Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...
From: [email-masked] (Snippe DM)

[email-masked] writes:
BTW Have you been using Latex too long when your (handwritten) letters 
include things like \begin{verbatim} ? I recently did that when writing
a letter that included a newspaper article.

Also, when I write algorithms for other people (like the algorithm to bake a cake,
or how to find my house), I don't write first do this and than do that, but:
do_this();
do_that();

It used to be even worse after I had written some Occam programs, lots of nested
SEQ's and PAR's.

Make Pizza:
SEQ
  mix flour and salt
  add water, oil and yeast
  mold this into an elastic dough.
  PAR
    slice tomatoes
    slice pepperoni
    slice mushrooms
    slice onions
    make tomato sauce
  convert dough into pizza
  put tomato sauce on pizza
  PAR
    put tomatoes on pizza
    put pepperoni on pizza
    put mushrooms on pizza
    put onions on pizza
    ALT
      put olives on pizza
      put anchovis on pizza
      put blue cheese on pizza
  put mozzarella on pizza
  put pizza in oven
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Arlie Davis)
Subject: You know you've been using X too long...

I dreamed two nights ago that I had found the man pages on the world, and
in them was a list of the widget hierarchy of everything I could see.
I though, "Wow!  Now I don't have to live with the developer's *terrible*
taste in colors anymore!", and prompty decided to make the rivers a deep red,
and the skies shades of grey, by thinking "*River*background: #FF0000" and
"*Sky*background: #808080".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]

you know you've been hacking too long when you go to bed, start to sleep, 
and suddenly the little voices inside your head said:

you have running jobs
$
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Rob McCool)

My alarm went off this morning, I hit the snooze bar, and when it went off
  again, I hit it again, and made a mental note that I could not do this much
  longer because my subroutine was mallocing memory (in the clock)
  each time it went off and printing the free memory on the front, and soon
  I would run out.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David Dawkins)

I had a similar experience while writing up my third year project. I was 
looking through my sports bag for my toothbrush one evening after a heavy day,
when I found myself momentarily confused - some part of me was trying to 
do '/toothbrush' ! (search in vi text editor)

I guess loads of people (huh, make that 'Unix' people) want to use grep
while looking something up in a book...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Espen Skoglund)
Subject: You also know you've been hacking too long when...

..... you're doing your math and suddenly finds yourself writing:
	add.b	#1,n
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Lamar Owen)
Subject: Re: You know when you're hacking too long when...

When my alarm goes off in the morning (5:15AM!!!), I keep wanting to press
the Decrement Program Counter switch on the frontpanel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Stirling Westrup)
Subject: Re: Hacking too long!

Last evening, while cleaning up my desk, waiting for one stage of a large
make to finish, I managed to stab myself under my thumbnail on a sharp
piece of sheet metal.  The sheet metal is an integral part of my desk, and
was most likely put there to serve exactly the purpose it was serviing, ie.
maiming me.  Anyway, in intense pain, and with blood spurting out of my
thumb, I started to make a dash for the bathroom, to find something to bind
my wounds with.  After a few steps I stopped, went back and hit RETURN on
my terminal, so that the next stage of the make could progress while I was
bleeding to death in the bathroom.  Its a bad sign folks, even when in
pain, I do my best to multitask...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Vader)
Subject: You know you've been reading news too long when...

....you see a jar of Motts Applesauce and wonder what the third sex is.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Oke S)
Subject: Re: hacking too long

This morning I was wondering if some friends of mine were in and I thought
'finger @3, Hamilton Road'...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Dave Horsfall)
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long...

After fooling around all day with routers etc, you pick up the phone
and start dialling an IP number...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Gregory Newton)
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing computer games too long when...

	Last year in a period where i had just done a series of
hideous assignments in C and C++ (set by a couple of less than reasonable
lecturers) I had one night where I dreamed I was parsing C code.
I would go through a piece of C code and was taking in what it all meant
and it's structure. The piece of code in question had a lot of #includes
in funny places and I had to retreive the relevant file and parse it
before i went back to the original ...

	... well it so happened that I reached a #include for which the
corresponding file was missing - there was nothing to do but abort 
compilation - I woke up.

	I got the dream another five times that night waking up for each 
of them.

	I was quite worried about it at the time. Dreams like that just
are not good signs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Gary Barnes)
Subject: YKYBHTLW

You know you've been hacking too long, when you look at an internal telephone
extension number 2444 and immediately try to work out what permissions 
that represents! (and then wonder why it's sgid!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (William W. Hughes)
Subject: Hacking too long...

I don't consider myself to be exceptionally skilled in computers, but I
have done my share of hardware and software work. To date, however, I
have never experienced anything that indicated that I had been doing this
too much.

This has now changed.

Today was a very busy day at work, and I was tired when I got home. I
parked my carcass in my recliner, turned on the TV with the remote, and
promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, the first thing I did was reach
for my 'keyboard' to check my system log and find out how long I was out.

I gotta take a vacation... :-)

St. Dismas' Infirmary for the Incurably Informed
[Disclaimer: UTSA doesn't know what I said -- don't blame them!]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Douglas E Zongker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: List of 'Hacking Too Long'

...when your writing a letter to your grandmother by hand and putting
semicolons at the end of each line.

| douglas zongker; [email-masked], [email-masked]         |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mike Muise)
Subject: Re: List of 'Hacking Too Long'

Or how about:
I was messing with the innards of my PC, and after, many hours of fiddling,
realized that the problem was considerably worse than when I had started, 
and I wasn't sure I could undo all my hard 'work'.
So I reflexively thought, "No problem, I'll just restore it from backups."

sigh.

| Mike Muise | [email-masked] | Reality awaits you ... |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Avoid normal situations.)
Newsgroups: rec.humor,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: List of 'Hacking Too Long'

  You know you've been hacking too long when you have a nightmare in which
you have an endless printout in which you are frantically searching for the
errors in the program. (Yes, this actually happened to me. *blush*)

					Love & kisses,
				The Stainless Steel Moviegoer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Pickaxe)
Subject: Re: List of 'Hacking Too Long'

When you're playing Hearts, you pick up your hand, start to sort your cards
and realize you're doing it with a bubble sort!

I actually thought for a moment to try an insertion sort but slapped myself
before it was too late.

| Joe Gross          |  Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering   |
| [email-masked]   |  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign          |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Colin Blair (Mr)    Coghill        )
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL when...

Last night I had a horrible dream that I was trapped in a large
dungeon full of nasty creatures that all wanted to eat me.

The worst thing was that it was all in NETHACK text graphics.

I was being chased down this corridor by a bunch of &s and Ds, and
I just knew that if I didn't find an %, I'd wake up/die.

I think I'll leave off the Nethack for a while. Although I dunno...

I'm dreading the day I start dreaming in shell script. It was bad
enough when I used to dream in BASIC. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joe Dellinger)
Subject: Re:  List of 'Hacking Too Long'

	You know you've been hacking too long when you run your programs
in your sleep, find a bug, wake up, and RUN to log into the computer to FIX
the bug RIGHT AWAY...

	And your dream-simulation was 100% accurate!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Driemeyer)
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing computer games too long when...

Did you know that you can take control of a dream? First, you have to practice
realizing that you are dreaming. This can be done by checking whether you are
dreaming or not whenever you notice anything even slightly unusual, and make an
honest attempt of waking up (visualize yourself in bed etc). After a while,
these checks become automatic, and will appear in your dreams. Only now, the
check will return TRUE. You have to catch the wake-up in limbo - don't open
your eyes, which would kill -9 the dream, but stay detached enough to debug
parameters you are unhappy with. Then, resume the process by letting go. You
can do the most amazing things that way, including context-switching to a
totally different dream.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Danny R. Faught)
Subject: Re: Dreaming Unix.

Yesterday my wife and I were semi-conscious and snuggling in bed.  My hand
wandered to a sensitive area and I wondered, "Do I have read permission?"
No?  Darn!  Can I su root?  Doubtful.  :-(
Don't even think about execute permission :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Wilson Roberto Afonso)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL when...

You know you've been hacking too long when, watching a new car comercial on
TV, you see that in the back of the car it's written, say, "Versailles 2.0i",
and you not only read it as "Versailles 2.01", but you also think "Wow !  A
completelly new model, and they're already in version 2.01 !".

Happened to me, and I only got it two days after, when I started talking
about this to somebody else.  While I was talking, I understood what I had
done, so I was able to pretend I was joking...

* - The 'i' in 2.0i stands, of course, for 'Eletronic Fuel Injection'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Subject: re: YKYBHTL

YKYBHTL When: 
	people are talking to you while you're trying to work,
	and you think, "mesg n".
	
	you send email to somebody who's three terminals down the lab.

	you send your girlfriend  notes like:
	
		while !(together(you,me)) miss(you);
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mark Robinson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW..

The other day I was replying by hand to a letter, when I suddenly
realised I'd written out huge chunks of the original letter, with
a greater than symbol at the start of each line.

Even worse, instead of realising my mistake, I thought I'd best
edit this a bit or I'll get flamed for including too much of the
original post!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bernard Hatt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW..

You know you've been programming with Xlib too long, when you leave the
building at night and say "XGoodNight" to the security guard!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: more YKYBHTL

YKYBH in unix too long when:
	before you call someone on the phone, you think:
	'finger [email-masked]'

	when, after exiting a program on a DOS <barf> machine,
	you automatically try to check mail.

	your first reaction to the above is that mail is down

	you try to ^Z out of Quattro

	you decide to stay in school...just to keep your Internet account!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jeff Weisberg)
Subject: Re: YNYB...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

[email-masked] said:
| 
| My last alarm-clock delusion was trying to figure out what username
| it was running under, so I could look at its crontab file to see when
| it was going to ring...

My alarm clock is a board I built and hooked up to my Sun,
it runs under my own username, and _is_ controlled by cron. 

When I used to use a "stanard alarm clock", when it went off
in the morning, I would just turn it off and fall back asleep.
Now, since it is controlled by software, its a bit smarter,
and won't let me fall back alseep.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (B.M. Buck)
Subject: Re: YNYB...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

I used to program my IBM PC to make hideous noises to wake me up.  I
also made the conscious decision to hard-code the alarm time into the
program, so as to make it more difficult for me to reset it.

After I realised that I was routinely getting up, editing the source
file, recompiling the program and rerunning it for 15 minutes extra
sleep, before going back top bed, I gave up and made the alarm time a
command-line option.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Todd R. Eigenschink)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YNYB...

I saw a friend who works in the computing center from whom I had
borrowed an ethernet tee.  I said something like, "Oh, shoot, I have
to give that back to you."  Without even thinking, he responded,
"Just email it to me."  I was about to ask if I should compress it,
but thought better of it.  :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: YNYBHTL dreams

Let's see. I once dreamed I couldn't get into the bathroom because I'd
broken the device driver for the door. I once dreamed I couldn't open
my eyes because I'd broken the device driver for my eyelids. That was
particularly irritating, because I couldn't fix the code because I couldn't
open my eyes!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nathan J. Mehl)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...

You know you've been hacking too long when, while taking notes in a class,
you begin to /*COMMENT OUT*/ the sections where the professor is going on
a silly digression.

(The really scary thing is that, in my case, "too long" means about two  
months of trying to teach myself C.  Says something for either my high
impressability, or just my general lack of sleep lately.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jeff Weisberg)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

[email-masked] said:
| You know you've been hacking too long when, while taking notes in a class,
| you begin to /*COMMENT OUT*/ the sections where the professor is going on
| a silly digression.

I usually take my notes in a troff style. I comment things with \" and
often "center" text using .ce (recall: this is pencil and paper).
In one class the prof would  put this one drawing on the board
rather often-- ".so system-std.pic".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mancko H|glund)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>You know you've been hacking too long when, while taking notes in a class,

Or picking up the phone and answering with the the program statement
you're about to enter into your code. You can almost hear the ????'s coming
over the lines (unless, of course, the caller is another programmer, and
a quick-witted one at that).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (OS/2 addict)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Andrew Williams) writes:
)
)And then theres the morning I [thinking about an upcoming house move],
)decided that a simple solution was to borrow an exabyte drive from uni
)and tar and compress the house contents, and restore it at the new
)address. I even remember worrying about whether tar would create the
)destination rooms properly if I specified absolute pathnames...

That thought had occured to me as well... needing to move my possessions to
another apartment, the first idea that came to mind was "PKZIP"... everything
would weigh less, and fit in one suitcase... then I realized I would have to
leave my '386 uncompressed so that it could unzip everything else... 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nils Engstrom)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

Reminds me of a very strange dream I had just the other day:

  I don't remember the beginning, but I found myself waiting
  for a bus with two packets of breakfast cereal in one hand.
  (I have no idea why.) Somehow it was very difficult to catch
  a bus, but eventually one stopped. Oddly enough, it was the
  same bus and driver that just drove past, and I could still see
  it leaving... I got on the bus, and the driver asked me a
  a question, whether I was in a hurry or somesuch. I was then
  beginning to realize, that things were not quite in order...
       *Poof*
  Suddenly, I'm in Emacs, editing the Makefile for my dream!
  I even edited a few lines before waking up, but I can no
  longer recall its contents.

	n  "Be careful not to screw up the terminating
	    condition when you dream recursively!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Albert Schmezer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...

... when you get your high school Senior Class yearbook photo taken with your 
favorite IBM-PC keyboard...

	Couldn't get the yearbook photo people to include the whole CPU, had
to settle for a picture with the keyboard in my hands, kinda guitar style...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John  Bayko)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: You know you've been using vi too long...

    This just happened - I finished editing a program, and wanted to
move the mouse pointer down to the window just below...
    "jjjjjjj"
    Didn't work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Murali)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

>This was the second time I had a dream in a dream. Does
>this happen to any one else?

	Constantly.  I seem to keep having these dreams where I'm
dreaming and I wake up and so on and etc...but even _better_ are the
computer/internet dreams.  The ones where, for an hour or so before I
wake up, I'm somehow logged into EtherNet :), reading all my mail and
news, and replying to things...and then I wake up.  (Then I have to
come to work and _really_ do all those things...)  I wonder if anybody
ever gets those messages...?
	Of course, then there was the time when I was out dancing till
six or seven in the morning, went to bed, and woke up around two in
the afternoon...later that night, my then-SO said something about me
being logged on earlier that morning...apparently, around 10AM, I had
gotten out of bed, made myself breakfast, and logged on!  I
immediately went to check, and yep, I had been on for about an hour
that morning, _while_I_was_still_asleep_!  So, fearing the worst, I
checked my .history file, and sure enough, I _had_ sent mail to
people...eek.  Couldn't tell who, though, so I had to send out some
more preemptive (or would that be postemptive?) letters, explaining
that I had been sleepwalking the 'net, and any email that they had
gotten from me that was lewd, obnoxious, or otherwise unrestrained,
was a result of my somnetulation...(and boy was _she_ surprised to hear that...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Adam Justin Thornton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

I wanted to turn off my alarm clock this morning, but I couldn't
find it.  So I tried to shut off *, figuring that would get it.

I guess globbing wasn't turned on.

Could have been worse.  I suppose shutting off * could be construed
as 'kill -9 1' which would have been, er, unpleasant.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andy Holyer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW....

... when  you discover something   that's happened in  you  own office
*after* you've read about it on Usenet. My Co-worker just had his hair
cut this afternoon. He then got involved in  a ramble about the length
of his hair. I hadn't looked round!!! I  found  out  about it from the
net!! Help!!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....

[email-masked] (Danny R. Faught) writes:
>As an addendum to the "have you ever sent email to someone at the next
>terminal" idea - It has been difficult lately to get the attention of
>my officemate because he listens to a walkman most of the day.  He
>suggested that I send him email.  I suggested that I could just
>throw my Koosh(tm) at him until I get his attention.  It's so much
>more personal :-)

Yes, but email is a maskable interrupt.

I prefer not to be given an NMI for anything less severe than "there's been 
another bomb scare[*]" or "If you don't answer my question, I'm going to be 
sitting here twiddling my thumbs for hours"  (And in the latter case, you had 
better have thorooughly considered some alternatives)

[*] - It's a real pain in the ass sharing a building with the Quebec 
government construction union during a lock-out.  Strikes in Quebec are 
played hardball.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David W. Barts)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW:

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jason 'KodaK' Balicki) writes:
> I was driving today and saw the sign "^ Purdue Univ." and I immeditely
> interpeted it as "Purdue Unix".  A little later I went back by it and
> remembered what I had interpeted it as.  I looked at it again to see
> what made me think that was an "x" at the end.   Then next thing that
> went through my mind was "Bang Purdue Univ."

You think that's bad!  I was driving back home along I-90 this
afternoon and caught myself decoding license plate numbers as if they
were TECO command strings.

David Barts  N5JRN                      UW Civil Engineering, FX-10
[email-masked]                Seattle, WA  98195
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David C. Williss)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: You know you've been using Unix too long...

I saw a billboard for a new radio station in Lincoln, Nebraska, called
KMEM (1480 AM).  I found myself wondering if you had to be logged in
as "root" to listen to it or if it would be enough to have a radio
oned by root with the SUID bit set.
 
		-Dave Williss
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (PDP11 Hacker .....)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW

You know you've been hacking too long when your computer system receives a 21st
birthday card from someone in the USA. 

Seriously, I received a birthday card this morning addressed to : 

Malard
c/o A.R.Duell
<Rest of my address>
 -tony
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW

YKYBHTLW: You introduce yourself to a human as <username> "at" <nodename>,
	and then suddenly remember - yes, I *do* have a real name...

Dave Fischer ([email-masked])
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Travis Corcoran)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...

...you're at your workstation with your Discman, you hit [PLAY] on the
discman, and the damn thing starts at track 1, completely skipping
track 0.  After hitting [STOP] and [PLAY] a few more times, it dawns
on you...

TJIC (Travis J.I. Corcoran)         [email-masked]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jason Bittle)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Post Office (was: You know you've been programming too long)

Got one better for y'all..

I work at Canisius College, and am always on the Unix machines, on usenet
too..

One day, one of my friends from Case Western Reserve U. asked me to send him
some documentation of a project I am working on, via Snail-mail, which
wouldn't have been that bad if he didn't call me at 4:30pm, with the mail room
closing at 5. (all this occured on a Friday, nonetheless.)  

So, while I scurried about getting the docs ready, and preparing the
envelople, I scribbled what I thought was the correct address on the envelope.
Stuffed the docs in, stamped it and dropped it off to the mailroom on the way
out, in a hurry, thinking that I had a job well done.

Well, it turns out that I saw that same envelope on Monday morning, on my
desk, with a note attached from the mail room saying that they didn't
understand the address on the envelope.  Only after staring at it for a good 5
minutes did I see my mistake to:

On the envelope, I had written:  Mr. Adam Lambert
                                 [email-masked]

and left it at that.  I felt so embarrased ;-)

ciao,                             
Jason Bittle ([email-masked]) 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Stuart Maclean)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW

as I did last week, you leave work with a couple of floppies, get in
your car, and instinctively put a floppy straight into your car
cassette player. Oh dear!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Danny R. Faught)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW.... Collected works?
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 19:07:28 GMT

When I was recovering from my operation, still under the influence of
the anesthesia, I spent most of my time in the debugger trying to find
kernel bugs.  I guess I never figured out that the problem was in the
hardware.  It was the closest I've come to a nightmare in a long time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nik Clayton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW.... Collected works?
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 22:24:11 GMT

... after a hectic session programming sockets, you collapse asleep. You then
spend 15 minutes trying to wake up, but your gethostname() function is
blocking, so you don't know who you are, so you can't wake up...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Zack Evans)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW.... Collected works?
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 93 01:15:21 GMT

Just remembered another one - I wanted to phone someone but didn't know if they
were in, so I wondered if I could finger them first...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Duane Morin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Now I *KNOW* I been hacking too long
Date: 28 Aug 93 22:23:30 GMT

Last night, I'm in a conversation on a VERY non-computer related topic, when
my friend makes the statement that, let's just say, given adequate access to
the entire female body, one would certainly spend more time in certain areas
than others. (There, I did that so as to offend as few people as I could.)

Anyway.  It happened that my girlfriend was also part of this conversation.
At this statement, my brain did something of the following:  I created
a topographical data structure representing the surface area of her body,
broke it up into roughly equivalent area, and sorted them according to
priority.

Someone should take my computer away.  And, with stuff like THAT happening,
it'll probably be her!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andrew Bulhak)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL (an ongoing thread)
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1993 15:06:47 GMT

Today I went to McDonalds for lunch; since it was a pleasantly warm
day, the restaurant was full of customers, and there were several long
queues and not enough attendants.

The first thing that came to my mind was whether this McD, being a
multiprocessor situation, implements the bakery algorighm for scheduling.

After some minutes in the queue, I observed that the load averages
must be astronomical.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] ()
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1993 01:21:22 GMT

This one happened to me last month.  At that stage, I had just acquired
this account, and was looking through directories to find out what was
on the system, so that I could set up my windows manager to suit me...

I was reading this form I had which had
   "... parents/guardian/next of kin ..."
and I thought, "gee, that's a lot of levels of ..." when I caught myself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL ...
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 93 21:48:27 EDT

[email-masked] (Russell Kroll) writes:

>.... your dog is named "Kludge", in this case pronounced (klooj)

or a cat named "0x1B"?

Which is interesting, since non-hackers automaticly call it
"0x", while hackers automaticly call it "1B". Heh heh.

[0x1B is the ASCII code for [ESC], so the cat is named Escape. -AF]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Steven Kraft)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL ...
Date: 26 Aug 1993 05:28:28 GMT

I've collected many of these together into one coherent listing and I 
haven't posted it yet, so this seems like a good time do it.  I think I got
most of the typos out.  I've been thinking of formatting it nicely with 
LaTex, so I haven't worked too hard on making this version perfect.

Here it is, about 15kb worth, share and enjoy:

You know you've been hacking too long when...

...you're looking for your hilighter and you think:  find . -pen HiLiter -print

...your SO asks you where you want to eat on a friday night and you want to:  
cat yellowpages | grep pizza | grep carryout | more

...you want more coffee and you think:  
finger waiter; cat *coffee* | grep -v decaff | drink | more

...you're hacking on a project late at night, you are trying to get at some 
munchies, and you are having problems opening them (fingers stay in keyboard 
mode) and you think:  Finger: Error, cannot open chocolate_bar.

...you're doing laundry, and you think:  touch *     <or>   make clean

...you start dreaming code.

...you regularly sit up and stare at your (ringing (loudly!)) alarm clock 
thinking, "I can't shut it off because if I do the error message will scroll 
off the screen and then I won't be able to figure out what went wrong."  
Other times you scrabble around looking for the mouse to click on the alarm 
clock window to focus input so that you can enter the snooze button keypress.

...a friend asks you what you're going to do later and you answer:
cd $HOME; mkbed; sleep 28800

...you almost get hit by a bus that pulled away from the stop without 
looking and you say:  PANIC: bus error

...you are looking at an ASCII core dump of your OS project which has many 
O's and &'s in it (among other things), and you shout:
"I see the problem.  Orcs are attacking my demons."

...you order pie a-la-mode and a friend asks "What mode?", to which you 
answer:  1755 (sticky bit).

...you go to lunch and there are no forks at the cafeteria, to which you 
exclaim:  fork(): no more processes

...your friends send you to the refrigerator to get an imported beer, but 
you can't find an opener, so you report:  bottle: cannot open, opener: not found

...you wonder why you can't just go:  sleep 28800& and go on with your hacking?

...you stop by the grocery store on your way home, and write your check out 
in hex.

...you wish you could study for an exam by executing the command:  
cat civ100 | tee brain

...you're reading from paper media and when you finish the page you press 
the spacebar.

...you start dreaming in Tetris and trying to rearrange the furniture so 
it all fits neatly against one wall.

...you test a program, and it fails, so you jump into the editor, look at 
it, jump out, recompile and test (without making changes) and it still 
doesn't work, so you jump ........ and it still doesn't work ...... 
recompile without any changes........ 

...you complain in the supermarket about your change and find out you 
computed it in hex.

...you're trying to get to sleep but can't because you don't know the 
right VMS logical--you keep typing SHOW LOGICAL *SLEEP* and never get 
anything but:  %SHOW-S-NOTRAN, no translation for logical name *SLEEP*

...you fumble dialing the telephone, and make a stab for the backspace key 
[and wonder why the numbers aren't coming up on your screen].

...your alarm clock goes off, and in your dream you try vainly to figure 
out what keyboard command to use to turn it off. 

...you can't sleep any more, because you're stuck in the garbage collector 
and it keeps dumping with Illegal Instruction.

...you can't digest anything except VendeCoffee(TM) and VendeChoc(TM).

...you want to compile busy traffic so that it will run faster.

...your speech is punctuated by finger twitches (or arm-waving) indicating 
braces.

...you count things on your fingers in binary.

...someone sticks a Post-It note on your screen and you try to lower it 
behind some other windows.

...you find yourself trying to CTRL-S the credits rolling on the TV screen.

...you send E-mail and end each line with \n.

...you match each :-( with a :-) to keep the parentheses balanced.

...you count sheep in hex.

...you open a window to find a phone number in a file, then try to cut & 
paste it to the phone.

...you have been hacking X and the colors of your tv don't look right so 
you think maybe you should use a different Visual.

...after writing a big report, you try to backspace in a pen and paper letter. 

...after days with YACC, you start to parse your conversations.

...after a large C program, you can't stop making algorithms.

...in non-computer related situation you start thinking that whatever you 
are doing, it could be done more easily in a shell script.

...the Government actually makes sense.

...you begin all of your questions with "INPUT. . ."

...you begin to think in nested IF-THEN-ELSE clauses that would make a 
bureaucrat get lost.

...your friends who aren't hackers wonder what happened to you.

...even Juan Valdez couldn't support your drastic need for yet another cup 
of coffee.

...your brain keeps hallucinating random "system error: collision with 
stack heap" or "Guru Meditation Mode # Three billion and fifty-two, press 
left button to continue" or even "This is not a DOS disk." error messages.

...you get a thank-you note from the local power company, along with a 
co-signer form for next month's bill.

...just when you finish writing the be-all-end-all program for your computer 
(has everything-AI, MIDI, productivity stuff, excellent games, desktop video, 
etc.) the entire computer industry upgrades to the "next best chip."

...you mourn the death of GOTO and spaghetti programming more than your 
dead fish.

...your complexion has turned pale from being constantly irradiated by the 
monitor.

...you start doing stuff like:  cc -o a.out foo.c

...the executive who tells you that he read in PC week magazine that setting 
up a LAN in a multi-vendor environment using DECNET was easy and asks you 
to explain why it's taken you over a week to get the client/server
applications in a "production mode."

...you don't care whether C or C++ is compiled or interpreted.

...your last thought when falling asleep is:  while(!asleep()) lambs++;

...you have a photo of your SO taped to the corner of your screen and you 
get comments from passers-by like "Hey, neat GIF", and "_How_ many colors?"

...you reach for the mouse to cut that piece of code from the sheet of paper 
on your desk and try to paste it into the editor.

...you count empty bottles (two at a time) like this:
"2, 4, 8, 16, 32, .... 32?!?"

...you start doing stuff like THIS:  emacs a.out
(an even worse version of this is "cat >a.out" and then start typing in 
your code.  It hits rock bottom when a.out runs on the first attempt.)

...you dream you have to write device drivers for your refrigerator, washing 
machine, and other major household appliances before you can use them.

...you make a mathematical proof and try to compile it to test if it is correct.

...you are moving across town, and find yourself thinking about putting a 
forward in your mailbox outside.

...you are having a bad dream (being chased by space aliens, etc.) and you 
wake up, only to have another bad dream and realize that you are STILL 
dreaming, and had been dreaming you were dreaming, so you wake up again,
and finally wake up once more and realize you were nested four levels deep 
in dreaming you were dreaming.  It is bad enough to recognize that you were 
in a strange recursi6on, but then there is this really horrible thought "If
I had experienced a stack overflow would I have been permanently 
unable to wake up?".  Then you KNOW you are finally awake and have been 
hacking too long.

...your sleep cycle has revolved around the clock several times due to 
"working days" longer than 24 hours.

...you have to put a happy face on paper, and do it sideways.  :-)

...you wake up and desperately try to start a compiler so you can use the 
15 minute waiting period to sleep some more.

...you "woke up" this morning and thought, "I'll checkpoint here, snooze a 
bit more and then revert to checkpoint."  A while later you go up another 
consciousness notch and realize that you hadn't checkpointed successfully 
-- "Oh, of course.  I didn't have the keyboard."

...you ask someone if they'd like to go get some "TeX-MeX" food.

...the funniest joke you came up with over dinner has the punch line:  
"But what if it was in hex?"  ...and the people you were with also thought 
it was funny.

...you ask archie where to find your keys.

...you enclose comments in your class notes with "/* */"

...you order on the phone from a catalog, and start to give the operator 
your email address.

...you stare blankly at the screen and your fingers type "rwho" without 
any help from your brain.  ...you get tired of screens full of worthless 
information scrolling so you alias rwho.  ...you subconsciously start 
typing "/usr/ucb/rwho" to bypass your alias.  ...you alias /usr/ucb/rwho, 
but bypass that alias simply by inserting extra "/"s.

...your digital alarm clock goes off and you think "Bloody Macs!"

...you see a sign near the elevator that says "out of order" and you think 
"sort elevator > elevator.new; mv elevator.new elevator"

...when you can't wake up in the morning because you forgot to push a return 
address on the stack the night before.

...you find out that you can't get to sleep, because you are, in fact, the
program you're designing, and can't run to completion as the lower level 
routines haven't been coded yet.  [This may be one of the disadvantages of 
top-down design...]

...you look above the television for a title bar to find out the name of 
the program you are watching.  

...in a dream, you are walking down a path (using PostScript's pathforall) 
and get woken up by a closepath.  

...you hear your alarm, but can't seem to get fully awake until you 
successfully page your left arm back in from swap space.  

...you start reading car license plates as machine code.  JMP 451, HCF 919 
(this one really shook me up), HLT 772 (Halt instruction...gotta reboot the 
truck again!), FOXXY (um, don't know that one...must be a floating point 
instruction).

...you hit the snooze bar, it goes off again, you hit it again and make a 
mental note that you can't do it much longer because your subroutine is 
mallocing memory each time it goes off, and soon will run out.  

...you are trying to remember something but hear in your head: "parity 
error at address..."

...you're writing a homework assignment, and get to the end of the line 
in the middle of a sentence, tack on a '\', and continue writing on the next line.

...you pick up a rootbeer and read the label as "High Res", not Hires.

...you start typing semi-colons at the end of sentences instead of full stops;

...your children do something they shouldn't do, you tell them to stop, they 
do it just once more anyway, so you think "Well, they prefetched the 
instruction and are executing it in the delay slot."

...after fooling around all day with routers you pick up the phone and start 
dialing an IP number.

...you want to retract something said in haste, and think C-a C-@ C-e C-w

...the message `New mail in /usr/spool/mail/foo' becomes an NMI.

...that home project you thought would only take a single weekend has now 
passed its first decade of development.

...you can remember your ethernet hardware address.

...you see a sign on a door saying "Please make sure this door is locked" 
and you wonder if lockd knows about it.

...you think "grep keys /dev/pockets" or "grep homework /dev/backpack"

...you go to the movies and it takes 5 minutes to get used to the flicker.

...you see a flock of birds and try to figure out the algorithms that 
determine their movement.

...you check your email more often than your paper mail, and you remember 
your network address faster than your postal one.

...you discover that you're balancing your checkbook in octal.

...your computers have a higher street value than your car.

...in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.

...more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming 
language.

...you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.

...you try to bring a window to the front of something, then you realize
that "something" is a Post-It (tm) on your screen.

...in art class you make a mistake in a drawing and look frantically for 
the undo button on the paper.

...you've been low-level debugging ethernets for a week and you see two 
people at a table trying to pick up the same jar of butter and you directly 
wonder if they are using the correct CSMA/CD algorithm to avoid a re-collision.

...your radio is playing, and you're starting a big compile on your home 
box, and it occurs to you that the music will begin to get a bit jerky, 
because you think it's playing through the computer and you're not quite 
sure how well it'll multitask with the compile.

...everything in your life turns into code...such as:

main()
{

   while ( sleeping ) {
      sleeping = !Rested();
      if ( AlarmIsOn() )
         sleeping = 0;
   }

   BrushTeeth( self );
   Shower( self );
   Dress( self );
   Enter( car, self );

   while ( !Started( car ) ) {
      if ( Inserted( key ) )
         Turn( key );
      else
         Insert( key );
   }
}

And when you try to compile, you get:
% cc -c life.c
"life.c", line 4: sleeping undefined
"life.c", line 10: self undefined
"life.c", line 13: car undefined
"life.c", line 16: key undefined

...you wake up at 3:00am from a nightmare, and realize the reason for it:  
There is no #include <stdio.h> in the beginning of the dream!!!  
This realized, back to restful sleep...

...you want to wash your hair and think:  awk -F"/neck" '{ print $1 }' | shower

...you pick up a pencil and wonder whether it supports the Norwegian letters 
(TeX \ae, \o, \aa).

...a fly lands on the screen and you try to pick it up with the mouse and 
put it in the onscreen trashcan!

...people talk to you while you're trying to work, and you think, "mesg n".

...you send email to somebody who's three terminals down the lab.

...you're replying by hand to a letter and you suddenly realize that you 
have written out huge chunks of the original letter with a greater than 
symbol at the start of each line, so you think you should edit it a bit 
to avoid getting flamed for including too much of the original post!!

...you leave the building at night and say "XGoodNight" to the security guard!

...before you call someone on the phone, you think:  'finger [email-masked]'

...you try to ^Z out of Quattro.

...you decide to stay in school...just to keep your Internet account!

...you look at an internal telephone extension number 2444 and immediately 
try to work out what permissions it represents, and then wonder why it's sgid!

...you get snail mail, and you think to your self "You have new mail on node 
"your_address" from user "name_on_the_frank".

...it takes a concious effort NOT to pronounce the 'd' at the end of common 
words.

...you send your SO notes like:  while !(together(you,me)) miss(you);

...your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, 
priority interrupt."

...you dream that your SO and yourself are icons in a GUI and you can't get 
close to each other because the window manager demands minimum space between
icons...

...you're awakened by your SO and all you can think of, in that muddied half-
conscious state before becoming fully awake, is something having to do with 
male and female serial connectors and how the baud rates have to be 
synchronized.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bernd Meyer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTL ...
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 20:11:59 GMT

....When at the end of a show, the names of the actors scroll across the
screen, you missed one and think ""OK, I'll hit CTRL-C quickly, and maybe I
can still reach it with my xterms scrollbar".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Valdis Kletnieks)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTL ...
Date: 29 Sep 1993 22:24:55 GMT

When you're driving home after a particularly unfruitful
day of dbx'ing 120 megabyte coredumps, and you look at your
odometer and say to yourself "Wow, this car has gone '=' miles.".

This is an indication that you need a week in Bermuda, or maybe
someplace even further from a T-1 line.

If at the same mileage you said NAK miles, you better check
your finances to see if you can afford a long-term stay in
a rest home. ;)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tommy Usher) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKWYBHTL ...
Date: 29 Sep 93 10:01:00 GMT

The other day, I saw a weather warning on the TV so I called Compu$erve
to check the National Weather Service bulletins.  Sure enough, there was
a severe thunderstorm in the next county and the advised that you should
avoid windows.  "No problem," I thought, "I use DOS."  Seriously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (SillyWiz)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTL ...
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 16:12:05 GMT

YNYBHTL.. when you wonder why your terminal suddenly has no keyboard and then
you realise you're looking at the microwave..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Roth Mark Daniel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 30 Sep 1993 21:47:31 GMT

... you're talking to a 9-year old girl who is asking you math
problems as a game.  She starts, "What is 9 plus...plus..."  As she
starts to think of another number, you interrupt, "9 post-incremented
is 10." :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David W. Barts)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL ...
Date: 15 Oct 1993 04:25:13 GMT

A few days ago, I was listening to the morning news on NPR and they had
an item about how Mike Espy had bought an Apple [they didn't say which
model] in Tokyo for $5 [Wow, Cheap!!  I thought.  Even so, it must be an
older Mac Plus or something equally obsolete.] ...

... and then went on to state that this was an example of how import
restrictions made produce so expensive in Japan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (James W. Birdsall)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL...
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1993 00:58:46 GMT

   I was flipping through the TV listings the other day and the title of an
old Lucy episode caught my eye: "Lucy Is a Process Server."

   It took me about fifteen seconds to make that one resolve sensibly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Alun Jones)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Yet another YKWYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 08:05:25 GMT

Last week I was trying to get PC-NFS upgraded on the PC I use (for my
sins...) Due to the non-standard driver I have to use it took about
3 attempts to get it up & running.

Anyway, last night I walked into a public terminal room and on the
whiteboard there were notes for some class. The first thing that hit my eyes
was the phrase:

net profit

It took a while for me to parse that one right!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David Wilkinson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL Revisited
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 11:59:04 GMT

YKYBHTL when as you go to sleep at night your dreams take the form of
IP packets bouncing around your head, and then you suddenly realise
that the reason they are bouncing around is because you forget to set
up the address of the name server, so they don't know where to go...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Data Rentals and Sales)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL....
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 23:59:13 GMT

While working in pre-hexadecimal days, I once added up an expense
report in octal (because there were no 8'2 or 9's in it), quite by
mistake.  The next day I got a call from a young lady in accounting.
"Uh, Mr. Quitt?  Your expense report has all the right signatures on
it, but I can't get it to add up to the same number you did".  "What
do you get?"  (She responded with the correct total, which fortunately
had a nine in it).  "Uh, go ahead and use that number - I see what I
did wrong".  Yeah, right - try and explain it?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kip Crosby)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 15:37:33 GMT
Subject: YKYBHTL....

Yesterday I was making arrangements to pick up a new laptop and,
since this was a new vendor too, I needed the address.  The
salesrep told me it was 2048 Fourth Street, I laughed, she asked
me why, and I said "Well, it's 2K 2-squared street."  She paused
and asked me, much too gently, "Do you think like that a lot?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Richard Carlsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBRTTL
Date: 27 Oct 1993 13:33:32 GMT

Hey, I had a pretty scary experience once. I was sitting by my computer
at home, thinking hard about something, as usual, eyes just wandering
around the room, until they focused on a wooden chair. Now, that chair
is rather featureless, and the lighting was rather "artificial", but
I was appalled at myself when I realised what kind of thought my brain
was forming: "nice texture-mapping..." "pretty high-res as well..."
"the shadows are great!..." "...Aiiiighhhh! It's a real chair!!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Hugh Davies)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL....
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 09:35:10 GMT

When it strikes you that the name of the manufacturer of th coffee machine in
your office - Tchibo - is a pretty obscure way to spell the The Name of He Who
Greps in order that he won't find it....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Theodore J.I.N. Soldatos)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,rec.humor
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long, Canonical list of
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 11:10:07 GMT

You know when you've been SQLing too long when ...

select * from fridge
where name = 'milk'
and expire_date > date('TODAY');
update glass
set content = 'milk';

etc ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,rec.humor
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long, Canonical list of
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1993 12:41:42 GMT

[email-masked] (Theodore J.I.N. Soldatos) writes:

>You know when you've been SQLing too long when ...
> ...

Shouldn't that be:

insert into glass values (select * from fridge where name = 'milk' and 
expire_date > sysdate and volume < '1litre');
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jim Thompson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,rec.humor
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long, Canonical list of
Date: 3 Dec 1993 16:55:00 GMT

You're fighting with your (now ex) wife, and something deep in
the back of your mind wants to fire up 'adb' on her head.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Brendan Hassett)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 09:23:15 GMT

You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long When...

...you think "I've never seen that assembler mnemonic before..."
and you realise that you're looking at a licence plate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael Jennings)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 01:33:46 GMT

	Today, I wished to transfer some money from my cheque account
to my savings account at a different bank. The easiest way to do this
is to write a cheque to yourself. Therefore I got out my chequebook and
wrote out a cheque, making it out to [email-masked]'.
	I am really a long way gone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 22:38:26 GMT

I once put a Reply-To: line on an envelope without even thinking about it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Simon Slavin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 10 Dec 93 17:04:34 GMT

YKYBH Lisp TLW:

You wake up while finishing a particularly vivid dream and think
"How many brackets do I have to close to get out of this thing."

Me.  Wednesday.  Arghhhhhhhhhhh !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 11 Dec 1993 08:17:19 -0600

I've noticed a similar symptom in myself and others: the tendency to refer
to people in speech by their login names:
	"I left mail for dfw, but never heard from him..."

Hmmm...now that I think about it, I don't KNOW the full names of
some of my friends!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ernst 'pooh' Mulder <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 93 08:40:44 +0100 (GMT)

Or when you urgently want to talk(1) to someone, and can't find him logged 
in anywhere on any system and you go desperate. And then someone tells you 
to use a phone... never thought of that.

(Even worse if you then think "phone? I haven't got a VMS account!")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John Honniball)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 18:56:49 GMT

I got into the shower the other day and found that the head was
badly blocked with lime scale -- hard water round here.  I thought:

      Hmm...  Time to de-gauss the shower head again...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Juan Molinari)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 13 Dec 1993 20:37:30 -0500

	Today I read a sentence that made me do a double-take and
shake my head in confusion until it sunk in...

	"Freud suggested that people are born with two drives [...]"
(meaning Eros & Thanatos, not A: and C:)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Eric Fischer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: You know when you've been hacking too long...
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 13:16:14 GMT

Well, it finally happened to me last night:

You know when you've been hacking too long when you're lying in bed
trying to figure out why your dream thread has to explicitly yield to
handle the alarm clock interrupt when obviously the interrupt handler
should just be able to fork off a new pre-emptive awake process, and
eventually decide that being awake must make non-reentrant system
calls and have to run as a co-operative thread.

This being the result of staying up until 2:00 re-reading the text for
an 8:00 Operating Systems final...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andrew Arensburger)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 15 Dec 1993 23:51:57 GMT

	I just got a bottle of window cleaner and cleaned the screen
on my machine. Then I reached for the virtual desktop manager so I
could clean the other five virtual screens.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Dave Woodman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 14:08:34 GMT

... you fire up an xterm, invoke the on-line phone directory, double click on
the number you want and just can't paste it onto the phone's LCD display!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 93 19:14:58 GMT

Raymond* Chretien has just been appointed as Canada's new envoy to the US.
The (Toronto) Globe and Mail reported this this morning with this headline:

		PM's nephew to get top posting

Only when I saw it, I first read it as

		PM's nephew to stop posting 

I didn't know he was on Usenet...

*I may have the first name slightly wrong; I don't have a paper with me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Antonio Vasconcelos)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 12:19:30 GMT

YKYBHTL when:

	You are working on the computer, then you have to use your pocket
calculator for something (8 x 7, most of the time), you type the
numbers in and press =, then you try to read the result from the
computer screen.
Yukkk...

That happaned to me so many times that now I use a TSR calculator.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ernst 'pooh' Mulder <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 93 00:05:18 +0100 (GMT)

Or when you want to point at something happening somewhere else in your 
room, and grab your mouse to do so...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kip Crosby)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 22:46:49 GMT
Subject: YKYBHTLW....

Last night I was hooking up a CD player (my first, I blush to
admit) to the stereo, got it cabled (I thought) right, turned
everything on and it wouldn't come up.  Puzzled, I sat staring at
the snakepit of wires, and then it hit me.

"duh!!" [heel of hand to forehead] "I need a SCSI adapter!"

Yes, I really did say that out loud, just as well no one
overheard....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Danny R. Faught)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long...
Date: 21 Dec 1993 14:37:09 GMT

You know you're in hopeless computer nostalgia mode when you see a
package at Drug Emporium called "Run Stop" and you wonder why they'd
be selling keys for the C64 keyboard there.

*Run Stop is a product to prevent pantyhose from getting runs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael Covington)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know when you've been hacking too long...
Date: 22 Dec 1993 05:06:17 GMT

There's a toilet-bowl cleaner called SNOBOL.  I'm not kidding.

(And if you don't know what SNOBOL means in computing, you're too young!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nik Clayton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 13:50:35 GMT

>Ever introduce yourself like: "Hello, I'm <name> At <domain>."?

Not quite. I do find myself mentally (and sometimes verbally) filling in
usernames during conversations. When, for example, you are describing
someone...

    "Him? Yeah, he's shortish, cropped blonde hair, hangs around with 
     Sarah a lot, cs92dty, dodgy beige anorak..."

Half the time I don't realise I'm doing it. Oh dear...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John 'Fritz' Lowrey)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL
Date: 23 Dec 1993 10:34:05 -0800

	... when you hear an advertisment for FTD Florists on the radio
and the say their phone number is 1-800-FTD-XXXX, and you think, "Wow,
dial-up FTP... an 800 number too!".  I need a break!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jason 'KodaK' Balicki)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1993 03:57:37 GMT

Over Christmas I stayed at my wifes paternal grandparents.  The first
morning, before I got into the shower I saw on the side of a box in the
bathroom:

	20 -- 1 DRAM SAMPLES

"Wow, I wonder if he'll let me have some for some projects?"

I forgot that DRAM is also a unit of measurement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: You Know You're Turning Into a Network Geek When...
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1993 14:54:23 GMT

I recently started working for a networking company, and I knew very little 
about the technology, so I've been cramming like mad.  I was looking at 
something on the bulletin board, and they quoted somebody from our UK office 
as saying that <some new product> "was the size of a fag packet".  My first 
thought was "Is fag some new network protocol"?

My second thought was "Is it a protocol for networks with only male 
connectors?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David K. Bryant)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You're addicted to News when...
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 06:39:09 GMT

You know you're addicted to NetNews when.....

   You pass over a good job offer because they don't have
   a newsfeed and instead take the 5th-ranked offer because
   they do.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joe George)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 03:31:16 GMT

Okay. It finally happened to me. I was driving down the road today, and I
saw a billboard for a car I want to buy (a Saturn, I have one, this is the
second one I was thinking about) and I thought for a moment of getting a
personalized license plate for it, but then I gave up when I remembered that
the State of Georgia doesn't allow special characters in a license plate.

/dev/car just wouldn't be the same without the slashes.

Joe "wants a coffee mug that says /dev/coffee" George
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jason 'KodaK' Balicki)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 22:02:13 GMT

I'm cleaning off me desk, making a trash pile.  With every item I put
on the pile I'm thinking:

delete. . . delete . . . 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nick Bannon)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 1 Jan 1994 00:51:03 +0800

You know you've been hacking too long when...

On the bottom of a New Year's champagne bottle's cork, (ignoring for
the moment the fact that I was logged on then) you think you see the
printed letters 'ASA', and the frst thing that springs to mind is a
well-known encryption algorithm...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David Maddison)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: You know you've been hacking too long when...
Date: 1 Jan 1994 13:48:28 GMT

1) You're speaking to someone on the phone and they mention something
   like a book and you ask can you FTP a copy across.

2) You're walking through the city at a busy time and when you're
   trying to navigate an easy route through the crowd you think of
   yourself as a TCP/IP network packet.

3) You speak to a non-Internut person and think they're familiar
   with the Nutwork and have an email address and know about the
   newsgroups you've been reading.

4) You can't understand that it is possible that some people 
   don't have email.

5) You go to the supermarket and wonder what the TCP/IP address
   of the scanner is and whether it can be "fingered".

6) You categorize people into those with 'Net addresses and those without.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kim Lester)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 14:12:10 GMT

One evening after a heavy week of network configuration I needed to call
a technical colleague, sooo I picked up the phone and dialled his IP address
(I used "*" for dot) and I only twigged halfway thru dialling cause the
"dot" didn't feel quite right...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Reimer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Ykybhtlw...
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 1994 02:36:18 -0800

I had a similar thing happen to me recently.  I saw one of my manilla
file folders on the floor (such is my highly organized paper filing
system) and I suddenly realized that I was just standing there, looking
at it...

Then I realized that I was trying to mentally "double-click" on it to
reveal the contents!

To me this is prime proof that the idea that GUIs have to look like
"real-world equivalents" is bunk, because nobody (or very few people)
use the real world equivalents enough any more to be more familiar with
them than they are with files, directories, etc.

Nevertheless, I still like OS/2's WPS, even if it does cause me to
look at real file folders strangely.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 94 17:59:17 EST
Subject: YKYBRUTLW...

You notice an unbelievably stupid and obnoxious and unreasonably-
posted commercial post from some total moron who you've already 
attacked for this sort of thing, and you're just bopping into vi
to flame the shit out of him, when..... the alarm goes off and 
you wake up. ARG!!!!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Albert T. Hofkamp)
Subject: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 1994 14:26:08 GMT

You start writing smileys on paper
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Stewart Stremler)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 5 Jan 1994 16:27:38 GMT

Albert T. Hofkamp ([email-masked]) wrote:
> You start writing smileys on paper

Aaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

I _do_ that.

I also _underline_ with pre- and post- underscores in my notes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Christian Weisgerber)
Subject: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 12:26:38 GMT

... you wake up with the nightmarish thought: hey, there's no source
code for me, I'm only available as a binary.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Dale Mensch)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 06 Jan 1994 21:18:49 GMT

When I worked on the UNISYS 1100 operating system: The dumps I was
constantly perusing were always in octal instead of hex (36-bit words
giving "4 bits more accuracy than IBM" was apparently a good marketing
ploy a few decades ago).

When my old Toyota was rolling up to 77 thousand miles, the first
thing that flashed through my mind was: Ooh!  The odometer is going to
roll over to 00,000!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Thu,  6 Jan 94 11:26:02 +1100

My girlfriend and I have been looking for a new flat. I was sitting
at home reading Usenet and the phone rang. I picked it up and it was
the real estate agent. We're applying for the flat in my girlfriend's
name, and she wasn't in, so I said I'd take a message. I grabbed my
pad that I write down any useful stuff I find while net.surfing and
wrote down the agent's name:

Helen.tar
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Shaun Lowry)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 7 Jan 1994 15:19:40 GMT

While I was an undergraduate, one of my projects was to implement a bar-code
reader in 68000 assembler.  When my freind's car's odometer rolled over to
68000, we were rolling over a zebra crossing and I wondered what the
interleave was.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked]
Subject: hacking too long...
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 07:49:26 GMT

i was talking to my girlfriend on the phone tonight, and i said "someone loaned
me the 'spinal tap' video ... i'll bring it over and we can watch it!" to which
she said "i don't have a vcr!" and i said "oh! i'll just make it into an
execuitable and we won't need one!"

for some reason, i thought that videotape.exe would run without compilation....

time to take a break...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter Lindgren)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 7 Jan 94 18:43:07 GMT

Haven't followed this thread for a while, but this morning I had something
I thought I could share...:

Last night I were disassembling boot sectors and the MSDOS kernel startup
code, for some fuzzy reason. I went to bed at 2 am, and when my clock radio
started beeping this morning I pressed the Snooze button, looked at the
minutes (showing :30) and thought:
  "No, this isn't the right cluster."
Then I fell asleep again, for 9 minutes, until the clock beeped again.
The same scene appeared again, but now I was getting more awakened, so
that's why I remembered this.
Gee, I thought I'd never become one of *them* having these kind of
experiences...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bill Bereza)
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 04:07:42 GMT

When you see a bag of snack chips calles CC Ricers and your first
thought is that Ricers is getting a carbon copy of the chips.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andrew M Hamilton-wright)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 9 Jan 1994 22:43:47 GMT

. . . you want to find the full definition of a word found in
"spell" -- and it takes a minute to figure out why "man <word>"
didn't work . . .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Joe Morris)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 05:13:09 GMT

....you hear an old song with extranious "Yeah"s and "Allright"s and
    think of the compiler defines to stick around those output statements,
    #ifdef OBNOXIOUS, and actually get to the point where you're thinking
    about yet another rcs of the Makefile, and then realize:
    "My friends are right, these computers have done hypnotized me"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Top Ten List...was:Re: Cray
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 23:35:06 GMT

I once needed some fence wire (living in the country, you know), and I 
seriously thought about going in and asking for "2 microseconds, please".  
But people up there already thought I was strange.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ross Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 15 Jan 94 07:17:58 GMT+12

Early in the morning (brain not fully engaged yet), you're running
the bath, go to the toilet, and pause before flushing because you're
not sure whether the plumbing can multitask...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Howard J. Poe)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 03:23:56 GMT

[email-masked] (Mason Bliss) writes:
>In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Howard J. Poe) writes:
>>Plumbing multi-tasks the same way MS-Windoze does... non-preemptively.
>
>Heh... That reminds me: Last week, my toilet started to back up. The first
>thing through my mind was "Argh! The toilet crashed!".

I sometimes feel that my house is so messy because I have a poorly
implemented garbage collection algorithm.  Hmm... maybe I should work
on debugging it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Karlsen Bjorn)
Subject: YKYHBUWTLW
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 06:24:44 GMT

You know you have been using Windows to long when you start dreaming
in a Windows environment. Happened to me last night. Pretty scary.
I could even quit parts of the dream I didn't like by double-clicking
the "-" in the upper left corner...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Scott - Maxwell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 22:05:15 PST

I was staying at my friends house one night and his Golden Retriever
was hanging out in his room. We were getting ready to sack out after
a long hacking session (MATRIX [C-64 Unix] hacking). Ivan (the dog)
was sitting next to my bed and I said "Give me your paw" Ivan laid
down on the floor instead. My friend said "The shake hands feature
on the dog has a bug in it." It took about 15 seconds for the 2 of
us to realize what he had just said. We ended up laughing hysterically
about it for about an hour.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...DIR
Date: 21 Jan 94 10:21:12 -0500

A couple stories of my own:

About three weeks ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, look at the 
clock and saw "3:14", and immediately thought "Pi!"

This week I caught myself trying to cut and paste one of my dreams 
("let's just take part of this dream and put it over there")

A year or so I was teaching a class on computer architecture, and we 
were doing cache.  I had the students working on an in-class assignment 
simulating a cache, they were going along 
"hit"..."hit"..."miss"..."miss"... when I hear one of students say, "You 
just sunk my battleship!".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bernd Meyer)
Subject: YKYHBHTL....
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 03:51:01 GMT

.....when you find out that you are able to turn off your alarm clock while
sleeping, and instead of buying a new one or putting the old one in strange
places, you sample some QUEEN songes with your soundblaster and set up your
linux system to play them at full volume in the morning, not stopping until
you removed a certain file...

P.S.: I wonder how long "removing a file" will be too hard to do while
sleeping :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael Staats)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTL
Date: 26 Jan 1994 09:35:24 GMT

YKYHBHTL when you are listening to a talk about computer speech
reconition and think that this talk should be "speech recognized" and
filtered with

 | uniq | sed s/quasi//g

because the speaker often repeats some word three times or more at the
end of a sentence (or in the middle...). The sed line should be clear :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Gothick)
Subject: YKWYBHTL
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 12:26:20 GMT

...when you turn the cold tap up, and the shower gets hotter, and you
immediately think "God, this shower's badly written".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.religion.kibology,alt.culture.usenet,news.future
From: [email-masked] ("Lance S. Buckley")
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW 
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 01:40:33 +0000

You pop a disk out of the floppy drive when you've finished
taping Ren & Stimpy on TV. It was in the middle of a backup and
it won't recover. Shoot me, make it clean and quick.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Anthony Finch (PFUE))
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 16:33:06 GMT

You know you've been emailing too much when...

I was in the middle of composing an email to someone in the same building
when he came up behind me to look at a book I have. This completely threw
me since my brain thought he was in two places at once.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Matt Hucke)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL, yet again
Date: 9 Feb 1994 18:36:00 GMT

I bought a compact disk (music, rather than data).  While reading the
booklet, I noticed that for _each_ of the ~20 songs, the name of the writer
and the producers were listed, as well as "stereo".  Only a single item
was "mono" rather than stereo, and only one had a different writer.

And then the thought struck me, "they must have wasted at least 600-700
bytes by repeating all of this; pointers to a single instance would have
been sufficient."   It was a few seconds before I realized that "bytes"
was meaningless, as the cost of printing the booklet was proportional to
the page count rather than how many characters are present...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Eric Fischer)
Subject: YKWYBHTL, yet again
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 17:32:28 GMT

In biology class a few minutes ago, the professor was talking about
various characteristics of DNA, and brought up dinucleotide repeats,
sections of DNA which contain the same two nucleotides over and over
again.

And what was going through my mind? "Hmmm... it's probably a way of
trying to catch segmentation faults... you'd think we'd have evolved a
better form of memory protection by now.  Or maybe there used to be
code there and somebody patched the binary and wrote over it with no-ops..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ben Cottrell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 17 Feb 1994 18:47:46 GMT

Yesterday I was in a hurry to do something, and I had to eat dinner first.
The thought that ran through my head was:
cat /dev/plate > /dev/mouth &

Strange...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kevin S Ho)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 18 Feb 1994 03:32:16 GMT

	When you look for the meta key on your remote.
	When you dial "ATDT" on you fone.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael Parks Swaim)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW 
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 06:42:31 GMT

  You dream that you're debugging code with a shotgun, DOOM style. The really
nasty bugs looked like Imps.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jared Dahl)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 22 Feb 1994 16:45:33 GMT

YKYBPDTLW - You Know You've Been Playing DOOM Too Long When:
  You exit to DOS, and attempt to return to the root directory
by turning around and opening the door marked '..'!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL, yet again
From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 15:49:17

Well, I answered the phone this morning, and started to log into it by 
spelling out my login_ID and password. Luckily I didn't get as far as my 
password before I realised what I was doing. 

Then this afternoon, I wondered what time it was, and looked at my screen for 
the clock - *that reflex seems to be better ingrained than glancing at my 
watch*!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Dave Woodman)
Subject: YKYBHTL
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 09:42:21 GMT

  You know you've been hacking too long when, on the way into work, you read
the sign on the back of the van in front as "Modem and Traditional 
Re-upholsterers..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Stets)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YNYBAHTLW
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 94 16:50:29 GMT

We just finished a 2-year project, a manufactoring control system
based on a client-server design. I remember one night driving
home after a week of heavy programming (on average 13 hours per day)
i was thinking about a friend I used to swap books with. I had lost
contact with her, and suddenly it occurred to me: "All the books
will fill the message pool, since I closed the message queue to her!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joe Zbiciak)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTL
Date: 2 Mar 1994 07:50:53 -0600

YKYHBHTL when you say to yourself "I pinged reality and determined our
connection to the host was down..."  (Said this morning, as I sent
wakeup packets to myself every 20 minutes or so, but was unable to
get a stable boot (even yet.)  (Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwn)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Rob Freundlich)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 2 Mar 1994 09:44:12 -0500

YKYBHTLW your alarm clock goes off and you think "great!  we have
connectivity!  Put away the OhmMeter!" (happened to a friend who's
been trying to solve a network problem for _far_ too long)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tom Salyers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 10 Mar 1994 20:50:53 GMT

  Prime example: 

 Driving home the other night, I heard this really detestable cover version
of an old Nilsson song and thought, "Wow, I really hate the way they ported
this song."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ben Combee)
Subject: YKYBHTLW - Atlanta, GA Division
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 94 07:27:46 GMT

I was driving down Piedmont Drive here in Atlanta when I saw a 
billboard for The Container Store.  It had in big letters 
"Destination: Organization".  I immediately thought "No, no, no!
RFC-822 doesn't specify a Destination field, although it would
be correct if it went 'Organization: Destination'".

Arghh!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tom Watson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 12:55:48 -0800

In article <becker.762988555@rowlf>, [email-masked] (Cloud Dancer)
wrote:
> ... you start assigning interrupt priority levels to things in your life.
> 
> I realized this when I was programming, and my girlfriend asked me how I was
> doing. It took about a minute for me to rely, and she teased me about paying
> more attention to my computer than her. I automatically replied that my brain
> had IRQ0, and my eyes IRQ1, and ears IRQ2. Only when she looked at me
> quizically did I realize what I had said. :-)
> 

It all comes to pass when you finally realize that sex is THE non-maskable
interupt.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Walter Howard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 19:48:47 GMT

You're having a great brainstorm with someone and then someone else stupid 
walks into the room and you think, "Uh oh, 300 baud".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bill Harrison)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 12 Mar 1994 01:57:12 -0500

How about this -- Have you ever had to waste time actually TALKING to 
someone?  I've wished I could grep a person for information more than once..

Of course, if the system was slow, I could always do something else while 
waiting.  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jim Little)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 14 Mar 1994 19:44:48 -0800

   I'm one of those people who has a great difficulty getting up in the
morning.  Well, this morning, I woke up about an hour early.  I glanced
at my clock in surprise, then thought to myself, "Wow, somebody must have
upgraded the firmware to v1.1."

I prompty went back to sleep.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bill Harrison)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 16 Mar 1994 23:30:28 -0500

I was watching the television, and a boring scene was on the program.  I 
wondered why the screen blanker hadn't kicked in.

I misspelled something with a pen today and my first thought was to hit 
delete..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: oldsma@mary (Manny Olds)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 17 Mar 1994 17:46:19 GMT

YKYBHTLW ... You are reading an article about comas (no, not
punctuation), and the article talks about "does not respond
to outside stimuli", and you think, "I guess they have to 
do a hard reset."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: oldsma@mary (Manny Olds)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 17 Mar 1994 17:49:20 GMT

YKYBHTLW ... You start having dreams with a text-based interface.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ash Nallawalla)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 10:16:14 +1000

In <[email-masked]> Thomas Ward Hanselman <[email-masked]> writes:
>Here's another one:

>I was walking in the nearby mall one day, when I heard someone say 'seashell'.
>The first thing that popped into my mind was UNIX's C Shell!.

Every time I see an "AI" car sticker I think of Artificial Intelligence.

For those who have not seen one, it stands for Amnesty International.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tom Salyers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Son of YKYBHTLW!
Date: 21 Mar 1994 17:38:19 GMT

  So I'm watching _Schindler's List_ the other night and notice the sign on 
Schindler's factory: "Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik" (apologies to German speakers
if I mangled that =) ) .
  The first thought in my head: "Email?  In the forties? Nahhh...." Someone 
please kill me.....=)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 21 Mar 1994 20:08:06 GMT

About a week ago, one of the elevators in our building got stuck with
the doors halfway closed on the first floor.  I informed a security
guard, he squeezed into the empty car, and sure enough, the doors were
stuck.  He then went over to the control panel and proceeded to flick
switches: no luck.  He finally turned off the elevator power and
turned it back on again.

My first comment was, ``Rebooting the elevator...''

(Scary thing is, there might actually be a PeeCee hiding somewhere
that I can't see that actually really was controlling the thing...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (TENEYCK)
Date: 22 Mar 1994 21:49:04 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYB Reading Usenet TLW:

    I was at a local bookstore when I saw the book

         Learn
   
       Microsoft
    
         Money
  
         Fast!

    And nearly flew into a blind, homicidal rage.  Or at any rate was 
mildly peeved for a moment before I realized what I was looking at.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Mar 1994 22:16:01 GMT

...you get in the elevator on your way home, pound on the button for
your office floor, and wonder why the elevator won't toggle your
location...

[Really happened to me the other day.]

Another thing that I've had happen, although it's not hack-related per
se, is that I often try to open my apartment door with my office key.
This is not so unusual, but:  sometimes I take out another office key,
look at it, tell myself ``Oops, 500, that's the lab key'', any then
try to unlock my apartment door with my regular office key...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mr Andrew John Kale)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 25 Mar 1994 14:44:33 -0600

Listening to the radio last night, I heard the news of the gas explosion in New
Jersey and thought that the newsreader said "The flames grepped through the 
building ..." before working it out about 10 secs later. Sad, I know, but 
hey ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Sean Douglas Ennis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKWYBHTL when......
Date: 29 Mar 1994 01:34:00 GMT

You read the 

		 Motor
	     Harley Davison
		 Cycles

Logo on the back of someone's jacket and think it said Motorola (sp?).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Malcolm L. Carlock)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 01:26:55 GMT

... someone leaves a Post-It note on your screen, and after reading the
    note you click on the window below it to try bringing the window into
    the foreground (i.e., in front of the note...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Lee Ann Rucker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 18 Mar 1994 21:05:30 GMT

I overheard someone saying "I'm getting antsy" (slang for nervous) and
thought "getting ANSI what?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 19 Mar 1994 02:54:41 GMT

My Aunt and Uncle raised sheep for awhile, and she used to do a bit
of part-time vet work occasionally as well.  So when I told her I
was working at an AI center, she gave me a strange look :-)

She thought I meant Artificial Insemination.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW 
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 13:13:24 GMT

A few days ago for some reason I woke up during the morning with a very bad 
case of shivering (which had nothing to do with the actual temperature, it's 
as hot as anything here even at night - I still don't know what caused it).  
Anyway, after about 15 minutes of shaking I thought "I suppose I should run 
some diagnostics on my arms and legs to find out what's wrong".  Then I 
found the flaw: "If I do find a problem, what do I do about it?  I don't 
think you can get spare limbs" (at least that proves I was still capable of 
rational thought).  Eventually I managed to get back to sleep again...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] ("Lance S. Buckley")
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 14:12:27 +0000

...
you read a letter in a magazine, from a total _moron_, and you
spend a good 30 seconds wondering which key to hit so you can
follow up with that brilliant flame which just popped into your
head.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Cloud Dancer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date:  6 Mar 94 21:15:55 GMT

... you start assigning interrupt priority levels to things in your life.

I realized this when I was programming, and my girlfriend asked me how I was
doing. It took about a minute for me to rely, and she teased me about paying
more attention to my computer than her. I automatically replied that my brain
had IRQ0, and my eyes IRQ1, and ears IRQ2. Only when she looked at me
quizically did I realize what I had said. :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas Ward Hanselman <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 15:52:24 GMT

Here's another one:

I was walking in the nearby mall one day, when I heard someone say 'seashell'.
The first thing that popped into my mind was UNIX's C Shell!.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Stephen Oakes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 6 Apr 1994 05:57:10 GMT

...you go wine tasting, and tip the left-overs into the "bit-bucket".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Lee Ann Rucker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 10 Apr 1994 19:12:44 GMT

You panic when someone says "The Sun's just gone down"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jason Bittle)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL when......
Date: 10 Apr 94 19:42:05 GMT

here's me YKWYBHTL...

I was driving with my friend, and he was talking how he took some books out of
a local public library.  I asked him if he could check out some lacrosse books
when he asked "how come you can't do it".  Before I even realized it, I
blurted out "I don't have an account there."  (meaning I don't have a
library card) Then I thought (but didn't say) I wonder if I could use archie
and ftp it..

Gotta get out more..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Eric S Somdahl)
Subject: YKYBHTL when
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 22:21:18 GMT

you comment your assembler code in C.  My prof wanted commented code, so
I obliged...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Mark Crowther)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL when
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 1994 13:03:56 GMT

.... you think "I wonder if my letter (snail mail) has reached its 
destination yet?" "Yes, it must have otherwise it would have bounced..."
[I really found myself momentarily thinking this this morning!]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Pete Fenelon)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 10 Apr 1994 20:46:01 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> Stephen Oakes wrote:
; ...you go wine tasting, and tip the left-overs into the "bit-bucket".

...you type ``telnet localhost 13'' to get the date and time after you've
been drinking too much!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael L. Ardai)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 18:03:13 GMT

This morning, I looked next to my bed and found three sneakers.  My first 
thought was 'oops - parity error'...

Then again, the reason that you often lose one sock in the washer is 
someone leaving the washing machine set on odd parity :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Guy Dawson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 11 Apr 1994 22:20:51 GMT

I think you'll find the washing machine is actually set to no-parity.
Sometimes only one sock comes out, sometimes three and sometimes two.
Four is probably not unknown!

The washing machine as a store & forward mailer?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David John Chapman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL...
Date: 11 Apr 1994 13:07:20 GMT

... when you put some chocolates on the coffe table, and someone asks if
they can have some, and you say "yeah, they're for global distribution"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Matt Hucke)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 11 Apr 1994 16:39:30 GMT

[email-masked] (David John Chapman) writes:
>
>... when you put some chocolates on the coffe table, and someone asks if
>they can have some, and you say "yeah, they're for global distribution"

Similarly, when buying food, it was private by default, but if I wanted my
roommates to know they could eat a certain item, I would inform them that
"I've declared this as public".

(this was around the time I was learning C++...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 11 Apr 1994 16:46:09 -0500

My first reaction to this was "what's the argument for chmod to grant
'eat' access to 'group'?"

..on the other hand, it _would_ be handy to be able to eat-protect the
last of the cookies before I go to work....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Gareth Evans)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 15:16:20 GMT

YKYBHTLW... you visualise normal conversations as lines of text & smileys...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Claudio Calvelli)
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL when......
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 09:50:41 GMT

This morning I walked by a hotel which advertised a "function suite".
My first thought was something on the line of:

Damn! I tried to order a pint, but waiter() returned void.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Al Crawford)
Subject: Re: YKWYBHTL when......
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 14:41:40 GMT

And lo, [email-masked] (Claudio Calvelli) spake unto the masses saying:
>
> This morning I walked by a hotel which advertised a "function suite".
> My first thought was something on the line of:
>
> Damn! I tried to order a pint, but waiter() returned void.

No, Claudio, you're *much* further gone than that, I'm afraid.

Yep, folks, today is the day that Claudio misheard the phrase "banana
yoghurt" (I was buying an afternoon snack at the time) as "segmentation
fault". This is surely a sign of a sick, sick mind.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Sheldon Smoker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 19 Apr 1994 02:18:19 GMT

Here's a good one:  I was dreaming about a Makefile one night after working
late, and as I was in the quasi-sleep-awake mode around 11:00 the next day
my throat was really dry.  I thought, "cat something | throat" would help
relieve my thrist.  Then I woke up and thought hhhmm, "throat < something"
would be more efficient... ack!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Garrett Wollman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 19 Apr 1994 23:23:52 GMT

You know you've been hacking too long when...

...you're not sure whether the meal you're eating should be called
``breakfast'' or ``dinner''.

...you decide that the Finnish name for the {\AA}land islands,
Ahvenanmaa, is superior to the Swedish one because it requires no
high-half characters.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Albert T. Hofkamp)
Subject: YKYHBHTLW
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 12:50:31 GMT

Yesterday evening, we were watching TV, and suddenly the video-image frooze, because the video tape
in the studio`s got stuck, or something like that. After 3 seconds watching, I caught myself thinking

'How do I reset the TV ?' 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (douglas craig holland)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 20 Apr 94 20:25:13 GMT

A couple days ago, we were talking about CPR and that sort of thing, and a
nurse friend of mine said that defibrilators didn't actually start the heart,
but stopped it - useful in fibrilation cases when the heart was twitching
instead of beating.  The brain then thought "Hey, the heart's not beating"
so it sends signals that start it beating properly.  The instant I heard that
I thought "Cold booting the heart."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Xiphias Gladius)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 21:35:24 GMT

[email-masked] (Juan Molinari) writes:

>[email-masked] (Dave Fischer) writes:
>>[email-masked] (Gareth Evans) writes:
>>>YKYBHTLW... you visualise normal conversations as lines of text & smileys...
>>Your fingers reflexively twitch when you want to smile.

. . . .you use :) to indicate humor in a handwritten letter.

Of course, if you are writing a handwritten letter, then I guess
you're not a real geek, which brings me to:
. . . . you've lost contact with all your friends who aren't on the
'net.  Even the guy who lives across the street from you.

. . . you realize that you've no idea what most of your friends look
like.

And, one from the vaults:
	. . . you file your income tax return in hex.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ben Coleman)
Subject: YKYBH UUCP TL when...
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 23:56:44 GMT

You spot something like "Darvin's Honey Butter" in the grocery store,
and the first thing that comes to mind is "Isn't the word order wrong?"
(alas, I know this from experience).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jim Little)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 20 Apr 1994 23:20:30 -0700

   Recently, somebody posted in another newsgroup that their CD-ROM was
'quiet as a mouse.'  I sat there a couple seconds, trying to figure out
what they meant.  Then I realized, of course!, they must be using a mouse
pad!

-Jim "So why is that a YKYBHTLW?" Little
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Jeremy P Goldman)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 15:50:18 GMT

	+--------+
	:  XP    :  
	:  OIL   :
        +--------+

and you wonder why anyone would want to cross-post oil.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John Doherty)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW
Date: 21 Apr 1994 18:59:00 -0500

I used to have an epilectic dog. When he threw a fit, one could often hear
the request, "Hey, would someone please reboot the dog?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW
Date: 22 Apr 1994 06:22:31 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
** Shell ** <[email-masked]> wrote:

>I was watching a program on BBC2 last night about the Internet. At the
>end of the program, it displayed information, which I wanted, about an
>internet site and I actually found myself thinking, for a moment, 
>`Where's the print-screen button on my remote-control?!'

One reason I got rid of my TV was that I was constantly annoyed
by not being able to backscroll or cut-n-paste.

Now that I think of it, if you see a really good show, you ought
to be able to:

s |mail friend

so that friend can watch it, too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ferris Jeffrey A)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Apr 1994 19:29:46 -0500

YKYBHTLW...
	Your .plan file takes up all the space allocated for your account...

	You have multiple e-mail accounts on different systems around the
	country...

	You have so much electromagnetic interference pouring from the
	equipment in your room, no one can use a cordless phone within 
	4 blocks...

	You change nearly every common phrase into an acronym...

	When thinking about a reaction, you visualize it in * *'s...

	The lights dim whenever you boot your computer...

	You can fluently read and write in hex...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bruce Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Apr 1994 16:18:49 GMT

YKYBHTLW you get stuck at a long traffic-controlled stoplight, and
mentally start designing a better algorithm to allow traffic through more
intelligently.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Juha-Matti Liukkonen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW
Date: 23 Apr 1994 21:29:04 +0300

When I see the blank moments on the TV, I instinctively twitch to hit
<space> <CR>...  And then wonder where the heck the keyboard is.  (My
screen lockup password is <space>, as all of you of course already
realized ;)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jukka Marin)
Subject: YKYBHTLW..
Date: 24 Apr 94 10:07:06 GMT

When you wish your wife had defined some macros for the washing machine, so
it'd be easier to set the proper temperature etc. for washing blankets..

When a video cassette has had the record-enable tab removed and you think,
"argh, this tape has been write protected"..

When your microcontroller-based thermometer has crashed and you keep putting
_way_ too much clothes on when you go out (because the display reads the
same temperature as two weeks ago when it was real cold outside)...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nicholas W. Taylor)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW....
Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 01:22:26 GMT

	...you wake up from a terrific dream and scramble to write it 
down, not because of the dancing elephants, nudes, and flying Picassos, but 
because you saw dancing with _them_ the algorithm to solve your latest 
programming project.

--Nick "and a pink horse wearing boxers" Taylor
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Stephen Oakes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 3 May 1994 01:01:18 GMT

... you're proof reading a (hard-copy) manual, and you think:
	"Shit, that phrase should be hypertexted..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Rob Freundlich)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 18:41:05 GMT

YKYBHTLW you pick up the phone and try to dial using your computer's numeric
keypad ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Jesse Oberreuter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 4 May 1994 16:05:31 -0700

YKYBHTLW:
  You start coding on a turned off keyboard & correct your mistakes.
  You wake up exhausted from an all night dream state debugging run.
  You can see everything going on on your monitor with your eyes closed.
  Your fingers are too tired to type anymore.
  After four days straight you ask a co-worker to open a bottle of liquid
     refreshment for you because you've become too weak.
  You explain your dyslexia by saying your name server's cache is out of
     sync. with its multi-dimensional vectored hash table.

  Many, many more avail on request...  BTW, these are all real & I have
witnesses :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Janice Wright)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 10:06:22 GMT

...your alarm clock goes off and your dream returns to the WWW home page.

...happened to me the other night, scary, isn't it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Tom Salyers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 4 May 1994 21:41:50 GMT

  YKYBHTLW...your girlfriend has a little makeup bag with silhouettes
of the Arc de Triomphe on it, and your first thought upon viewing it at
6 AM is "Hm....jumpers.  Wonder what those go to."
   And yes, I finish sentences with prepositions in the morning...=)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article: 35158 of alt.folklore.computers
Path: tridom!emory!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!ames!decwrl!decwrl!waikato!auckland.ac.nz!jhis01.cs.aukuni.ac.nz
From: [email-masked] (Jonathan Warwick  Histed)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 5 May 1994 05:49:26 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs13.cs.aukuni.ac.nz
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #7 (NOV)

This has actually happened to me (well, sort of)...

I had just finished a project for an AI paper - solving the 8-puzzle using
heuristic searches...being a typical hacker, I wrote the program in C rather
than use a time-saving(tm) language such as Prolog. :-)

Anyway, I finished and went to bed at 3am (yes, I know - it's early, but
I was soffering from a condition called No Coke). I woke at around 8:30am
remembering a dream in which the algorithm (in C, of course :-) was scrolling
by in the background, and I was executing the algorithm in the foreground,
complete with little 3-d models of 8-puzzles, and "pointers".

It brought new meaning to the oft' spoken lecturer phrase "you should be
able to do this in your sleep". :-)

On a similar note, I got a call from a friend last weekend, who had just been
offered a different job with his firm, which happened to be in a different
city.

He said: "I'm moving to Wellington(*)"

All I could think to say was: "So, you've had an upgrade. What version?"
Which seemed totally logical to me - he'd been upgraded to a new position,
and I wanted to know what position it was. He thought otherwise (not a
Computer Scientist)...

(*) Wellington = capital city of New Zealand, as opposed to Auckland which
is the larget city in New Zealand, and was the capital before some idiot
decided physical centralisation would be a neat idea. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Gregory T Anderson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 19:09:58 GMT

	YKYBHTLW your alarm clock goes off, and in the dream-state
that you're in, you attempt to telnet alarm.clock in order to turn it
off.

	Greg (alarm.clock connection refused)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Lon Stowell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 6 May 1994 17:35:46 -0700

When your buddy the cabinet maker says "please hand me a bastard file"
and you 'rcp /unix......."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (chris ulrich)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 7 May 1994 02:24:36 -0700

Earlier this evening, I got out of my roommate's car, and the
seatbelt failed to retract.  I asked myself if something had
happened getty and if anyone would be able to log back in to
his car.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (M. Knell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 7 May 1994 21:20:06 GMT

YKYBHTLW your regular typos (the ones you _always_ make) are so habitual that
your profile aliases 'ks 0k' to 'ls -l'. I know mine does... *grin*
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Matthew Ian TOVEY)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 11:04:54 GMT

YKYBHTLW you're coding away, after being called up for a meal, and you
insert a line:

if (dinner == cold)

before you realise what you've done.

That night, I also dreamt in C. I don't remember details, I just awoke
realising that I'd had a very well structured dream, full of "while"s and
for loops.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
From: [email-masked] (Dave Fischer)
Date: Sun, 08 May 94 23:23:17 EDT

My bedroom terminal is *right* next to my bed. So close that the
keyboards stays on the bed. It's a vt220. Untill I can replace it
with a LCD display terminal of some sort, I don't like leaving it
on while I'm sleeping.

I *do* have my doorbell wired up through the computer, but I don't
care if I don't hear the doorbell when I'm not logged in. (If I'm
awake, I'm logged in.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Andrew Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 11 May 1994 01:13:54 GMT

YKYBHTLW...

   you see someone race by on a 'ZUMA Sport Cycle' (or some such) and you
think "Wait. I killfiled that guy already. Why am I seeing him?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 10 May 94 19:42:44 PST

YKY Girlfriend's BHTLW:

	She falls asleep with her arm around your shoulder, and after a few
minutes, she starts 'typing' on you in her sleep.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael Jarvis)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 02:14:28 GMT

There have been many mornings after a all-night hacking run that I've
fumbled with my alarm clock, searching for CTRL-ALT-DEL...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Gregory T Anderson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 19:20:43 GMT

	YKYBHTLW you're reading a book, look up to see what page
you're on, and upon seeing 111, the first number you think of is 7.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: RE: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 13 May 94 15:57:05 +1300

.. you get ready to jump on someone requesting old business cards and you find
they want them for "details of drymatter sampling".

Sue "Craig who?"  Knight
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Gregory Scott Murray)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 04:40:58 GMT

YKYBHTLW when you're taking notes and when the prof goes back and adds a few
lines to a paragraph on the other side of the board, you try and insert a line
before realizing its pen and paper...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (chris ulrich)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 16 May 1994 01:46:00 -0700

Last night, I had a dream that I was trying to gain weight, and
I was doing so by recompiling my binaries with static links.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Lars R{der Clausen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 16 May 1994 21:10:10 GMT

...you end sentences with ; instead of .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Samir Mahendra)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 17 May 1994 17:31:07 -0500

One of the questions on one of my final exams required writing some
code.  After I finished writing it, I found myself staring at the
page, thinking "I wonder why the compiler's taking so long...". In my
half dazed state I think I tried to interrupt the process before I
realized where I was.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Phillip Burgess)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 06:50:45 GMT

Funny how one's brain will actually sit there trying to work these things
out...  Just today (and in a nearly fully conscious state), I was passing
by a tuxedo rental place with their front window painted in big, day-glo
letters:  "'94 PROM HEADQUARTERS!"  I was thinking it might have something
to do with upgrading one's BIOS chips.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Andres Grino Brandt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 17:55:15 CST

When you start to 'logout' from one server and 'login' to other server 
every time you turn over yourself while sleeping.

Worse even, you do 'map *.*' every time something in bed disturb you ...

Just surviving from a 3 days high fever ...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael Robert Williams)
Subject: Re:  YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 04:17:49 GMT

In my office, we keep an old Selectric typewriter for labels and forms that
don't easily fit into the printer. The other day I finished typing a form,
and then tried to press <alt><F4> to turn the machine off. I need to sleep
more and use Windoze less.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (A.W. Garrard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 21 May 1994 15:21:08 GMT

... you go to the toilet and start looking for a disc-eject button.

I stopped just short of working out that I was a Mac, and hunting for
a paperclip. I'm glad I didn't try to work out where to put it. Scary,
isn't it?

I also had one of those days when I woke up very slowly, and the room
was fuzzy because I'd gone to sleep with my contact lenses in. I'm still
trying to work out why I thought 'awful picture... need more processing
power... what do you expect from a Z80?'

But then a friend of mine when he got drunk one evening was last
heard mumbling about a stack overflow and not being able to push
his accumulator.

I think we need help.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Gregory T Anderson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 19:03:05 GMT

	When you wake up in the middle of the night because you have
to go to the bathroom, and remember that just before you woke up, the
contents of the a4 register were 'need to pee'.

	Greg "Too much 680X0 assembly" Anderson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Matt Hucke)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 21 May 1994 21:15:59 GMT

YAYKYBHTLW... 

I had a strange dream last night... I was using an automatic
bridge-building machine (place it on a riverbank and press a button).
Every time more wood or iron was needed, it would be malloc()'d.  I did
this too many times without free()'ing the old building materials, and
crashed the river, flooding the city.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Stets)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 20 May 94 23:54:11 GMT

A similar thing happened to a some days ago. I passed a car with a sign
saying "For Sale: Ford Fiesta 1.0", and I went on thinking why
anyone would buy such an early version of a car...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
From: [email-masked] (Stan Salter)
Date: Sun, 22 May 94 00:06:00 -0500

When I went into the Local Bar today they just got it a new beer that 
has just been released in Canada.  Red Dog Beer. On the centre of the 
neck label is ALT BEER.  Here I am in the bar trying to read unread 
articles.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bernd Felsche)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 02:33:18 GMT

Passes a shopfront with "Beta Travel".
I'd rather not do beta testing on holidays.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW ...
Date: 23 May 94 16:58:02 +1200

Here's a dark, dark YKYBHTLW ......

I work in a Cancer treatment clinic. My job involves setting
up Radiotherapy beams (beams of radiation aimed at a tumour
in order to kill it off).

To do this we are setting up an SGI based system in 
which a 3D model of the patient is made from CAT 
scan data. The beams are then simulated on this 
model, and if the clinicians think it's all
go then the treatment goes ahead.

	Last night I dreamed I was diagnosed as having
cancer. I went into work and there was a 3D model of me
(insides and all) being rotated, scaled etc. on the SGI.
The operators were trying to line up the beam, and the SGI
was giving them all sorts of problems. The simulation 
software was playing up, they were out of swap space, the
disk was full, the print queues were screwy ......

	So I was frantically trying to fix these problems,
due to my vested interest, and I was getting slowly weaker
and weaker. We run a VAX 11/750 as well and I kept saying "Use
the VAX, it's old, I know, no 3D pictures but it works", but
they were in love with the SGI 3D graphics and wouldn't hear
of it. They kept saying "You can fix it" and I kept on trying
frantically to wrestle with the UNIX command line ....

	Finally as I expired, slumping forward
onto the keyboard, the mouse falling from my hand,
my last thought was "God Damn UNIX Systems!". Then I woke up.

	Guns don't kill people. Graphics do.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Joel Baxter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW ...
Date: 23 May 1994 07:55:12 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:
>
>	Guns don't kill people. Graphics do.
>

Or, YKYBHTLW, at first glance, you read the above line as "Gnus don't
kill people..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.irc
From: [email-masked] (RC THEOBALD)
Subject: Re: YKYBIRCingTLW...
Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 22:50:20 GMT

David John Chapman ([email-masked]) spat out this missive:
: You know you've been IRCing too long when you sit down with friends at the
: caf and say "re."

How VERY true! My girl friend tried to wake me up one night when i was
snoring and all I said in my semi-comatose states was ,"It is set to off."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Colin Simpson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 10:38:44 GMT

When you suddenly realise while walking in a supermarket that it is more
efficient to count in binary upon your fingers.

Thereby allowing you to count upto 1023 on your fingers !!!
Or you could try two's compliment and get negative numbers 
Ahh ahhh !!! I've been Hacking too long !!!!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Alasdair Grant)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 20:42:30

... when you find yourself looking in the RFC index to see which
RFC "RFC 822" is defined in.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 May 94 13:04:54 EDT
From: [email-masked] (Dave Fischer)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...

[email-masked] (Colin Simpson) writes:

>Thereby allowing you to count upto 1023 on your fingers !!!
>Or you could try two's compliment and get negative numbers 

"I flashed him the number 4 and he got all pissed off. I dunno why."

I only go up to 512, cause I use a parity bit in noisy public places.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Mary Bridson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YAYKYBHTLW...
Date: 28 May 94 00:25:51 GMT

...you crack up in laughter upon reading (in someone's .sig):

               LOAD "VMUNIX",8,1

...and then begin thinking about it seriously. =)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Seppo J Niemi)
Newsgroups: alt.irc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBIRCingTLW...
Date: 28 May 1994 22:01:27 GMT

A couple of years ago when I was deep into mudplaying, I was
constantly saying things like 'open door', 'enter room' or 'get
<object>' to myself. Sometimes when I had to put up with an annoying
person, I'd say 'kill <person> with sword'; fortunately I didn't have
a sword at hand  ;-)

Nowadays I work as a system administrator and sometimes, when I meet
assholes or just plain stupid people, I wish I could just say 'su root'
and 'kill -9' - or at least 'kill -15'. I guess that would make me a true
'Bastard operator from Hell'...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Jesse Oberreuter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 31 May 1994 13:03:10 -0700

     You're TRNing in your dreams and end up patching the video scroll
routine in asm to speed it up.

     Last night was awful!  I was hacking in my sleep, minding my own
buisness when suddenly my file manager stopped accepting standard file
names!  The only things it would take were all upper case, XXXXXXXX.XXX
style DOS names!  My mind's conclusion was that I had used up all of the
other possible "normal" file names, and these dreaded combinations were
all that were left!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Weber Tracy L)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 1 Jun 1994 04:21:44 GMT

Aaaahh.... I once had a dream that I had a child, and I wanted to name
him Jonathan Michael, but the doctor said that wouldn't fit on the birth
certificate, and to keep my names to the 8.3 standard... I woke up in a
cold sweat.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Koen Holtman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 1 Jun 1994 16:36:55 +0200

...when you read the string 

  f@%$ck

in a flame message and the first word that comes to mind is fsck.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (Bernd Felsche)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 03:57:59 GMT

Fax machine rings, answers...

You type "who" to find out where the fax is coming from...

And wonder why it doesn't show up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Mark Robinson)
Subject: You know....
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 16:37:44 GMT

YKYBHTLW...

You ask someone if they want 'tea eor coffee' because they can't have both..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Petteri Jäntti)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 08:37:32 GMT

I woke up one morning shocked (remembering bits and pieces of the dream just
before waking up). In the dream I did hear the alarm clock and I was desperately
trying to telnet to a port on it. It was terrible. I knew I remembered the
address of the alarm clock right, yet could connect to it to turn it off. I
must have tried many different routings in my attempts to access the bastard.
Finally I woke up and discovered that I would be late again.

Hmm, too much configuring messes up your head. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Seth J. Morabito)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKY *REALLY* BHTLW...
Date: 3 Jun 1994 23:48:29 -0400

You know you've REALLY been hacking too long when...

Ugh. This JUST happened to me about 10 minutes ago, resulting in
my nearly collapsing on the floor laughing...

I, like most geeks my age, have a Casio Data Bank watch.  One of the spiffy
ones with apointments, phone numbers, stop watch and timer, and of 
course a calculator.  Well, I've been using the timers and calculator
more than usual today, and I just now noticed that the stop watch
was still going long after it's services had been called for.  So I stopped
it.  Then it occured to me that the count-down timer and calculator might 
also still be going, and I'd better check.

And so Help me, at that one moment I had every intention of typing
'ps -aux' on it's tiny little keyboard and seeing what processes
I had going.

When the realization of what I had been thinking hit, it hit hard.
It's been one of those days.

Ugh.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.geek
From: [email-masked] (James W. Birdsall)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 19:07:54 GMT

   ...when you're just sitting there because the network is toast and
a phone in a nearby office rings and you wonder how the hell that's
possible with the network down...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Gregory T Anderson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 04:10:29 GMT

	I had this great dream last night where I was at a grocery
store, and I was gnna get some cash from that ATM, and after putting
my card in, I proceeded to telnet to a favorite BBS and I remember
seeing a user list, and then my mom came over and asked me not to use
the ATM for that when there was a line of people behind me.  I was
trying to type logout, but those little ATM-keys really suck, so it
took me a couple of times.

	Greg "Spends too much time with telnet" Anderson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Rick Bruch)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 8 Jun 1994 20:25:25 GMT

Speaking of dreams, I had a good one a few nights ago.

[Warning:  Potentially offensive sexual material ahead!]

In this dream, I was in bed in my old dorm room and there was this hot 
sorority girl in the other bed.  I knew she wanted me, so I got out of 
my bed and into hers.  We started kissing and stuff, then, as the final 
act of foreplay before we started bumping uglies, I took a 5 1/4" floppy 
disk and inserted and withdrew it from her mouth repeatedly.  In the 
dream I thought that the disk inside the plastic sheath was an erogenous 
zone for her...

I'm not making this up, I really had this dream.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Stan Salter)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu,  9 Jun 94 23:12:00 -0500

I was at the Car dealer today and I noticed a spray can sitting beside 
their computer.  it read EMAIL MOTUR.  I thought it was a new way of 
sending messages until I saw the other side in english 'ENGINE 
ENAMEL'.  Then again maybe I was right the first time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Matthew Ian TOVEY)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 02:21:06 GMT

I was walking past a building the other day when I noticed how shabby it
looked: Bricks painted black, and peeling all over.

Having spent the previous x days doing script-based ray tracing, I
immediately looked for the texture setting to change it to something more
appropriate...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Ben Gamble)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 12 Jun 1994 07:58:26 -0500

... you see "Subject: Re: Emailing Exes" and think, "Well, there's
uuencode, and btoa."

And it turns out to be about sending email to your former lovers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Sean D. Ennis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 14 Jun 1994 05:04:08 GMT

..you're sitting in the pizza-place, having a conversation with a group of 10
or 12 friends, and you hear a modem (cash register uploading the night's
recipts to the head office) make it's charateristic noise, and more than
half of you immidiatly recognize the sound and stop talk in so that
they can figure out what baud rate it's connecting at.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Robbie Westmoreland)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 20:29:47 GMT

... you see an announcement that Boeing has just released its 777, and
your first thought is that it's world executable.  Then you realize that
all of Boeing's planes have been world executable; they're just changing
the group.  It takes a few seconds of wondering why anyone would want to
have something world read/write/execute, but wouldn't give the same
priviledges to the group before you realize that these are planes, not
files or directories...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Neil Dobson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 15 Jun 94 13:31:16 GMT

....the morning after a night spent figuring out how to write postscript
programs with a vague notion of reverse Polish and an example file, you
hear the garbage truck outside, and struggle to remember whether 
'garbage truck' is a singular or a binary operator, and whether there
is enough on the stack for it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: YKYBNettingTLW
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:22:56 GMT

I just saw an ad for another major Canadian beer company trying to pretend
it's a microbrewery.  This time, it's Molson, and the beer they are promoting
so heavily without mentioning anywhere that it's from Molson is called "Red
Dog".  The ad goes on to say that it's a cross between an ale and a lager,
what they call an alt.beer.  Well, actually they wrote "Alt beer", but I read
it as alt.beer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 16 Jun 1994 15:31:37 GMT

...you are watching the news, and there's this image insert in the
corner that looks interesting, so you reach over to grab the mouse
for a FullZoom.

PS. One day this will be possible, hopefully...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Roger Murray)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 23:21:58 GMT

This morning I looked at my wardrobe and realized that most of my shirts were
red, green and blue.  Just before deciding to buy some shirts I had seen the
previous day, I thought for a split second "Why not just convert these shirts
to CMYK so I could have four colors instead of only three?"

At least I didn't ask the salesperson where the PANTONE-colored shirts were
when I got to the store.  :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hwolfe@corona (Herb Wolfe)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 11:25:49 GMT

You hear part of a car commercial mentioning XR7 and wonder why, when
X11R6 was just released...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (David Maddison)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 20 Jun 1994 05:20:18 GMT

You have an itch and you try to move the mouse pointer off the 
screen so you can scratch it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Chris Kush)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 16:05:47 GMT

	You have a weekend of moving crap into your new apartment ahead, and
reflect in all seriousness that it would be a hell of a lot easier just to
move the REFERENCES to the boxes than the boxes themselves.

Chris "Hey Dad, give me a hand with &refrigerator" Kush
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ian Young)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 01:14:06 GMT

When, in that drowsy state just before you fall asleep, your thoughts
stray to a girl you just met and you think: "yes, but is she windows
compatible?" 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ian Young)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 01:19:04 GMT

You're doing some drafting (on paper) and you mess up and want to erase
something, and you reach for your mouse to use "undo"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Janice Wright)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 05:14:04 GMT

...you're sitting in front of your terminal with the manual for the latest
upgrade of your favorite software, and you reach out to hit the space bar
to see the next page of text...

Stop the hard drive, I want to get off!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Dave Woodman)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 08:30:53 GMT

You half wake-up about 45 minutes before the alarm is due, receive a bladder
alert, and think setbuf(stream, bladbuf) before going back to sleep.

And yes, I've already thougnt of the "flush()" based jokes, and all their 
relatives! No bad jokes are needed on stream I/O, either.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (David McNett)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 15:31:12 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Dave Woodman wrote:

>You half wake-up about 45 minutes before the alarm is due, receive a bladder
>alert, and think setbuf(stream, bladbuf) before going back to sleep.
>
>And yes, I've already thougnt of the "flush()" based jokes, and all their 
>relatives! No bad jokes are needed on stream I/O, either.

I guess that would make sex "burst mode" I/O.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 21 Jun 1994 14:47:44 GMT

... the microwave oven has finished its program, so the light goes
off, and you wonder which button you should push to get out of the
screen saver.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 21 Jun 1994 14:49:32 GMT

... the dishwasher makes too much noise, so you try to figure out a
way to pipe its output to /dev/nul to make it quiet.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Doug McNaught)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Jun 1994 15:33:41 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han) writes:

>... the dishwasher makes too much noise, so you try to figure out a
>way to pipe its output to /dev/nul to make it quiet.

Hey, you're already doing that! The 'output' is the sudsy water that
goes into the drain (/dev/null). The noise is standard error, so
that's what you would want to redirect.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Jun 1994 11:54:19 GMT

... you have the Webster's installed in your system, and want to
look up a word (say, aardvark), and type "man aardvark".

... you look for words related to "vitamin", so you type "apropos
vitamin".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jay "Thierry" Han)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Jun 1994 14:28:42 GMT

... you're programming that stupid VCR and you wish you could modify
its .Xdefaults or .emacs or maybe a .vcrrc file to change the menu
layout.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Bill Bradford)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Jun 1994 18:41:07 -0500

You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long When:
 
A friend tells you, "My phone number is xxx-3270" and you think,
 "Wow... IBM terminal.."
 
You change your PIN to an Intel CPU number designation so it's easy to
 remember.
 
You Know You've Been Playing DOOM Too Long When:
 
The first time you walk into a building, you think, "Wow... This would
 make a great PWAD level.." or "WAIT a minute!  How'd they do THAT with
 the current 1.2 engine?"
 
(All of these are true, esp. the YKYBPDTLW ones; a friend and I spend our
 spare time in our 8am class designing WADs..)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Sam Hartman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 22 Jun 1994 19:35:33 -0500

	about a month before graduating from high school, I was at an award
presentation banquit.  They told us all to line up.  I turned to the person
next to me, who I also knew was interested in computers, and said, "Should
we settle for bubble, or try to explain quick sort?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Matthew Crosby)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 09:34:27 GMT

You know you've been wiring nets too long:
Someone asked me today where someone else was, and I answered with the subnet
number of the lab he was in rather then the name--"I think he's in 202 or
maybe 250." (as opposed to room 1-5 or whatever)   Whats scary is that the 
other person didn't need me to clarify and it took me about ten minutes before 
I realised what I was doing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Roth Mark Daniel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 23 Jun 1994 13:11:37 GMT

...you are thinking of accepting a summer position involving some
documentation work, and you think, "Yeah, but would that look good on
my man page?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Miguel Carrasquer)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 13:43:48 GMT

YKYBUseNettingTLW...
the sports commentator on TV makes a completely
bogus remark on the proper way to pronounce the
name of Romanian soccer-star Gheorghe Hagi,
and you wonder why there's no SHIFT-F on your
remote, to really flame him to pieces....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [email-masked] (Michael J. Edelman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 23 Jun 1994 18:08:34 GMT

...you're driving home from the office late at night, and you're puzzled as to
why not only doesn't the brightness knob on the dashboard change the brightness
of the image in front of you, but there's no contrast knob, either...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Veal)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 24 Jun 1994 12:44:56 GMT

When doing some networks work and someone starts talking about the
off-side rule in football (Soccer!). I start trying to work out
which layer in the OSI model the off-side rule should be.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Dell)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 03:25:32 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, Veal <[email-masked]> wrote:
>When doing some networks work and someone starts talking about the
>off-side rule in football (Soccer!). I start trying to work out
>which layer in the OSI model the off-side rule should be.....

And you worry that someone might try to convert the Sweden vs Russia
game to greyscale... (why are they all wearing white?)...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Alan Braggins)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 09:17:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Sam Hartman) writes:
>   presentation banquit.  They told us all to line up.  I turned to the person
>   next to me, who I also knew was interested in computers, and said, "Should
>   we settle for bubble, or try to explain quick sort?"

You see this post and think "Why didn't he allow for the parallisation?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Kip Crosby)
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 18:04:00 GMT
Subject: YKYBHTLW...

I was on the phone listening to an answering-machine tape, and part
of what it said was important, and I stared helplessly at the
keypad thinking "oh gawd, how can I capture this to the printer."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andres Grino Brandt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 18:11:40 CST

When you begin to think about kill files for your phones and door's bell.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 26 Jun 1994 02:03:49 GMT

...you want to demonstrate the wierd ringer on a new phone, and dial 127-0-0-1.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ian Goldberg)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Sun, 26 Jun 1994 22:52:21 GMT

I was reading a book today (yes! On paper!) and it mentioned Descartes.
I thought, "Shouldn't that be all lowercase?"
(descartes is the name of one of the major computers around here...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Van Deun Dirk)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 27 Jun 1994 19:13:13 GMT

You read that the Greek historian Hekataios boasted to have a god 16
generations up in his family tree, and you think: such a round number,
that must be bogus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (David Policar)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 28 Jun 1994 08:48:54 GMT

One of your friends just gets to US, and while going to your home from
the airport he sees a Getty gas station and says "Wow, I think I have
been using Unix for too long..." and everyone on the car laughs
without any further explanation... :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tim Pietzcker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL...
Date: 13 Jul 1994 08:10:02 GMT

...when you read rot13'd articles and don't even notice it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bernd U Meyer)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 12:47:43 GMT

[email-masked] (Tim Pietzcker) writes:

>...when you read rot13'd articles and don't even notice it...

... when you read the sentence "he looked at the unclouded sky" in a Clarke
novel, and misread it as "he look at the uuencoded sky"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]  (Perry Rovers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994  16:59 met

When you're on holiday in Spain and seeing a fire extinguisher
with the brandname 'Unix', you think: huh?
 
I didn't know that brand existed, maybe it's old, but one wonders
... anyone ever hacked a fire extinguisher?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Mike Loseke)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 16:13:45 GMT

When you finish paging through the new copy of your favorite magazine
and think to yourself "Why didn't I just grep for what I was looking
for instead of catting the whole thing?".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Aric TenEyck)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKY*R*BHTLW...
Date: 21 Jul 1994 01:17:03 GMT

I work at McDonald's.  We have a number of different beepers, buzzers, and
so on to tell us when the food is done cooking.  About two weeks ago, I
transfered from a different McDonald's.  At that one, the meat steamers
made a high pitched beeping noise when they needed more water.  At the one
I work at now, the fryers for McNuggets(tm), fish, and so on make the same
noise when it is time to take the food out.  I have had problems with 
this, because when I heard the noise in the background, I would usually 
ignore it, because the steamers still have plenty of water when they 
start beeping for more.  However, taking the food out of the fryers is a 
fairly high priority thing.  To solve this problem, I just told myself 
that I needed to set up the interrupt vector for that beeping to point to 
the fryer area of my brain.  The really sad part is that it worked.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael McGovern)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 06:27:05 GMT

	You change your E-mail address, and begin breifly worrying about 
leaving someone with an invalid pointer.  :> 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hwolfe@corona (Herb Wolfe)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 13:48:21 GMT

When, while on vacation, sitting in a computer lab at a school you don't go to
and don't work at, you get asked computer questions. twice. in the same night.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Wilson Roberto Afonso)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 02:33:39 GMT

hwolfe@corona (Herb Wolfe) writes:
>When, while on vacation, sitting in a computer lab at a school you don't go to
>and don't work at, you get asked computer questions. twice. in the same night.

I think that what shows that YBHTL is your presence in a computer lab at a
school you don't go to and don't work at *while on vacation*.  You being
asked computer questions is irrelevant here...

-Wilson (who already moved to the following article twice while trying to
turn to the next page on a manual by hitting space (in the last 5 min.))
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Janice Wright)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 05:09:32 GMT

A friend and I were studying, and she had a No. 2 lead pencil in her
hand. After a little while she asked me: "Do you have a digital pencil on
you? I can't think properly with an analog one." I handed her a
mechanincal pencil and we both went back to work, not thinking it the
least bit strange...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (David Hyams)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 09:51:27 GMT

... when you're in the middle of a discussion, and you have to stop
to execute the SIGPISS signal catcher.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Morten Welinder)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 12:51:12 GMT

>... when you're in the middle of a discussion, and you have to stop
>to execute the SIGPISS signal catcher.

... when you receive a SIGPISS signal, but you're in a context where
that signal is blocked.

... when you come across a book that actually starts with chapter 0
and you just don't notice.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] ()
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 13:56:36 GMT

...when you're trying to link your roomate's socks to /dev/null so they don't
fill up the living room floor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joshua M. Burgin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 22 Jul 1994 16:47:30 GMT

....When someone on TV says "Go ahead, You're Allowed" And you suddenly
wonder, since when did Kibo start appearing on TV?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (William Turner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL.....
Date: 22 Jul 1994 16:40:16 +0100

When you are on a bus/train, and you mentally
stack people as they get on & it annoys
you if they don't get off in the reverse order :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Voirol)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: 22 Jul 94 08:58:45 CET

...you read an ad from a kitchen appliances supplier advertising
   "The kitchen steamer" and immediately ask yourself what on earth
   anyone would want to back up to tape in a kitchen.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Voirol)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Date: 24 Jul 94 18:51:39 CET

One from my C64-days:

Whenever I come upon a word that ends with a $-sign, for example a system table
on our mainframe that's called tgp$, I pronounce it tgp-string. In my heaviest
64-hacker-times, I couldn't even parse prices in American catalogs correctly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ben Cottrell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Jul 1994 22:42:44 GMT

Now (another 7 years down the line) whenever I see a * (indicating a footnote)
I parse it as "pointer" and wonder why it doesn't come *before* the word.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John William Chambless)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL (parsing real life)
Date: 23 Jul 1994 09:03:09 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>,
Frank Wales <[email-masked]> wrote:

>ObYKYBHTL: I plugged a phone into our new flat's phone socket, then 
>waited for the first of the spooled phone calls to come through...
>
My first reaction to this:

  ps ax |grep phoned

YKYB using a mdeom at home TL when:

The other day at work, I was logged into one of the Suns from
my PC when a co-worker picked up the phone on my desk. I pancicked,
thinking, "now I'll drop carrier!".

Fortunately, the phones aren't on our ethernet.
(Wish they were, they'd work more often!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Morten Sickel)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL (parsing real life)
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 16:09:26

YKYB working too long to have your modem working when:

Biking home from work, I discoverd a fast approaching car when I was about to 
cross a street. I thought "It doesn't matter if i chrash, I'm using error 
correction"........   

As I am posting this, I suddenly recogniced the difference between matter and 
information transfer......
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Al Wesolowsky)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL (parsing real life)
Date: 25 Jul 1994 14:42:50 GMT

My snailbox on Saturday had a big envelope with a printed message
congratulating me on being a "New GUI Owner." Thinking that perhaps
Bill Gates had decided to give me a slice of Chicago's profits, I
opened up the envelope to learn that it concerned the University's new
Group Universal Insurance policy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Simon Dawson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 94 22:24:01 +1200

When you prefer to query someone 4000 miles away about the
meaning of a word, coz he knows, rather than get up and
walk 4 metres to the bookshelf to check one of those RL
dictionaries..

When you realize you haven't called friends for weeks, because
everytime you remember, it's 3am, or 3pm and they're asleep
or at work, so you start mentally debugging a system for
queueing messages, to automatically call them at a specific
time.. before you realise it's supposed to be interactive, 
and you don't have the speech h/w or s/w...

When you are 'trying' to have sex, and she says no, and you
think.. "I'll just take a copy while this version is being used
by the sleep process, work with that instead, then merge the
differences when I've finished"..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ingvar Mattsson)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 08:52:22 GMT

... when, due to grave misunderstandings, a girl you are really fond
of, stops seeing you and you think "Uh? Connection refused from
foreign host"...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBRAFCWY*S*HBHTLW...
From: [email-masked] (Ross Smith)
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 94 21:36:58 GMT+12

(That's "You know you've been reading alt.folklore.computers when you
*should* have been hacking too long when...")

... You look at a book whose cover prominently displays "Bjarne Stroustrup"
and "C++", and your first thought is, "Well, where's the *rest* of his Geek
Code?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Morten Welinder)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 07:25:40 GMT

...when you think of an infant's cry as a non-maskable interrupt
request, quickly suspend your current task, and rush to serve.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (James Acker)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL (parsing real life)
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 13:18:00 GMT

	Taking a test in transistor theory using an unprogrammable
	scientific calculator. 2 hours of constantly having to "hold
	my place" as I had to convert milliamps, millivolts, etc..
	If someone in class sneezed at the wrong time I'd sigh and start
	at teh beginning again, calculating measurements at various
	points in a transistor circuit.

		After the test, on my way to the car I glance at my
	watch and think.....0945 "now is that amps or volts??"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Douglas P. Shapter x329)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 26 Jul 1994 09:09:38 -0400

you see a license plate 'RFC-023' and say 'Oh, that's an early
one.' (Were they called IEN's back then? )
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (K. Neuwirth)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTL
Date: 26 Jul 1994 19:39:50 GMT

When you talk about crepes ("grep"s) and don't notice that the topic of
the conversation is food, not unix. 
  Or you walk on the street, notice a license plate BASH 1 and think
that that guy must be a big GNU fan (no, he is working for a company
whose name begins with Baschek or something). 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Stano Meduna)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTL
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 07:51:42 GMT

.. when you call a lift before you lock your home door, so the
I/O is in progress while you are working on the door.

.. when you are rewiring the office and think of how good it
would be to replace old yellow cable with some coffee-distributing
device.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (William Turner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBRNNTLW.....
Date: 27 Jul 1994 10:19:23 +0100

...you read a sheet of paper, and then remind yourself
to mark it as unread so you can read it again later...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Aaron Block)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKTYHBWTLW...
Date: 27 Jul 94 13:03:30 GMT

You Know That You have Been Webbing To Long When...

Everywhere you see an underline word or sentence you want to click on
it to follow the link.  Even on TV and in the newspaper.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Helge Moulding)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 1994 17:42:52 GMT

YKYBHTL when...
You hope someone asks you about your new hard drive at social gatherings.
The dentist bugs you about WP questions while cleaning your teeth.
Your D&D game is interrupted by lengthy discussions of C++ classes.
You subscribe to a comp. news server.
It's five am when you look up from your PC and realize it's time to go to work.
Computer games? I don't have room for no steenking computer games!
You take a computer book along to read in case you get bored.
All your friends program computers.
You tell your daughter to study BASIC starting in chapter 12, because the
previous chapters are too simple. (Your daughter thinks you're nuts...)
The only family member who doesn't bug you with computer questions is
your old man, and that's because HBHEL...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Randy Kirchhof)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 02:13:10 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Douglas P. Shapter x329 <[email-masked]> wrote:
>you see a license plate 'RFC-023' and say 'Oh, that's an early
>one.' (Were they called IEN's back then? )

Or you see any license plate beginning with an "R" and try to
parse the sendmail rewrite rule off of it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Scott A. Ashley)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 28 Jul 1994 07:53:40 GMT

You're in the Gymnasium and want to know
what athletic shoes have to do with
Application Specific Integrated CircuitS.

..But then, I habitually use locker # 486
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Simon Slavin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBRNNTLW.....
Date: 28 Jul 1994 13:15:23 GMT

You hear the TV say "We're Animany
                     Dave DeLaney
                     Animaniacs"
and look up real quick wondering what picture they used with the name.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Daniel John Lee Parnell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTL
Date: 29 Jul 1994 04:06:18 GMT

... when you see a sign that says "New developments in Hepititus C" and
think it is advertising a programming seminar..
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Sheldon Smoker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 29 Jul 1994 06:08:26 GMT

OBYNYBHTLW: Your friend moves in upstaris in your apartment bldg, he is
logged in, you want to talk to him, you do 'talk friend' he comes 
downstairs and you say "hey, get back up there I'm trying to talk 
to you!"  :-)  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Simon Slavin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 29 Jul 1994 13:13:36 GMT

... when the lab technician for the department's BBC EcoNet says
"That jerk of a lecturer you had last term changed the administration password
 and then forgot his new one.  I heard you'd hacked the system ... would you
 mind changing it back for me ?"
and you have, and you don't, so you do.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Samir Mahendra)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBRNNTLW.....
Date: 31 Jul 1994 23:53:37 -0500

OBYKYBHTLW: While playing "Magic: The Gathering" with some friends for
the first time, you come across an Interrupt card, and with no further
explanation, you look at each other and start laughing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (acb)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBRNNTLW.....
Date: 1 Aug 1994 06:07:42 GMT

ObYKYBRNNTLW: You read John Bell's essay on nonlocality and can't help
but laugh whenever you see the word "beable".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Wilson Roberto Afonso)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 1994 06:14:50 GMT

... you want to throw away an empty can of Coke, and your first instinct
is looking at the wastebasket icon on your screen (happened to me; I even
reached for the mouse before I noticed what I was doing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (James Michael Chacon)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 30 Jul 1994 22:11:52 -0500

Or you are working along and notice the screen is a bit bright and while
moving between windows remember the controls at the bottom of the monitor.

So, I tried to move my mouse down to them and turn them :-)
After smacking it into the bottom of the screen 2 or 3 times, I felt a little
stupid :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Walter Roberson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 1 Aug 1994 05:36:25 GMT

You know you've been hacking too long when...

= You are thinking about different covers which have been done
for a particular song, and you mentally refer to them as different
"implimentations" of the song.

= You realize that you've left the milk out all night, and think,
"No problem, it's just the instantiation of the milk-carton class.
I'll apply a destructor to it, garbage collect, and CONS up a new one!"

= You don't go sit around cafes late at night reading poetry, but you
do go sit around cafes late at night reading ANSI C, POSIX, or C++ books.

= You smile when you notice that the cafe not only has an listing
for "soft drinks" on its menu, but also has a separate listing for Jolt Cola.

= You wonder why the cafe menu unfolds instead of being pull-down or
pop-up or roll-over.

= A software company you deal with snail-mails out a new 12-page manual
to all of its users, but deliberately skips you, figuring that you will
understand the software completely the first time you look at it,
so they might as well save the postage. In fact, they haven't sent
you any manuals for years, as the first time they sent you a manual,
you corrected it and sent it back to them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (acb)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL (spontaneous coding)
Date: 1 Aug 1994 05:59:23 GMT

YKYBHTLW......

	..... you spontaneously compose code in your head for no reason.

	..... when that code is assembly language.

Happened to me last night. In the shower, I found myself coding a
LALR(0) parser in 6502 assembly language. Don't ask me why.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jodi Giannini)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 26 Jul 1994 18:21:18 -0400

Today someone in the lab came up to me, and said

'Do you have any applications?'

And I began to rattle them off, rapid fire:

'lotusquattroprowordperfectexceleratorharvardgraphicswindows...'

when he interrupted and said 'No, I mean *job* applications.'

I very sheepishly went into the office, and got him one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Travis Corcoran)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBRNNTLW.....
Date: 01 Aug 1994 17:35:14 GMT

ObYKYBHTLW: you discover Emacs' abbrev minor-mode, use it
enthusiastically for a week or two, and then go to write something
with a pen and paper for the 1st time in weeks ( this in itself may be
a "YKYBHTLW..." ...) and are shocked when the "w" that you've just
written does not expand into "with".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Victor Eijkhout)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 01 Aug 1994 20:54:03 GMT

A friend and I used the following soundless communication during
classical music concerts. If we thought a certain performer stank, we
would (in perfect silence) make the gesture of press index finger
down, move hand over to the right, lift index finger. When I first
invented this, I had to draw a picture of a screen with a trash can on
the back of the program to tell my friend what I was trying to convey.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Stets)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 94 22:36:47 GMT

Last night I watched my mother lock the kitchen door when she
opened the refrigerator, because the kitchen door would slam
into the fridge door when someone would walk in unexpectedly.
(Yes, I know there's a bug in the kitchen layout...)

Anyway, I was wandering whether there was any way to give a signal
outside the kitchen door indicating the fridge was open.
And my first thought was: Why don't we just place a copy of the
fridge light outside the kitchen door?
(But I soon realized that a copy was not the right way. You'd
need a link to the light. :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter L. Buschman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW.....
Date: 2 Aug 1994 08:26:24 -0600

YKYBHTL...when

	1. The sysadmin names his sun after you.
	2. New users are convinced your last name is root.
	3. You start to believe your last name is root.
	4. You start to believe your own reputation.
	5. Your programs make sense when read.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Colin J. Dunn)
Subject: YKYBHTLW (yet again)...
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 15:01:03 GMT

You know when you've been hacking too long when...

1. You meet a smart person and want to pop in a disk and download
   his/her brain.

2. You see one of those tops from a yogurt container that is clear in
   the middle, with a blue ring around the outside, and think that it
   is a write-enable ring for a 9-track tape...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Merlin)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 16:20:11 GMT

YKYBHTLW - Several people at work ask you questions at about the same 
time and you point to each in turn and say, "IRQ 1, IRQ 2, IRQ 3, ..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jens Stark)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL...
Date: 1 Aug 1994 16:44:22 +0200

...Your wife has almost finished to put the laundry on the line when she
yells "D***! We've got a parity error with the socks !" and you walk
over to the washing machine to find the missing one...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Lon Stowell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW (yet again)...
Date: 2 Aug 1994 16:57:01 -0700

>You know when you've been hacking too long when...

  You hear the phrase "X Terminal" and can't decide whether
  you are hearing about a device or the O.J. Simpson story.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Phillip Burgess)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 22:25:36 GMT

... you're washing a car (someone else's, of course), and you think to
yourself, "this is the 90's, surely someone makes a cordless hose by now."

... you think for a moment that front lawns would only have to be about
two feet deep if they'd just do it hydroponically, stacked on shelves.

... you figure that flat-panel displays for desktop computers will never
catch on, because then people wouldn't have a place to put action figures.

... you install rear-view mirrors on your monitor so you can see people
coming and hide the fact that you're nn'ing instead of doing serious work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joshua M. Burgin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 4 Aug 1994 02:56:33 GMT

... You install a second phone line (or third) not because you get so
many calls, but because you want to remain logged in permanently and
still be able to make/receive voice calls 

Bonus points:  You make/receive such voice calls, and continue to read
NN, FTP, etc.

Super Prize: You do the above, AND live alone, AND rarely receive more
than 5 calls per day.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mika Leivo)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL
Date: 31 Jul 1994 11:17:44 GMT

When you see somebody you don't know making a mess of what he is doing
and you think: Hmm, that must be a Micro$oft product.
And realice only minutes later that :
A) Micro$oft doesn't make people
B) If it did, they wouldn't live / walk for very long.

When you tend to tell your friends:
If only I got a couple of hours with the source-code of world,
preferably in C, and a quick recompile/reboot.

And on the same lines:
You make wrong assertions, and then think:
This is a bug in a systems-program, I must fix it and have a reboot
And then you do just that.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andrew John Shelton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 5 Aug 1994 02:29:34 GMT

When looking at a streetsign that I hoped pointed to a street 
running across the street I wanted.

	"It doesn't matter that the names don't match,
	there's still another level of indirection"

I don't know if indirection is even the correct term, but I could
almost see the * .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jct@embed1e (John C. Tenyson)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 13:50:34 GMT

YKYBHTLW...

   You are given a project that is supposed to take all semster and you
   learn the language and write the project the night before and still ace
   the project....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Rob Freundlich)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 16:44:26 GMT

Someone has set up a "movie-phone" in the Boston area (333-FILM),
where you can call in and find out where movies are playing, what times,
and reserve tickets via credit card.  The most common way of using it is
to type the first three letters of the movie title on your phonepad, and
go from there.

Yesterday, "Clear and Present Danger", the new Tom Clancy movie, opened
here and a friend and I wanted to go see it.  She dialed up 333-FILM on
her cellular phone, listened for minute, punched in three numbers, hung
up, turned to me and said "they don't have it."  I asked if she had typed
the three letters right, and she showed me on the phone's display that it
said 257.  Took us both a minute to realize that "Clear" is *not* spelled
CLR to most people!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Danny R. Faught)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL
Date: 5 Aug 1994 09:49:45 -0500

YKYBHTLW you run into an acquaintance at work who asks "How's it
going?" and you answer "Too busy, I wish I could fork myself."

And it takes you a while to figure out that that could be interepreted
at least three different ways.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ian Young)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 6 Aug 1994 22:06:27 GMT

somebody writes "because it's winter here in .au"
and you know where .au is......
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 7 Aug 1994 01:17:00 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ian Young) writes:
>somebody writes "because it's winter here in .au"
>and you know where .au is......

...when you read the above and think that somebody is complaining that
the cold weather is interfering with their sound card performance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Micha van der Burg)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sun, 07 Aug 1994 15:07:00 +0100

When you read a local 'For Sale' ng and read a subject "FS : Jaguar XJ12"
and you think "Wow, They sell those 64-bit gamecomp. from atari 2nd hand
already??". You quickly read the message and discover that the ad is about a
13 year old brittish car called Jaguar...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (David K. Bryant)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 04:36:15 GMT

You glance at the cover of a Basia CD and your mind registers BASICA.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kirrily Robert - SINN Editor)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL
Date: 9 Aug 1994 23:47:35 GMT

A friend was complaining yesterday about lack of sleep... "But you
had at least an hour's more downtime than I did!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Cristobal Joseevich Junta)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 11 Aug 1994 12:30:19 GMT

...when you think "gang bang" is a Scheme function
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 11 Aug 94 14:41:22 +0100

...When your modem breaks, your college computer centre closes at 2030, its
past midnight, youve consumed the best part of a bottle of mezcal, and you
just HAVE to get a mail message out.
PIRs, pressure pads and reed relays cant stop a determined hacker weaned on Z80 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Slakko)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 12 Aug 1994 03:19:31 GMT

YKYBHTLW...
You are taking notes in a lecture.  You stop highlighting before the last
full stop because you think "If I highlight the full stop, the cursor will be
on highlight and I'll have to turn it off from the menu."
Only took me about 0.25 seconds to notice, but still AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

Duncan "M-tp" Richer
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Sean D. Ennis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 12 Aug 1994 13:33:29 GMT

You're listening to the radio before you go to sleep, and a particularily
annoying anouncer comes on to tell you his oppinions on life, what the next
piece (of music) will be, and it's entire history - and you think there's
got to be a way to parse out these headers and just get the name of the
piece.  I like the music, otherwise I'd just throw him into a kill file.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Elson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Clarinet music for sale or free
Date: 12 Aug 1994 10:26:17 -0400

>I have a whole bunch of beginning to intermediate-level clarinet music

You know you've been hacking too long when you try to figure out why
on earth Clarinet would be producing music until you realize it's the
name of a musical intstrument, too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Peter Gutmann)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 15 Aug 1994 11:17:20 GMT

Actually, YKYBHWTLW your modem breaks, etc etc, so you pull out one of your 
other modems, fire up one of the other computers, and dial into one of the 
other systems you have an account on, and send the mail from there (with 
forged headers if necessary to make it look like it came from the first 
system).  I snuck out of hospital once during a week-long stay just so I
could get home (about an hour away) and catch up on mail and news.

Hmm, maybe this thread has drifted into the YKYNeedPsychiatricHelp area...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mark Tearle)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBUVTLW....
Date: 15 Aug 1994 11:38:42 GMT

You know you have been using vi too long when ....

 ... in the middle of a maths lecture you start thinking now I'll start
     pressing the % key to check if I have the right number of brackets.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (TheJester)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTLW...
Date: 17 Aug 1994 09:46:59 +1000

you are looking through a list of FTP sites and see

ftp.cdrom.com, 

and wonder where ftp.carom.com is...

I hate lisp, I can't get my mind around it, Prolog I like...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kenneth Brody)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBDOSingTLW...
Date: 17 Aug 1994 19:39:42 GMT

You know you've been DOS'ing too long when:

	You see all of these net-addresses with ".COM" and wonder
	why there aren't any ".EXE" addresses.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Dionisius)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTLW
Date: 22 Aug 1994 10:19:30 GMT

.. you wipe the statically accumulated dust from the screen and then
think "now I'll have to do this for every multiscreen".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 21 Aug 1994 19:56:00 +0200
From: [email-masked] (Timm Steinbeck)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBHTLW

... you read a sentence in an Asimov novel saying "Are you groping for  
paranoia" as "Are you grepping ..." and about a page later wonder how he  
came to know the term grep when he wrote that novel and turn back to check  
up what he actually wrote.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Perry Rovers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKWYBUCTLW
Date: 24 Aug 1994 20:21:10 GMT

You Know Whne You've Been Using Computers Too Long When:
you see a truck with 'Sunware' on the side and you think:
Sun has bought Novell!
(it turned out to be a plastics manufacturer)

on a related note: I read an example in an Operations Research
book today that started with this line:
'U.S. Labs manufactures mechanical heart valves from the heart
valves of pigs.'

This sheds a whole new light on Unix for me. ;-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Mike Chapman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL
Date: 29 Aug 1994 05:18:25 GMT

I was reading an L. Neil Smith novel (I think it was _Tom_Paine_Maru_ but
I am not sure) and he kept calling the Bad Guys 'Hamiltonians'.  It is 
supposed to mean that they are in favour of Big Government, but the first 
few times I read the term all I could think about was a bunch of salesmen
running from town to town on a map trying to find the shortest circuit.  
Made it tough to take them seriously, sheesh!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Matthew Skala)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Ray-tracing too long..
Date: 29 Aug 1994 16:28:57 -0700

YKYBRTTL...

When you look at the clouds and think, "Hmm, they should turn up the
anti-aliasing on that texture.."

Happened to me!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (David Edwards)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 14:15:43 GMT

Nah, you have REALLY been hacking to long when you go to look up someone's
name in a phonebook... and you think "OK, I'll grep it for <person in
questions's EMail address>"....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Tim Norman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 30 Aug 94 16:20:35

Perhaps even worse, this happened to me today.  I was in the computer lab,
and I started wondering if I had locked the door to my dormroom.  Well, I have
my PC with a SLIP connection running Linux in my dorm room, so I instantly
thought, "No problem.  I'll just telnet to my machine and ask it the status
of the door..."

Things like that SHOULD work!  :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (David D. Miller)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 18:43:35 GMT

you're discussing cooking disasters with your SO, and refer to a
"bad implementation of a recipie."

-David (Who should spend more time cooking, and less hacking....)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Eli Whitney Museum)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 31 Aug 1994 19:45:01 GMT

YKYBHTLW...

yer [roomate, SO, relative, etc] is really bothering you, and you think
"that's ok, i'll just redirect [his, her] output to /dev/null".

I tried it once...didn't go over very well :( Maybe in a few decades... :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Julian Orbach)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 3 Sep 1994 05:54:26 GMT

... you're reading Angelo Keene's message titled "Re: Found in the code"...

>At my first job, I was programming in CMS-2M and AN/AYK assembly language
>for a major defense contractor which will remain nameless (AV/8-B, anyone?)
                                                               ^^^
... and you try to work out what sort of smiley it is.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jens Stark)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 5 Sep 1994 09:05:29 +0200

We got hold of a copy of Aladdin. One of the first remarks I made on that
film was during the escape scene :

"Hey, That is a nice implementation of a flying carpet, isn't it ?"

Later, my wife responded with :

"Well, this Djinni could use some delay calls, he beats my pattern
recognition algorithm..."

AH ! The joy of living with intelligent beings... :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Lee Ann Rucker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 1994 11:10:38 -0800

I was trying to decide how to get to I-280 from midway between Wolfe &
Saratoga-Sunnyvale, and thought "I'll take Wolfe, the interface is cleaner"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.internet.media-coverage
From: [email-masked] (Frank Wales)
Subject: YKYBLTHFIRITMW
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 23:44:56 +0000

You know you've been looking too hard for Internet references in the media 
when, in the middle of a large article on recent developments in Northern
Ireland, you spot a graph with the word INTERNET on it, and wonder what
daft relationship some hack has worked into the story.  

Then you look again, and see the word INTERNMENT instead.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bruce Baugh)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL
Date: 12 Sep 1994 00:17:59 -0700

I found myself explaining to an immunologist that some of my neurological
symptoms felt like someone had removed the DoEvents line from a bunch of
sub-routines.

Amusingly enough, he's an amateur programmer, and knew immediately what I
was on about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Aaron Weintraub)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 11 Sep 1994 16:15:54 GMT

too long when....
you walk through a drugstore and see an ad for a
"Mead Wireless Notebook.. now only $2 each"
and wonder what in hell they're talking about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Bill Harrison)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 11 Sep 1994 20:46:54 -0400

You want to reinstall your ears after a loud concert.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Ben Cottrell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 12 Sep 1994 05:56:12 GMT

I was walking to class a few days ago, and the door to my building was
propped open. Without thinking, I walked through it, and immediately thought
"Oh no! I've directly accessed a low-memory global, and not gone through
the proper access function! What will happen to me when the next release of
the OS gets installed?"

Of course, I *should* have just gotten a segmentation fault, because the
referenced address would not have been in my page table, but I had been
trying to program something on the Macintosh previously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jim Wise)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 15 Sep 1994 06:51:05 GMT

In alt.folklore.computers you write:
>
>I wrote an essay in English class last week, and to underline something I
>did it just like on netmail, _like_ _this_.

Mmm...  I wanted to write a long dash the other day, and wrote two hyphen-      
sized dashes for it...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Ian Young)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...	
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 14:01:56 GMT

...You want to write a shell script to automatically delete a user who 
shows up to bother you with "droll small talk" (as opposed to "droll Smalltalk")
every morning. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Samir Mahendra)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKTYBRAFCTLW
Date: 16 Sep 1994 09:58:45 -0500

...you see an add for the Di$covery card (NO inteREST for ONE year)(*), 
and wonder when Robert McElwaine started to work for them.

(*) I'm not sure about this, but it was along those lines.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (S. O'Connor)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW... 
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 11:12:25 GMT

	..."The washing machine is broke and could you please fix it?", 
and you wonder what bug has gotten into it now....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Joseph W. Vigneau)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 20 Sep 1994 02:23:32 GMT

...when walking home from the computer center, you notice the oil spots on
the pavement closely resemble a Mandelbrot fractal...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Zygo Blaxell)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 12:35:31 GMT

...you admin some Linux systems, and someone asks you today's date while
you are at your terminal.  Without thinking, you type 'uname -r; uptime'.

...you get the calendar date right with the above method.

...you get the date wrong, then realize you're on a Solaris system.  Doh!

...you're correct within a week anyway.

...you're asked the time of day, so you iconify some windows and see
where the sun is on your 'xearth' root window toy.

...you're asked about the weather and do the same thing.

...you find you are more receptive to other's emotions in a talk session
than in person or over the phone ("You're typing slowly and in all
lowercase...are you mad at me?").

...you go to an amusement park and participate in one of those
activities that result in stuffed animals if you have decent hand-eye
coordination.  The first (in chronological order) prize is a small
stuffed bee.  Not satisfied with that, you decide to try to upgrade it,
and soon you have a bee 2.0, a slightly larger version of the bee 1.0.
After a while you're rewarded with the BFB 9000, a two-foot-tall stuffed
bee (or is it a beeServer?).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bjorn Halvor Solberg)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 1994 10:28:39 GMT

... your boss shows you a hand-written word which contains a long
underscore, and you ask him wether that's one or two underscores.

He just smiled and said "One.".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Allan C Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 23 Sep 1994 19:26:51 GMT

Last semester we made a roadtrip to Austin to celebrate our 21st birthdays.
We ended up at the Yellow Rose, and while there I found myself placing a
dollar in the garter of a woman wearing some latex outfit.  While she bent
down to allow me to do this, i commented "Nice LaTeX."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Robert Mitchell Clark)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 23 Sep 1994 20:24:11 GMT

when while watching _How To Steal A Million_ (A. hepburn & P. O'Toole)
you first thought when the black and white gendarmes' vehicles appear
outside of the museum is "I didn't know Gateway made cars!"  ;)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (The Dragon De Monsyne)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW... 
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 10:27:39 GMT

 ...Someone asks you "Do you want me to turn the coffe pot off, or leave 
it on?   "  & you answer "Yes"  without hesitation, of humorous intent. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Deeran Peethamparam)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Sep 1994 14:34:05 GMT

... writing some code up on a whiteboard, you complete a long bracketed
expression, and look to the first bracket to see if the cursor flashes
on it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (GARY   BARNES)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 17 Oct 1994 14:09:27 +0100

YKYBHTLW you happen look at the instructions on your gas meter as to what
to do in the event of a gas leak, and when you see that it says 
"Open windows" you think, "Oh smeg, do I have to?".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Olaf Seibert)
Subject: Re: YKYHBHTLW
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 14:38:57 GMT

And you know you've been hacking too long when you see a personal ad in
a newspaper with a telephone number (instead of a box # at the
newspaper office) and think "Hm, must be another idiot who left their
terminal logged in..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 15:05:00 GMT

I was in New york City for the first time this weekend, and I kept seeing
orange road signs that said "ALT. RTE. BERRY AVE" (or some other street name)
and my first thought was that somebody had newgrouped a new alt group that I'm
not going to bother to addgroup.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Van Deun Dirk)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 18 Oct 1994 12:11:17 GMT

This has probably been mentioned before a zillion times, but I never
believed it. Alas, some days ago I was reading the credits of a film on
television, and when I had missed something, for just a split second,
I had an impulse to grab the remote control to scroll back.

It can really happen -- no joke !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Edouard Poor)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 19 Oct 1994 01:40:35 GMT

[email-masked] (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>
>In a previous article, [email-masked] (Van Deun Dirk) said:

>>believed it. Alas, some days ago I was reading the credits of a film on
>>television, and when I had missed something, for just a split second,
>>I had an impulse to grab the remote control to scroll back.

>It's not *really* a YKYBHTLW unless you grab the mouse and start looking for
>scroll bars.

I was writing something a few seconds ago (you know, on paper...) and I
had got as far as:

define f(X) { X + X * X }
set a_func f
OR
set a_func 

and I wanted to put the "{ X + X * X }" again. I moved my pen over to
the start of the first "{ X + X * X }" and pressed down. At this point
my brain must have noticed the reality quotient of the situation and I
thought "Hmmm, if I drag the pen over the text here, it probably isn't
going to put it into the buffer for me to paste it into the insertion
point is it..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael James Gebis)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 22 Oct 1994 16:01:08 GMT

YKYBHTLW you go into ChiChi's and say "I'd like a tek-mek combo."  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Shawn T. Rutledge)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 08:39:12 GMT

Paul Tomblin ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In a previous article, [email-masked] (Van Deun Dirk) said:

: >This has probably been mentioned before a zillion times, but I never
: >believed it. Alas, some days ago I was reading the credits of a film on
: >television, and when I had missed something, for just a split second,
: >I had an impulse to grab the remote control to scroll back.

: It's not *really* a YKYBHTLW unless you grab the mouse and start looking for
: scroll bars.

Quite right.  Heck I do that a lot - expect to be able to hit rewind when 
watching a live broadcast, that is.  And I bet none of you guys have ever
attempted to move the mouse so as to be able to use the cursor as a 
toothpick.  I did that once!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Green)
Newsgroups: alt.os.multics,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL when...
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 09:40:43 EDT

A colleague and friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, told me this story 
long ago, in the days when octal notation was used to display the binary 
values of machine words:

"I was driving along in my car when I looked down at the odometer and noticed 
that it said 77777.7 (all sevens).  I turned to my wife and said, 'Hey look, 
the odometer is about to turn over!'  She looked, and said, 'You're crazy!'."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 11:12:53 +0000
From: [email-masked]

You know you've been hacking too long when...

You look at every word that ends in the letter 'd' and wonder what kind
of daemon it is...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (GARY   BARNES)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Oct 1994 11:40:10 -0000

In article <[email-masked]>,
Hugh Davies <[email-masked]> wrote:
:You know you've been hacking too long when...
:
:You look at every word that ends in the letter 'd' and wonder what kind
:of daemon it is...

I've done that... I looked at a sign that said

"ROAD CLOSED"

and wondered what a closed does.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andrew Bulhak ([email-masked]) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTL (categorising things)
Date: 21 Oct 1994 13:39:33 GMT

You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long When.....

.....you are about to feed your cat and you find yourself thinking
half-consciously, "is this an AT&T cat or a Berkeley cat?"

Happened to me...

 - acb [And I didn't even associate it with /bin/cat either.....]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Morten Welinder)
Subject: Re: YKYBHWTLW
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 13:42:52 GMT

You consider the situation where a house is being made ready
for you to move in, but you're not quite ready when you have
to move your furniture from your old home.

This means you have to put the furniture in one room while
you finish the other, then move the furniture...

YKYHBHWTLW that reminds you of Sokoban.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Andrew Bulhak)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTL (URLs generalised)
Date: 24 Oct 1994 09:06:41 GMT

You know you've been on the Net too long when...

... you write down your phone number as "phone://123-4567/Joe", or
something similar.

... you want to program your VCR to record a programme and immediately
think of something like "tv://2/1930/0100/The 7:30 Report".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 20 Oct 1994 14:08:46 GMT
From: [email-masked] (James Grimmelmann)
Subject: Fwd: Re: YKYHBHTLW
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers

In article <FAT.94Oct11112215@Indy>,
Irtegov Dmitry Valentinovich <fat@Indy> wrote:
>You know you have been hacking too long when:
>You think how to describe a half-awoke state of mind,
>and the first idea is: `single-user mode'.

After some momentary disorientation while suffering from a cold, recently, I
characterized my the effects of my illness as "it really cuts into the frame
rate on reality."  If you try to turn your head rapidly while tired or sick,
you'll realize what I mean.  There's no support for smooth scolling anymore. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (William Turner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 25 Oct 1994 16:06:05 -0000

Well, last night, I got into my car (which was
parked in a dark street, looked in the mirror,
and thought 'Silly me, it won't work until the
car is switched on...'

Too much VDU exposure......
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bernd Felsche)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 03:30:34 GMT

In <[email-masked]>
   [email-masked] (Hugh Davies) writes:

>You know you've been hacking too long when...

>You look at every word that ends in the letter 'd' and wonder what kind
>of daemon it is...

What does "kind" do? Send out birthday, etc. greetings on your behalf?

They'll never know if you've starved because you're trapped playing
stereo-tetris.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Forrest, Reid)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 27 Oct 1994 04:07:08 GMT

I've been working on a compiler for a while... The other day I caught myself
parsing and compiling my bank statements.
*ERROR: negative balance on line 12.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Michael Robert Williams)
Subject: YKYBMTLW
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 04:45:39 GMT

You Know You've Been Modeming Too Long When....

  You pick up a phone to call a friend and try to dial ATDT first
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Roger L Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 1 Nov 1994 12:36:50 -0600

...you're adding links in your homepage so that the user can email you
directly, and think "Hey, I'll go ahead and link in my phone number so they
can click on it to call me if they want to!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Kip Crosby)
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 1994 18:11:09 GMT
Subject: YKYBHTLW....

I was reconciling my checkbook and the two outstanding checks were

        4026
        4038

and my first thought was "There was an eighty-megabyte one too, why
can't I remember the model number?"        ....           --  kc 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Valdis Kletnieks)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 2 Nov 1994 18:19:03 GMT

The other day, I saw a reference to the word 'moscow'.

Due to a great misparse on my part, I was left wondering for several
seconds whether the bovine was implemented using nmos or cmos...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (JAI. Holtom)
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 19:37:45 GMT

...whilst discussing the most efficient way of maintaining contact over a
modem link - and video stills are suggested to supplement the text, I then
think 'what would be really nice is sound' and so suggest sending sampled
speech accross the link..... 

If at first you don't see the YKYBHTL then you've been hacking too long as
well :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHWWWTLW...
Date: 2 Nov 1994 23:01:05 GMT

you look at your notes from the last half hour and realize that you
have written "date" twice.

 -PSP, time impaired
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHWWWTLW...
Date: 3 Nov 1994 15:21:22 GMT

Or when you write a paper and have to erase a bunch of <p>.....</p>'s.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John Ngo - CNED/F94)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW....
Date: 3 Nov 1994 11:21:51 GMT

     I was reading a line which read something like "...your dad is dead!"
and thought it said "...your dad is dead..., NOT."

I didn't it was funny though.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Samir Mahendra)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Y*Definitely*KYBHTLW...
Date: 5 Dec 1994 17:18:48 -0600

I dreamt that I had selected a large part of a binary file with the
mouse (in X) and had accidentally clicked the second mouse button in
an xterm.  As I tried desperately to kill the window, the sound of the
bell from the occasional ^G grew louder and louder, and I woke up to
the sound of my bedside alarm going off.

It was really wierd.

I need to spend less time in the X terminal lab.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Nate Hill ([email-masked]) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: yet another YKYBHTLW
Date: 5 Dec 1994 17:17:11 GMT

 	Some JERK called me at three o'clock this morning and hung up on
me.  I stumbled around in a total daze, a thousand different random things
went through my mind then it all went blank.  When I started to figure out
where I was, I thought "I must have caught an NMI and did a core-dump."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Jeff Marr)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 19:44:13 GMT

Last night, as I was trying to hurry my children along to bed, I yelled,
"OK, you've got two more minutes on the computer. That's one, oh. Two!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
From: [email-masked] (jon madison)
Date: 10 Dec 94 12:05:27 -0500

while taking my cs300 test, i accidentally wrote a line of my answer too high
up on the piece of paper.  i thought to myself, "that's okay, i'll just do
ESC-shift-O a couple of times. duh!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Geoffrey Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 11 Dec 1994 14:47:35 GMT

I was finishing off a 12-hour shift this morning, and was writing mail
in the off-periods.  I heard about the hassle people who are ahead of
the class have to go through to take math in high school, and thought
to myself, "What we really need to do is just shut down the whole
damned system and reboot."

<shudder>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Irish)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 12:59:04 GMT

	....After tinkering with X all day you look down and try to 
change the font on your keyboard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Steven Tieu)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYB...
Date: 24 Dec 1994 00:00:38 GMT

You know you've been using computers too long when..  you can put those
sticker labels on diskettes straight everytime without even trying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Gary Barnes)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 27 Dec 1994 14:52:51 -0000

You are listening to an audio CD which has one track you don't
like on it, and you immediately think "I'll delete that one".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (todd jeremy howard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 28 Dec 1994 03:07:20 GMT

	Last week my friend called from the hospital, after she'd had a 
minor operation.  The connection was bad, and I heard her say she had an 
IP attached to her arm.  "Oh, that's pretty neat.  So when they want a blood
sample they can just FTP it..."
	It took me a good ten seconds to figure out she really said IV.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (K.M. Mennie)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 07:33:51 GMT

Gary Barnes ([email-masked]) wrote:
> You are listening to an audio CD which has one track you don't
> like on it, and you immediately think "I'll delete that one".

You are watching television and hit on a channel you don't recognize,
& think `I'll hit `=', which will show me the station identification/URL'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Joe Rumsey)
Subject: YKYBHTLW (was Re: Why hasn't Luke gotten Laid yet.)
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 13:37:52 GMT

>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Patz <[email-masked]> wrote:
># 
># || ,.------;:~~:-.       |  "Until you stalk and over-run, you can't 
                                          ^^^^^
># ||/:.\`;;|||;:/;;:\      |  devour anyone." - Hobbes the Tiger
[etc.]

YKYBHTLW you see the word "stalk" above and wonder what the difference
is between s-talk, y-talk and talk.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Michael Jennings)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 2 Jan 1995 10:21:29 GMT

	Like many hackers, I often work at the keyboard all night. Sometimes
I will doze off at the keyboard. One of the things that will often wake
me is the system beep from my workstation, which in this case is usually
the xbiff indicating that I have received mail from someone.
	Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was on a bus in Bangkok. I was
suffering from jet-lag, and was consequently dozing a bit on the bus.
I heard a loud beep (actually somebody pushing the 'I want to get off 
at the next stop' button) which had roughly the same pitch as my system
beep. I immediately woke up, and the thought 'I wonder who is sending 
me mail' went through my mind.

	Sad. Really sad.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (John Fail)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 2 Jan 1995 20:42:59 GMT

A friend of mine was saying another person had no personality;

"Talking to him is like talking to an XT!".

What scares me is this implies other computers do have personalities and
they are fun to talk to.    Uuuugh!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: The Dining Philosophers Problem
Date: 3 Jan 1995 10:11:04 GMT

YKYBHTLW you're reading about a nice solution to the Dining
Philosopher's problem, but the thought of a table covered with
plates of spaghetti is so compelling that you have to get up
and make yourself a meal at 2:15 AM.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Rob Freundlich)
Subject: YKYBUWTLW ...
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 08:58:47 UNDEFINED

YKYBUsingWindozeTLW you're in Staples looking at electronic organizers and 
need some assistance, and there's no salesperson around, so you look around 
the counter for the F1 key.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked]  (Perry Rovers)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995  19:40 met

YKWYBHTLW:
 
- you telnet to a machine in a city where some friends live and you
  think: I can tell them I'm coming over later (they have
  no account anywhere)
- you open the fridge and think: someone forgot to update the milk
 
On one day! I need a break.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jukka Marin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 1 Feb 1995 18:50:25 +0200

[email-masked] (Simon Dawson) writes:
>
>When you insist on reading mail whilst going voice.. because
>otherwise you're not doing anything productive with the time..

Heh.. Well, for 3 seconds, I thought of calling person A on the phone
while talking to person B on the other phone (to save time, because
I knew person B would talk for a long time).  Then I realized I had
only one speech output port... :-I
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Tele Charalambous)
Subject: YKYBHTLW..
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 17:01:21 GMT

YKYBHTLW:

  After typing in, compiling, debugging, and completing the 20,000
  line project in C++ that was due in 1 hour, you wake up and it's all dream!

Arrrggghhh!!!
(This happened! But only 500 lines!)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: Tom Lichy ([email-masked])
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 08:12:12 GMT

YKYBHTLW...
 
 - I saw a bottle of HP sauce in the kitchen and thought " Is that an new
 Hewlett-Packard product?"  This definitely happened & I just couldn't believe
  it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Andrew Clegg)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 22:26:02 +0000

A friend of mine a few months ago was telling me about how a magazine he
read was organizing a competiton for the most descriptive and poetic piece
of short writing.

One of the examples he cited talked about 'gliding swans slowly unzipping the
surface of the lake'.

I really really wish I hadn't instantly thought of uncompression.

This is the same friend who sits next to me in Maths classes and still finds
it incredible that the only piece of mental arithmetic I can do instantly is
powers of two.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Paul Kobar)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW..
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 17:38:27

Reminds me of the time I spent alot of time debugging a Digital PDP-15.
(The PDP-15 is an octal, 12-bit word architectue) After a looooong night, I
was driving home in my new car and noticed the odometer read "3777", upon
which I thought "Wow, here comes "4000". What a shock a mile later!!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Andrew Clegg)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW..
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 1995 15:11:25 +0000

YKYBHTLW you get confused between the left-hand side and the right-hand
side of the screen.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: Sam Kington ([email-masked])
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 11:29:27 GMT

You know you've been hacking too long when...

I was going through some old tapes, trying to remember when I'd recorded
the stuff on them, and thought: "Damn, why don't tapes have date
stamps?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (Bernd "Bernie" Meyer)
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: Sat, 4 Feb 1995 01:28:52 GMT

If only you knew HOW often I have been looking at some kind of
non-electronic mess (let it be a book, my desk or the pile of fabric I call
my wardrobe; Also applies for coins in a wallet etc) and just went ff
thinking "well, I'll sort it, and then grep for the stuff I want".

Another of those moments is when you look at the (real life) bulletin board
at uni, and long for a "find -newer" (treating it as a directory) or a
"diff"" (treating it as a single file).

My only consolidation is that I will probably live to see most of these
ideas implemented :-)

Bernie "Also waiting for all my appliances to get ethernet" Meyer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Nik Clayton)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYHBRNTLW
Date: 7 Feb 1995 20:02:56 -0000

You Know You Have Been Reading News Too Long When:

You're reading the Spaf book on security, and it mentions the "Perl
package by Larry Wall". You then spend the next 30 seconds flicking
through the following pages to work out where Larry's response is.

Hey, he greps everything else.

PS: Hi Larry.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jukka Marin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 9 Feb 1995 08:22:09 +0200

[email-masked] (Sam Kington) writes:
>
>You know you've been hacking too long when...
>
>I was going through some old tapes, trying to remember when I'd recorded
>the stuff on them, and thought: "Damn, why don't tapes have date
>stamps?"

Aaargh.  The first time I read this, I thought you were talking about
backup tapes and I thought, "What kind of a backup program does he use -
no date stamps!".

Never thought there were any other kind of tapes..  Cassettes?  What are
those? :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: [email-masked] (PND CORLETT)
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 17:33:24 GMT

I was using my Amiga the other night, when I had an itch in my back.
I then thought that the sharp-looking mouse pointer would be ideal to
scratch it with. It looks as if RL has lost me as well...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: R!ch <[email-masked]>
Subject: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 17:46:54 GMT

You Know You've Been Hacking (6502 Assembler) Too Long When...

This morning, on the way to work, I saw a car with the
registration number PHK 123 X; my first thought was:
"Push K?  What sort of register is K?".  I think I've
been working on my 65C02 emulator too long...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Dan Ehrig)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBUsingWindozeTL (or too much) when:
Date: 20 Feb 1995 18:48:29 GMT

You're cramming for an exam at Denny's around 1:30 am and you keep 
finding that your brain has had CRC errors while downloading text.

Stupid loud drunk people.

-Dan (really wishes it were 12:30 yet so he could just take the damn thing)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Kenneth Brody)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW
Date: 23 Feb 1995 15:43:54 GMT

: The best one that I saw was a guy by the name of Derek when I was 
: working at BNR.  He was running X-windows on his Sun and he was trying
: to minimize some of his windows to clear up some desktop space.

: One of the windows took three clicks before he realized that is was a
: sticky note stuck to his screen.

YKYBHTLW...

You read the second paragraph and wonder why he couldn't close the note
window, and then realize he meant the _paper_ sticky notes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Jack Tihon)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 24 Feb 1995 00:21:21 GMT

YKYB using TeX TLW... you take notes and {\bf bold} and {\it italicize
} key words and YKYBHTLW you use '||' and '!' instead of "or" and
"not" ... or worse yet you use '\/' and '~'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Robert A. Uhl)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKTYBHTL
Date: 3 Mar 1995 08:57:38 GMT

...when you read OxFam and think, 'm isn't a hex digit!'

  This just happened whilst reading P.J. O'Rourke's 'All the Trouble in
the World.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
From: [email-masked] (Tony Lima)
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 1995 21:02:00 -0700

YKYBHTLW ...

"VENDOR TO INCREASE VAR BASE" read the headline in "Computer
Reseller News."

"Just what the world needs," I thought, "another damn database
package." - Tony "who remembers VisiOn?" Lima
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Greg "Torgo" Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 19:27:39 -0600

   ...you're waiting behind a Jeep to make a left turn, the Jeep's license
plate number is "875 MHZ" and you think to yourself, "Wow, those Jeep
people sure make some fast processors."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Simon Slavin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 20:02:00 +0000

Ob-YKYBHTLW: you're sewing while watching TV and *just* managing to
pay attention to the programme without sticking the pin in yourself
when your daughter comes up to you and starts talking.  You think:
"New high-priority task is a cycle-sink, so suspend time-critical
 jobs until it's finished."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Gaven Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: YKYBHTLW
Date: 31 Jan 1996 17:59:17 GMT

You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long When...

You read a car mag and come across "500HP" and think "500 Hewlett-Packards"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Geertje van der Sterre)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: 12 Mar 1996 19:07:50 +0100

..when you hear Kool & the gang on the radio: "Get your backup on the wall"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email-masked] (Chris Thomas)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 03:15:59 -0800

... when you go to purchase the really cool new remix of _Tommy_ and you
tell a friend, "I'm gonna go buy _Tommy_ Two Dot Zero."

(worse: the friend understood...)
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