuck Norris" for "programming" facts, instead of Jon! See "The Ultimate Top 25 Chuck Norris “The Programmer” Jokes": codesqueeze.com/… (and the last comments on that page) – VonC Jun 20 '09 at 10:08
  • 1
    @VonC: I saw your comment in that forum. Thanks for trying to set those heathens straight. :) – Bill the Lizard Jun 26 '09 at 2:44
  • digg.com/celebrity/Jon_Skeet_Facts – Thilo Jun 30 '09 at 10:55
  • 8
    Here is the question: Why? I respect Skeet. He's answered my questions. But... I mean, really...? – Frank V Jul 1 '09 at 22:51
  • I so $%&E#^&#^#%$^$#^% hate you Jon.. I feel like an ant! I need my existence. – DragonBorn Sep 16 '09 at 7:33
  • 3
    Why don't we stop worshipping Jon Skeet? – Brian Nov 25 '09 at 17:45
  • 2
    "I'm looking for Chuck Norris Facts style answers"? Surely from now on this style will be known as "Jon Skeet style answers"... – Matt Nov 30 '09 at 13:26
  • Jon Skeet is the reason threads are unsafe. Jon Skeet killed the iPhone. – plafayette Feb 14 '10 at 0:55
  • Ok, we have 11 pages of "facts", it's more than enough, especially on such topic. New answers won't be seen anyway. So, following the same logic applied for all CW questions reaching an impractical number of pages, I'm locking the question. If someone is unglad about it, feel free to contact me by email to discuss it. – Gnoupi Jul 28 '10 at 8:12

291 Answers 291

1 2 3 4 5 … 10
17
votes

Even the sponsors know that trying to compete with the man is futile!

alt text

and he'd already answered that question too... just to rub it in.

17
votes
  • Jon Skeet's development workstation does not have a monitor. He never saw the point. In fact, the only reason he installed a video card is because the BIOS beep warning irritated his cat, who, by the way, also has more Rep than you.
  • Jon Skeet can appreciate music by opening an MP3 in a hex editor and reading it. He doesn't need a monitor for that either.
  • Jon Skeet can answer an incoming call from a modem, complete the handshake, then transmit files just by making sounds with his mouth. And he doesn't even look funny when he does this.
  • Jon Skeet's preferred method of image viewing is simply to look at the binary. For this reason he considers all graphics to be ASCII art.
  • There is no Dana, only Jon Skeet
  • 2
    Nice. I once had a room mate who amazed our entire office by transferring files to a floppy disk at a DOS workstation with no monitor. – Bill the Lizard Jun 4 '09 at 19:57
  • 2
    how the hell can he see mp3 hex bytes without a video card? – Behrooz Mar 17 '11 at 18:38
  • 1
    @Behrooz - He's Jon Skeet. – Chris Sep 10 '11 at 18:54
17
votes
  • Jon Skeet once wrote a bug in his code just to see what it was like.
    • Knuth has a check from Jon Skeet for $2.56 hanging on his wall.
  • The first post to Slashdot was "I for one welcome my Jon Skeet overlord."
    • Jon Skeet's Slashdot user id is a negative number.
  • When dragons write code they comment it with "Here be Jon Skeet".
  • In a debate between vi and emacs the winner would be Jon Skeet.
  • Jon Skeet knows the fate of Schrödinger's cat.
  • The Turk had to be explained as a hoax because no one could figure out how Jon Skeet was able to control it from the future.
    • Deep Blue was really just a box concealing Jon Skeet.
  • 1
    +1 for "Here be Jon Skeet". And for negative Slashdot user id. And for the bug found by Knuth. Why can't I upvote more than once? – mmyers Sep 22 '09 at 21:39
  • John skeet sets the constants of the universe so that it will evolve to contain the necessary butterflies. – user134495 Oct 19 '09 at 14:46
  • +1 for the vi vs emacs one. and dragons. – snicker Oct 29 '09 at 14:51
  • I would have upvoted Jon Skeet knows the fate of Schrödinger's cat. but the rest is filler and/or duplicates – Perpetual Motion Goat Aug 9 '10 at 22:30
16
votes

Jon Skeet is so fast he could count to infinity... twice!

  • 5
    Aleph 0 or aleph 1... or higher? – Jon Skeet Nov 20 '08 at 19:53
  • 1
    It must have been Aleph 0. I would have a hard time believing you counted to infinity Aleph 1 twice. :) – Bill the Lizard Nov 21 '08 at 14:10
  • ye of little faith... – Herms Nov 21 '08 at 16:58
  • Cool - learned something even from the tongue in cheek comments! – torial Nov 21 '08 at 16:58
  • 8
    Jon Skeet cannot help teaching you, even in his tongue-in-cheek comments. – Bill the Lizard Nov 22 '08 at 1:10
16
votes

I once challenged Jon Skeet to a coding competition. He beat me so bad it caused me to travel back in time to ancient Greece. While I was there, I learned that they actually had SIX elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Aether and Jon Skeet.

16
votes

Jon Skeet can determine the next random number in a sequence.

16
votes

Alan Turing is Skeet-Complete.

15
votes
  • Jon Skeet writes Java code that runs fast. The interpreter wouldn't dare run it slowly.
  • Jon Skeet invented Ruby as a joke.
  • There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who think they understand binary, and Jon Skeet.
  • Jon Skeet is able to reverse the polarity of any magnet just by looking at it.
  • Jon Skeet doesn't need a firewall. Malicious packets are too scared to enter.
  • Jon Skeet doesn't own a television. He simply demodulates the RF signals directly in his brain.
  • Jon Skeet doesn't require a security fob. The door opens out of fear.
  • 6
    Java is not exactly interpreted; it has a JIT compiler, just like C# does. (For the lay person, JIT stands for "Jon-Skeet In Time".) – mmyers Feb 26 '09 at 22:05
  • Fair enough, but I think it's more of an "NQIT" compiler - Not Quite In Time. – Valerion Feb 27 '09 at 9:17
15
votes

I opened up a can of awesome the other day - it had Jon Skeet in it.

He made me close it, and call Dispose() on it.

  • I still don't get this one... – mmyers Oct 22 '09 at 22:03
  • @[mmyers]: It's like a can of Whoop-Ass, but far more awesome. – Steven A. Lowe Oct 23 '09 at 14:19
14
votes

Jon Skeet doesn't pay respect. Respect pays Jon Skeet.

  • I've actually found him very polite and respectful, even when I've disagreed with him (which is not often). :) – Bill the Lizard Nov 21 '08 at 14:54
  • That's exactly my experience as well, and thus my inspiration for the "Norris-ism" here. :) – Robert S. Nov 21 '08 at 15:08
  • In Soviet Russia... – Eduardo León Dec 23 '08 at 23:11
14
votes

Jon Skeet got an unobtanium badge.

And it's called 'Jon Skeet.'

  • 3
    I like this one so much that I hope they really give him the badge. – Bill the Lizard Nov 22 '08 at 23:49
  • Well, at least the 'badge' idea has been reused a couple of times. Jon Skeet works in mysterious ways. – Leonardo Herrera Nov 28 '08 at 18:18
14
votes

Jon Skeet can execute an infinite loop in 4 seconds.

  • 3
    4.3 seconds...he's not GOD you know. – Keng Nov 25 '08 at 14:28
  • 1
    That's what he wants you to believe... – EricSchaefer Nov 26 '08 at 9:49
14
votes

Jon Skeet solves NP-Complete problems in O(0).

14
votes

Jon Skeet cannot cause a null reference exception. If he points to null, an object materializes just for him.

14
votes

Jon Skeet has a probability greater than 1.

14
votes
  • When the Googleplex gets temporarily short of disk space (as happens occasionally) they borrow a few petabytes from Jon Skeet's toaster.
  • The time arbiter of last resort for pool.ntp.org is Jon Skeet's sundial.
  • Jon Skeet knows all of Bruce Schneier's passwords.
  • Jon Skeet has solved The Riddle of the Universe
13
votes

I was sooo close to closing this as an “exact duplicate” but I'm unable to find any related thread in the MS newsgroups. Can it really be that nobody had noticed before? ;-)

Anyway …

… Jon’s stack can’t overflow.

13
votes

Jon Skeet can write an operating system in machine language in binary using only 0s.

  • He had 0's? We had to use the letter "O" (Dilbert) – FUZxxl Oct 7 '11 at 15:50
13
votes

Jon Skeet is so fast that whenever light arrives somewhere new, Jon Skeet has already been there.

The only reason we didn't all die of the Y2K bug was because Jon Skeet was bored on new year's eve and decided to fix it.

13
votes

Jon Skeet's reputation score is actually defined as a multiple of the second-highest score.

13
votes

Jon Skeet can decode and listen to an MP3 file just by seeing the binary ...

  • What's more, he can also read audio files encrypted with DRM - without the key. – uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN Oct 4 '11 at 2:51
12
votes

All your base are belong to Jon Skeet.

12
votes

Jon Skeet is the Stig.

12
votes

John Skeet will edit any post on the internet that spells his name incorrectly.

  • 27
    ... except this one, obviously. – Jon Skeet May 7 '09 at 13:59
11
votes

Jon Skeet can inherit a sealed class.

  • Actually he can't, because Jon Skeet ordered the classes sealed to protect him from himself. – Windows programmer Nov 25 '08 at 6:10
11
votes

Jon Skeet doesn't like binary, octal, decimal or hexadecimal. He has always performed his calculations in base 2i.

11
votes

Even when the question doesn't make sense the Jon Skeet answer does.

11
votes

Jon skeet can speak French in Russian.

10
votes

Jon Skeet was once known as Mel Kaye.

10
votes

Chuck Norris and Jon Skeet walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.

  • 7
    ...Jon Skeet walked out unharmed – Fry Nov 24 '08 at 5:04
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