The 500-mile email (2002) • Hacker News Board

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#11

Post by DiabloD3 » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:53 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #2

1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176458 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296201 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802458 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114391 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489

And the thing is, every time I see this story (I saw it years ago before I discovered HN), I read it in its entirety, and love the shit out of it.

It really makes me sad the BOFH series of stories is over, I loved those too.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#12

Post by yzzxy » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:55 AM UTC

Twirrim wrote: post #4

nathancahill wrote: post #2

1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176458 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296201 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802458 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114391 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489

Maybe the submitter is one of the ten thousand https://xkcd.com/1053/ Bet there are a few more that will find this submission too.

This doesn't apply very well... HN is heavily archived... this comic is about being rude to people for not knowing about something, not justifying shoving the same cyclical content in people's faces repeatedly.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#13

Post by tsaoutourpants » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:01 AM UTC

Forgot to account for the difference between traditional speed of light (in a vacuum) and speed of light traveling through copper of fiber. :)

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#14

Post by sampo » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:10 AM UTC

tsaoutourpants wrote: post #13

Forgot to account for the difference between traditional speed of light (in a vacuum) and speed of light traveling through copper of fiber. :)

And the time it takes to make a round trip.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#15

Post by brudgers » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:10 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #2

1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176458 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296201 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802458 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114391 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489

The only significant discussion was almost five years ago. Or about the time the first iPads went on sale. And before either of us were members.

I missed it all the other times and am glad it was reposted.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#16

Post by Scarbutt » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:14 AM UTC

Who though it was going to be a TTL issue before finishing reading the story? :)

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#17

Post by blfr » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:15 AM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #11

nathancahill wrote: post #2

1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176458 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296201 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802458 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114391 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489

And the thing is, every time I see this story (I saw it years ago before I discovered HN), I read it in its entirety, and love the shit out of it. It really makes me sad the BOFH series of stories is over, I loved those too.

The Register still carries them[1]. I don't know their exact relation to the original but I think they're official.

[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/data_centre/bofh/

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#18

Post by kazinator » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:18 AM UTC

> And also being a good system administrator, I had written a sendmail.cf [...]

Say what? Nobody writes a sendmail.cf from scratch, unless they are crazy.

> ... that used the nice long self-documenting option and variable names available in Sendmail 8 rather than the cryptic punctuation-mark codes that had been used in Sendmail 5

Good system administrators stick to conservative, portable subsets of configuration and scripting languages, rather than bleeding edge stuff.

When they deviate, they have a clear plan. They document their choice to use something new and shiny, and they keep it separated from the default system configuration.

Since SunOS came with Sendmail 5, the upgraded Sendmail 8 should have been installed in some custom location with its own path so that it coexists with the stock Sendmail, and is not perturbed if the OS happens to upgrade that.

A good syadmin would stick that in some /usr/local/bin type local directory, and not overwrite /usr/bin/sendmail.

The consultant was not wrong to update the OS. People have reasons to do that. The consultant should have consulted with the sysadmin, of course. But even in that event, it might not have immediately occurred to the sysadmin what the implication would be to the sendmail setup.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#19

Post by carleverett » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:20 AM UTC

Pyxl101 wrote: post #6

nathancahill wrote: post #2

1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176458 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6296201 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3802458 4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3114391 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 7 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489

Once a year is about the right frequency. Recurring stories is one way in which a community shares and perpetuates its culture with newcomers. Some of them are a delight to read on that yearly cadence, like the SR-71 story about a pilot and his copilot becoming a crew. That said, it's wise to consider the frequency with which such things appear, individually and in total. Too much repetition and focus on memes become…

Would you mind linking the SR-71 story? Somehow I never saw that.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#20

Post by teraflop » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:21 AM UTC

carleverett wrote: post #19

Pyxl101 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once a year is about the right frequency. Recurring stories is one way in which a community shares and perpetuates its culture with newcomers. Some of them are a delight to read on that yearly cadence, like the SR-71 story about a pilot and his copilot becoming a crew. That said, it's wise to consider the frequency with which such things appear, individually and in total. Too much repetition and focus on memes become…

Would you mind linking the SR-71 story? Somehow I never saw that.

"The Ultimate Ground Speed Check": http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/favorite-sr-71-story-107912...