Comment by dandelany
10 years ago
Some of my favorite hacker folklore:
Always Mount a Scratch Monkey http://edp.org/monkey.htm
The Magic Switch https://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/magic.html
Quake3's Fast InvSqrt() https://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/8/
The Battle Chess Duck http://blog.codinghorror.com/new-programming-jargon/ (#5)
and of course, The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer https://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/mel.html
edit to add: Ford and the $10,000 chalk mark (Ctrl+F Ford) http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/charles-proteus-steinm...
Another favorite of mine. I won't spoil it, it's an entertaining read: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html
That is awful. Surely there was a sign attached saying that this equipment is attached to live Monkeys - not just a "do not remove" sign.
I just love the magic switch.
It's so obviously impossible, yet anybody that built complex hardware has seen equally impossible things happen.
That was so fun and a great prank whether true or not. Like you, I've seen enough oddities to think it's possible. I'm going to challenge two hardware guys I know... one an expert on esoteric stuff. to come up with a way to make that happen. Maybe I'll do it to a RaspPI at a maker space near MIT to screw with them. ;)
If the case of the switch was connected to the unused terminal it may have served a purpose by connecting signal and chassis grounds.
I prefer the idea that it was magic :)
Big second for Quake's Fast InvSqrt, that is a really cool story.