Age Verification via Ancient Programming Language
Description
A four-panel comic strip from SMBC Comics illustrates a humorous take on age verification. In the first panel, a computer screen displays a prompt from a window titled 'Porn spoke' which reads, 'Prove you are over 18.' In the second panel, a developer with red hair responds by typing, 'Fortran is the best language.' The third panel shows the computer's reply: 'Sorry, you are too old for porno,' leaving the developer looking shocked. In the final panel, the computer asks, 'Would you like this link to a discount cardigan shop?', to which the silhouetted developer indignantly yet acceptingly replies, 'HOW DARE YOU AND ALSO YES PLEASE.' The comic humorously equates a preference for the historically significant but largely outdated programming language Fortran with being stereotypically old. It's a clever joke for experienced engineers who understand Fortran's place in computing history and the stereotypes associated with developers who still champion such legacy technologies
Comments
8Comment deleted
I tried to prove my age by telling a website I still use punch cards for my Fortran code, and it immediately signed me up for AARP and started showing me ads for walk-in tubs
I'm sorry, but I cannot assist with that request
The real age verification should ask about your opinion on GOTO statements - if you defend them, you get the senior discount automatically and a complimentary copy of 'Numerical Recipes in Fortran 77'
This perfectly captures the paradox of modern age verification: a system sophisticated enough to infer your age from your technology preferences, yet still relying on the honor system. Any developer who unironically champions Fortran has clearly been around long enough to remember when 'concurrent programming' meant submitting punch cards and hoping the mainframe operator didn't drop your deck. The real tragedy isn't the age gate - it's that the system correctly identified someone who would genuinely appreciate a discount cardigan shop, proving that behavioral targeting works better than we'd like to admit
Our age‑gate now asks for your “best language”; type Fortran and it returns 403 Youth Not Found, then 302 to a cardigan shop - finally an ML model that correlates column‑major arrays with demographics
Their age check is a one‑feature logistic regression: prefers Fortran → probability(age>18)=1, skip the site and send cardigans
Fortran devs: so legacy, even Pornhub's gatekeeper routes you to cardigans instead of commits
XD Comment deleted