Fun_People Archive
5 Jun
The sincerest form of sarcasm.

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Sat,  5 Jun 99 01:06:53 -0700
To: Fun_People
Precedence: bulk
Subject: The sincerest form of sarcasm.

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
X-http://www.langston.com/psl-bin/Fun_People.cgi
Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Faried Nawaz <fn@hungry.org>
Forwarded-by: Max Vision <vision@whitehats.com>
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/may99.shtml#BSOD-Simulator

My goodness, evolution is pretty.

"Users of Red Hat 6.0 are discovering a new feature that hasn't been widely
advertised: a Blue Screen of Death simulator. By default, the bsodsim
program activates when the user hits the virtually unused SysRq key (this
is customizable), causing the system to switch to a character cell console
to display a ficticious Blue Screen.

  Red Hat hails the bsodsim program as the "boss key" for the Linux world.
"Many old DOS games had a boss key, which caused the program to switch to
a DOS shell or a benign looking screenshot when the boss walked by," a Red
Hat engineer explained. "This allowed unscrupulous workers to play games
without the knowledge of the PHB. With multitasking, this isn't necessary
anymore."

  He continued, "However, a new 'boss problem' has emerged. Workers are
smuggling Linux boxes into companies that exclusively use Windows. This is
all good and well until the PHB walks by and comments, 'That doesn't look
like Windows...' With bsodsim, that problem is solved. The worker can hit
the emergency SysRq key, and the system will behave just like Windows..."

  The bsodsim program doesn't stop at just showing a simulated error
message. If the boss doesn't walk away, the worker can continue the illusion
by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL, which causes a simulated reboot. After showing the
usual boot messages, bsodsim will run a simulated SCANDISK program
indefinitely. The boss won't be able to tell the difference. If the boss
continues to hang around, the worker can say, "SCANDISK is really taking a
long time... maybe we should upgrade our computers. And don't you have
something better to do than watch this computer reboot for the tenth time
today?"

  Red Hat 6.0 also includes a 'Flying Windows' screensaver for use with X
Windows. If the boss happens to walk by your computer when you're away, he
still won't be able to tell that it's not running Windows.  "

© 1999 Peter Langston