For the geek in you

[Benedikt Stefansson]

Hope nobody is annoyed by this bit of Spam. But I thought this Beatles
ripoff geek-o-rama that blazed through my mailbox was somewhat
appropriate:

       Eleanor Rigby
       -------------

 Eleanor Rigby
 Sits at the keyboard
 And waits for a line on the screen
 Lives in a dream
 Waits for a signal
 Finding some code
 That will make the machine do some more.
 What is it for?

 All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
 All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

 Guru MacKenzie
 Typing the lines of a program that no one will run;
 Isn't it fun?
 Look at him working,
 Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile;
 It takes  a while...

 All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
 All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

 Eleanor Rigby
 Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of work;
 Feels like a jerk.
 Guru MacKenzie
 Wiping the crumbs off the keys as he types in the code;
 Nothing will load.

 All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
 All the lonely users, why does it take so long?

  ===================================

      Unix Man (Nowhere Man)
       --------

 He's a real UNIX Man
 Sitting in his UNIX LAN
 Making all his UNIX plans
 For nobody.

 Knows the blocksize from du(1)
 Cares not where /dev/null goes to
 Isn't he a bit like you
 And me?

 UNIX Man, please listen(2)
 My lpd(8) is missin'
 UNIX Man
 The wo-o-o-orld is at(1) your command.

 He's as wise as he can be
 Uses lex and yacc and C
 UNIX Man, can you help me At all?

 UNIX Man, don't worry
 Test with time(1), don't hurry
 UNIX Man
 The new kernel boots, just like you had planned.

 He's a real UNIX Man
 Sitting in his UNIX LAN
 Making all his UNIX  plans For nobody ...
 Making all his UNIX  plans For nobody.

  ==================================

      Write in C ("Let it Be")
      ------------------------

 When I find my code in tons of trouble,
 Friends and colleagues come to me,
 Speaking words of wisdom:
 "Write in C."

 As the deadline fast approaches,
 And bugs are all that I can see,
 Somewhere, someone whispers:
 "Write in C."

 Write in C, Write in C,
 Write in C, oh, Write in C.
 LOGO's dead and buried,
 Write in C.

 I used to write a lot of FORTRAN,
 For science it worked flawlessly.
 Try using it for graphics!
 Write in C.

 If you've just spent nearly 30 hours,
 Debugging some assembly,
 Soon you will be glad to
 Write in C.

 Write in C, Write in C,
 Write in C, yeah, Write in C.
 BASIC's not the answer.
 Write in C.

 Write in C, Write in C
 Write in C, oh, Write in C.
 Pascal won't quite cut it.
 Write in C.

  =========================

       Something
       ---------

 Something in the way it fails,
 Defies the algorithm's logic!
 Something in the way it coredumps...
 I don't want to leave it now
 I'll fix this problem somehow

 Somewhere in the memory I know,
 A pointer's got to be corrupted.
 Stepping in the debugger will show me...
 I don't want to leave it now
 I'm too close to leave it now

 You're asking me can this code go?
 I don't know, I don't know...
 What sequence causes it to blow?
 I don't know, I don't know...

 Something in the initializing code?
 And all I have to do is think of it!
 Something in the listing will show me...
 I don't want to leave it now
 I'll fix this tonight I vow!

 ============================================

 YESTERDAY

 Yesterday,
 All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
 Now my database has gone away.
 Oh I believe in yesterday.

 Suddenly,
 There's not half the files there used to be,
 And there's a milestone
 hanging over me
 The system crashed so suddenly.

 I pushed something wrong
 What it was I could not say.

 Now all my data's gone
 and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

 Yesterday,
 The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
 I knew my data was all here to stay,
 Now I believe in yesterday.

------------------
Benedikt Stefansson                 address@hidden
Department of Economics, UCLA       Fax. (310) 825-9528
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477          Tel. (310) 825-4126



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