POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Disturbing the peace : Re: Disturbing the peace Server Time
5 Sep 2024 03:20:44 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Disturbing the peace  
From: Captain Jack
Date: 5 Nov 2009 09:06:14
Message: <4af2dbd6$1@news.povray.org>
"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4af1fd72$1@news.povray.org...
> One day, after this, on the "reference" machine, after much programming, I 
> typed "DEL *.SRC" instead of "DEL *.SCR".  Since it took about 1.5 seconds 
> instead of the usual quarter second, I looked again at the command line 
> again and very quietly said "Oh, shit."  About five people stuck their 
> heads up over the partitions asking what's wrong, since nobody ever 
> cursed.

Long ago, one of my semi-regular duties was to install a fresh copy of a 
demo program onto a machine, this being the easiest way to make sure that 
the demo was always the same for the sales guys. It was installed off of a 
5-1/4 inch floppy, and all I needed to to do was type "tar -xv -f/dev/fd1" 
to extract the files, after changing to the right directory.

Ever notice that the "c" key is right next to the "x"? And, of course, the 
floppy wasn't write-protected. So, I typed "tar -cv" and erased the floppy 
(well, trashed the tar header, which amounted to the same thing for me at 
the time). Our only copy of the demo, of course. And, this was less than an 
hour before the prospect was to arrive.

We cracked open a live copy and activated it (much simpler process, in those 
days, fortunately), then ordered a new demo disk.

Funny thing was, I don't think the salesman even noticed the difference.


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