Flutterby™! : less stuff

less stuff

2002-05-30 17:33:22+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

Un*x geek alert: I'm running some diagnostic code, and outputting the data into a file called stuff. So I found myself typing less stuff over and over. A coworker pointed out that, unlike most Americans, I was a GNU zealot, and therefore not typing more stuff. I was reminded of that old post about finding love on the Internet.

[ related topics: Humor Net Culture ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment made: 2002-05-30 23:01:06+00 by: TC

Yeah I remeber asking you about less some time ago and getting the reply:

Yeah I use less because less is more

so I started using less more, well more or less

#Comment made: 2002-05-30 23:35:48+00 by: TheSHAD0W [edit history]

$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. stop.
$

#Comment made: 2002-05-30 23:48:23+00 by: dws [edit history]

Setting the Way Back machine to TOPS-10 days...

. make love
not war?
.

The source for the command interpreter had comment that read something like "leave this in for sales demos".

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 01:26:55+00 by: meuon

A long time ago, I was working with a database table called 'time' in Paradox. It was past midnight, and I laughed and woke people up when it I modified the table, and the prompt said restructuring time, please wait - ok, it was funny when it happened... geek humor is so strange to non-geeks.

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 03:40:03+00 by: Pete

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 12:41:13+00 by: meuon

Pete.. that is precious. You win.

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 17:01:51+00 by: Tim Moore

http://funnies.paco.to/unixcmds.html

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 17:14:48+00 by: Dan Lyke

So I tried to replicate

% ar m God ar: God does not exist

And... well... I'm not sure what it says about GNU, but:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 danlyke danlyke 8 May 31 09:53 god

Yep. ar created god.

#Comment made: 2002-05-31 18:37:58+00 by: Jerry Kindall

Dan: Reminds me of that classic 1954 science fiction short, "Answer" by Fredric Brown, the one in which a supercomputer is asked whether there is a God, and responds, "There is now!"

(This story is often misattributed to Asimov. Asimov did write a similar story 25 years later called "The Last Answer," whose final line is "Let there be light!")

#Comment made: 2002-06-01 05:37:39+00 by: Pete

I can't claim that bit of serendipity. I originally saw the "delete the internet" deal at Steve Gibson's game news site. It is a classic.

Jerry, there's also a pretty prominent story about a mega-computer that, after some series of upgrades, stops reurning results. Tear down and rebuild and line by line debigging yield no clues. It just doesn't work anymore unless you say "please."