Comment by dandelany | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by dandelany | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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