Happy birthday this 9th October to ...

[snorkackcatcher]

jesspallas

and

octobersnow!

Apropos of nothing in particular, but in the category of Geeky Things I Thought Were Brilliant, comes something noted in passing in the comments thread to this Making Light post about the A&R letter to booksellers -- a bug in a program with no code at all:

#184 ::: Rob Landley ::: (view all by) ::: August 15, 2007, 01:34 PM:

Christopher D (#95): I can top that. My friend Piggy (Lamont Yarroll) once reported a bug in a zero byte program.

One of the old Unixes (irix?) used an empty file with the executable bit set as its implementation of the program "true". The system thought it was a shell script, loaded it, ran it (which did nothing), returned success. Clever, eh?

Except it didn't _quite_ do nothing. When running a new shell script, the shell reads and executes the script in /etc/profile first,to set up the environment. Now what happens if you use this version of "true" in /etc/profile? It caused an endless loop, spawning processes recursively until memory filled up.

Piggy noted that this was an infinite bug density. One bug in zero bytes of code.

Quality. I used to use Irix at uni -- I wish I'd known about this so I could see if it worked in the version we had. :)

Lyrics: Ah yes -- the last one was the Beatles classic A Day in the Life -- the fade-out track from Sgt Pepper in 1967. And since it's a favourite of mine, I was glad to discover that a lot of people knew it -- lavenderdusk, a_t_rain, muggle_prof, nineveh_uk, golden_d, and parthenia14.

So having had a Beatles track, I guess the obvious next step is ...

I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy who's all dressed up like a Union Jack
And says, I've won five pounds if I have his kind of detergent pack (1960s)

Comments

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

"Get Off of My Cloud" by the Stones (though I must say, I would NEVER have guessed what the words to the last line were).

[snorkackcatcher]

::listens to track::

::ponders::

You know, you're right. I can just make out 'detergent pack' but the rest is incomprehensible. :)

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[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Hee. And upon looking up the actual lyrics, it appears that most of the ones I thought I heard were very, very wrong. Viz.:

I live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor with my love
I sit at home looking out the window imagining the world up above...

I don't think I ever stopped to ask how much of the world can possibly be above you if you live on the ninety-ninth floor.

The telephone is ringing, I play hide and seek with the bell on the line...

Obviously, his apartment is so messy that he has to hunt for the phone. It probably says something about my housekeeping skills that I thought this made perfect sense.

Don't hang around, 'cos I'll booze the ground!

I have no idea what I thought this meant.

It was so full a crowd of people there was nobody, not a soul around...

Clearly, one of those lost-in-a-crowd moments.

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[msmoocow.livejournal.com]

OH! It's that song? I've heard that before; I just inherited horrible hearing from my family.

::scurries away after having stolen a comment thread::

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[snorkackcatcher]

Obviously, his apartment is so messy that he has to hunt for the phone. It probably says something about my housekeeping skills that I thought this made perfect sense

::examines desk, tries to locate phone under pile of magazines/books/assorted random bits of paper::

Half the time I seem to have that "oh, that's what they're singing" reaction. Of course Proper Enunciation would help, but given a high tempo then the singer would probably finish the song about thirty seconds after the rest of the band. :)

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[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

You can find your desk? Tidy!!

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[snorkackcatcher]

Well, I know it must be there. By inference. It's like an iceberg, only small parts of it are actually visible.

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[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

I'm well impressed. I suspect my desk walked out long ago; the articles that used to rest on it are now supported by faith and memory.

[muggle-prof.livejournal.com]

hey (hey) you (you) get off of my cloud. Stones
... and I guess I've never paid much attention to the lyrics, either, except for that chorus that's good to, um, shout along with.

[snorkackcatcher]

Neither did I, to be honest ... beyond the first line I wouldn't have had a clue until it got to the chorus. :)

[msmoocow.livejournal.com]

That whole geek bit went straight over my head, but I found it amusing nonetheless.

And why oh why must your music taste be so eclectic? I never get these! :P

[snorkackcatcher]

I do my best. :D

[jesspallas.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the birthday wishes! And regarding the whole lyrics thing, I've been listening to the Scissor Sisters on my new, much better stereo and many lines are coming out not at all how I thought they were originally! Not that they make any more sense this way though...;p

[snorkackcatcher]

You're welcome! Lyrics often get my attention much more when when I happen to be listening to them with the speakers up close (even the PC speakers on my desk) rather than just vaguely in the background on the radio. :)