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   Kelly Shortridge (shortridge@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 03-Feb-2024 09:09:42 JST Kelly Shortridge

   in case there are other nerds out there who haven’t yet read this classic, behold “the case of the 500-mile email” https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html

   I adore the “absurd computer-borne mysteries” genre and kindly ask for more content from the annals of y’all’s careers

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     Hazel Weakly (hazelweakly@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 04-Feb-2024 05:53:13 JST Hazel Weakly

     in reply to

     @shortridge Actually, I take it back, this is my favorite bug story of all time

     https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding-machines/

     The writing is incredible, the twist is beyond absurd. The full implications of it are profound and potentially disturbing

     It's not a read for the lighthearted, it'll take a while, but it's absolutely worth it

     Imagine "reflections on trusting trust" but rendered real and haunting

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     Wolf480pl (wolf480pl@mstdn.io)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:14:01 JST Wolf480pl

     in reply to

     • Hazel Weakly
     • The Uberduck

     @uberduck @hazelweakly @shortridge
     For me, the OG "reflections on trusting trust" is much more concerning than this. But I guess that's hardly a consolation.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Wolf480pl (wolf480pl@mstdn.io)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:14:02 JST Wolf480pl

     in reply to

     • Hazel Weakly
     • The Uberduck

     @uberduck @hazelweakly @shortridge
     It's fiction. The timing with the mailman is too convenient from a narrative perspective.

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     The Uberduck (uberduck@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:14:02 JST The Uberduck

     in reply to

     • Wolf480pl
     • Hazel Weakly

     @wolf480pl @hazelweakly @shortridge Okay, but you do get how hanging the fact/fiction decision on that instead of any of the technical details doesn't make me feel any better, right?

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     The Uberduck (uberduck@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:14:03 JST The Uberduck

     in reply to

     • Hazel Weakly

     @hazelweakly @shortridge I got way too far in this before the possibility that it was fiction occurred to me.

     It's fiction. Right?

     Right?

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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:17:22 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to
     @shortridge One story in this style I really like is https://patrickthomson.tumblr.com/post/2499755681/the-best-debugging-story-ive-ever-heard which I'd dub floor tiles vs. mainframe.
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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 14:20:42 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
     @shortridge And I think you'd also enjoy https://www.ecb.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html even though the problem is known right from the start, how they pieced it together for a recovery is just glorious.
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     Resuna (resuna@ohai.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Mar-2024 01:31:41 JST Resuna

     in reply to

     @shortridge I remember that one, by the last paragraph where he used the word "millilightseconds", at that point the vague "this seems familiar" feeling collapsed into "yes I've read this before". Something something quantum something.

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     maswan (maswan@mastodon.acc.sunet.se)'s status on Thursday, 28-Mar-2024 01:31:46 JST maswan

     in reply to

     @shortridge
     I had a server (back when servers came in towers, not rack units) that would lock up hard randomly at about weekly frequency, unless there was a PS/2 mouse plugged in. We put it ziptied in a couple of unused 5.25" bays.

     This server spent years after that as the distributor of Debian to European mirrors.

     The cause? Some memory mapping bug in bios, we think.

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     DCoder 🇱🇹❤🇺🇦 (dcoderlt@ohai.social)'s status on Thursday, 28-Mar-2024 01:31:51 JST DCoder 🇱🇹❤🇺🇦

     in reply to

     @shortridge
     One of the first things I had to do as a professional developer decades ago was figure out why a client’s homemade CMS was periodically losing all content.
     Turns out the admin panel’s access check redirected guests away, but *did not terminate* itself. So a web crawler came in, got the redirect followed by the admin panel dashboard with a list of latest articles, and links to delete.php?article_id=123 next to each one… It dutifully crawled all those, and poof, no more articles.

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