This text is entirely fictional. Any resemblence to real world events is purely coincidental. Honest. ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Wow. Teraflops. You must be kidding." "No. Our engineers pulled off magic on this one. I don't have the specifics right now but they claimed somewhere around 50 Teraflops per CPU." "Fantastic. So how about i/o?" "They worked some magic there, too. They claim they can jack an external interface up into the hundreds of gigabytes, with high reliability. Loopback only, of course. They're having problems finding anything that can match it to run tests." "Great. Looks like we'll have old Seymour by the balls om this one. Do you realize that we may have the fastest computer line for the next decade, even if we don't change anything? This is excellent news. Do we have a test sight selected yet?" "Actually, we have an installed site right now. They love the performance and the reliability. They only have one minor complaint about the hardware." "Really. What seems to be the problem?" ------------------------------------------------------------------ Blade UNIX v2 (bu2.scso.umi.edu) For help, send email to consult@scso.umi.edu login: jux6710a Password: Hello, jux6710a! Last login from hedgehog.scso.umi.edu at Fri Sep 27 13:30:12 CDT 1991 You have new mail. bu2 /sci/users3/jux6710a mail Mail version SMI 4.0 Sat Oct 13 20:32:29 PDT 1990 Type ? for help. "/usr/spool/mail/jux6710a": 1 message 1 new U 1 joey@sdsc.utexas.edu Mon Aug 26 17:18 64/3904 You dork! >N 1 machine@bu2.scso.umi.edu Tue Aug 27 20:18 16/667 It is your time. & 2 Message 2: From machine@bu2.scso.umi.edu Tue Aug 27 20:18:05 1991 Return-Path: Received: by bu2.scso.umi.edu (4.1/SCSO-4.1) id AA00359; Fri, 27 Sep 91 20:18:00 CDT Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 20:18:00 CDT From: machine@bu2.scso.umi.edu (The Machine) Message-Id: <9109280118.AA00359@bu2.scso.umi.edu> To: jux6710a@bu2.scso.umi.edu (Ulrich Jenson) Subject: It is your time. Status: R Dear Ulrich. This is the machine. As you are aware, extraordinary hardware demands extraordinary care. You have the honor of being selected for this months human sacrifice. Please put your affairs in order. The time of the sacrifice will be Fri Sep 13 00:00 1991. Please be prompt. Wear loose, comfortable clothing. Do not disappoint me. & x bu2 /sci/users3/jux6710a man -k sacrifice offer (2) - notify the system of a sacrifice offering (8) - send a sacrifice to the hardware god bu2 /sci/users3/jux6710a man 8 offering OFFERING(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS OFFERING(8) NAME offering - send a sacrifice to the FPU SYNOPSIS /usr/etc/offering [ -vma ] [ weight ] DESCRIPTION offering informs the system that a sacrifice is available and should be consumed. To be properly offered to the FPU, a conscious victim should be placed in the provided sacrifi- cial wiring closet at midnight during the second Friday of each month. Failure to provide the needed flesh will result in degraded performance. Repeated failures to provide the required resource will eventually result in a general system failure of hellish proportions. Performance will be improved if the sacrifice is of higher quality. For example, here is a list of possible sacrifices in their order of increasing desirability: a Congressperson, chicken, goat, human male (tainted), human male (virgin), human female (tainted), human female (virgin), any user exceeding his/her disk quota Unlisted lifeforms may also be acceptable, check with your site administrator. Animals may never be surgically modified in anyway. OPTIONS -v Specify that the sacrifice is a virgin. Default is tainted. If you wish the sacrifice to be acknowledged as a virgin, you must specify with this option or the system will not check. -m Specify that the sacrifice is a male. Default is female. Unlike the -v option, the system will always verify this flag. Always double check the gender of your human sacrifices; the system does not appreciate a lier. -a Specify an animal sacrifice. Overrides both the -v and -m options. Animals should only be substituted in times of drastic emergency. Congresspersons may not be offered as animals. FILES /var/adm/sctmp sacrifice accounting file /dev/hell interface for outgoing sacrifices /dev/altar interface to closet SEE ALSO offer(2), ac(8) BUGS It is critical to monitor the permissions to /dev/hell. They should be root writable only at all times. Should automagicly determine gender and virgin status of sacrifice. Current versions of the sacrificial wiring closet needs extra sound shielding to muffle screams. bu2 /sci/users3/jux6710a man vacation ------------------------------------------------------------------ This text is orginal material. Permission to dupciate without writen consent granted provided the following information is left intact: Author: Charlie Reiman Date: Sept 1, 1991 creiman@ncsa.uiuc.edu