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The 500-mile email (2002)

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Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#71

Post by rmc »

iopq wrote: post #55
carlesfe wrote: post #35

That was great out-of-the-box thinking, and I wonder if that could be used as one of these job interview questions: Q: "Your email server for some reason is only working for addresses within 500 miles of the server. What may go wrong?" And let the candidate think logically and reach some sane answer, even if not 100% accurate (i.e. check routers first, connectivity, DNS, timeouts...)

That's one of those interview questions that tests for someone reading hacker news and pretending that they figured it out all on their own...

"culture fit"

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#72

Post by pwg »

nchelluri wrote: post #68
creshal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

paste was my most recent "holy shit this saves so much time" discovery. I blame it on the not quite intuitive name.

What do you use it for?

One use is converting columns of numbers into math strings for bc.

Example (contrived):

    $ seq 10 20 | paste -s -d +
    10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20

    $ seq 10 20 | paste -s -d + | bc
    165
Or converting columns of strings into regex 'or' clauses for searching (contrived example again):

    $ cut -f 3 -d , something.csv | paste -s -d "|"
    a|b|c|d|e|f

    $ egrep "$(cut -f 3 -d , something.csv | paste -s -d "|")" another_file
    ... result lines appear here ...

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#74

Post by anonfunction »

Since I've seen a few comments about units not having lightseconds so here are a few ways to add the missing unit if you don't have it.

1) Add this line under the lightyear definition in /usr/share/misc/units.lib (or wherever `man units` says the standard units library is under the FILES section)

    lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60
2) If you're on a mac and use homebrew just `brew install gnu-units` and then run `gunits`

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#75

Post by octo_t »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #25
blfr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

The new stories are okay, but ... eh, its not the same thing. Its more brute force dickery between management and IT instead of the subtle interaction it used to be.

I wouldn't say subtle. Sociopathic perhaps...?

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#76

Post by digi_owl »

masklinn wrote: post #69
carleverett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was beautiful, thank you.

An other neat one is "sand won't save you this time", from the delightful "Ignition!" via the Things I Won't Work With series (well worth reading in and of itself, even for non-chemists): http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_sa...

Gotta "love" something that is highly reactive to test engineers...

The book also holds, iirc, a passage about a group of chemists sitting down for lunch when something on one of the shelves start getting uppity. They barely had time to dive under the table before the container started bouncing around the room.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#77

Post by JonnieCache »

danbruc wrote: post #60

Another email incident at Microsoft worth reading [1]. [1] http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2004/04/08/10962...

My favorite version of this tale: "Free Bananas in the Kitchen!"

http://www.metafilter.com/78177/PLEASE-UNSUBSCRIBE-ME-FROM-T...

I remember it happened at NYU a couple of years ago and they turned it into a kind of ad-hoc social network/partyline. I wonder if anyone archived those emails? I suppose they deserve to remain "private."

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#79

Post by creshal »

nchelluri wrote: post #68
creshal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

paste was my most recent "holy shit this saves so much time" discovery. I blame it on the not quite intuitive name.

What do you use it for?

Together with cut to parse CSV files and e.g. convert a text column into a row.

Re: The 500-mile email (2002)

#80

Post by chernevik »

anonfunction wrote: post #74

Since I've seen a few comments about units not having lightseconds so here are a few ways to add the missing unit if you don't have it. 1) Add this line under the lightyear definition in /usr/share/misc/units.lib (or wherever `man units` says the standard units library is under the FILES section) lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60 2) If you're on a mac and use homebrew just `brew install gnu-units` and the…

I did #2, then:

sudo mv units macunits sudo ln -s $(which gunits) units

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