Login  Register

Re: Unix Nightmare

Posted by Frank Wimberly-2 on Oct 22, 2016; 1:09am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Unix-Nightmare-tp7587974p7587979.html

Very clever.

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918


On Oct 21, 2016 7:05 PM, "Robert Wall" <[hidden email]> wrote:

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a Unix programmer, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a Unix programmer. I was conscious only of my happiness as a Unix programmer, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a Unix programmer, or whether I am now a Unix programmer, dreaming I am a man.”
​  
​ with "permission" from​
 
ZhuangziThe Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu
​ 😎

​It happens to all of us ... 😴

😁​
 

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 6:32 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick,

Well, sometimes when I'm thinking about a dream, I suddenly remember some detail that I had completely forgotten.  But more often I fall back to sleep.  In my old age, I seldom remember dreams.

Frank

Frank Wimberly


On Oct 21, 2016 6:26 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Good lord, Frank.  Surely you are teasing me.  How could your memory of a dream not be accurate?!

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 5:50 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Unix Nightmare

 

I first learned Unix when I went to work at Bell Labs in 1978.  I was only there for two years but over the next 18 years at Carnegie Mellon I used Unix workstations or time-sharing systems almost constantly. The other night I had a dream that involved Unix.  I am not saying the dream made sense.  Dreams often don't.  For some reason I had a feeling that someone had modified my system by replacing the cat command with a shell script that didn't behave the way cat should.  I decided to use the which command to find where the fake cat script was located in the file system.  But then I thought how can I examine the script without using cat.  I was going around in circles about this until I sort of woke up.  I realized that I could use ed to look at the script.  Then I went back to sleep.  Sometimes my memories of my dreams aren't accurate.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Santa Fe, NM


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com