New Civilization News: Simple, explicit and redundant    
 Simple, explicit and redundant8 comments
8 May 2003 @ 23:59, by Flemming Funch

My printer suddenly started to print, and spat out a page that contained only this: 

# Keep this simple, explicit, and redundant

                                           V8

                                             Ou0

                                                Og0

                                                   OL0

                                                      Oeq

                                                        OQ/tmp
I hadn't asked it to print anything. Has never happened before. Well, it is a network connected printer, with its own IP, so I suppose somebody could have initiated it from elsewhere. Except for that it has a password.

A quick search in Google showed me that this is part of the standard content of mail.cf, one of sendmail's configuration files. Could be from one of my servers, but it would still be a mystery how it ended up on my printer.

Or maybe it is just good advice from the ethers. Keep it simple, explicit, and redundant. I'll try to remember.

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8 comments

9 May 2003 @ 02:21 by jazzolog : Overflowing Superfluity
I'd nix the redundant part of that printer's advice.  

9 May 2003 @ 14:03 by sharie : Redundancy
Some people need to hear the same message over and over before it sinks in.  

9 May 2003 @ 15:47 by ming : Redundancy
In biology, and in technology and in data storage redundancy is a good thing. Translates into fault-tolerance, resilience. Organic life is very redundant. Where your computer goes down if just one little copper wire is cut, an organic body will continue even with a great amount of damanage, and will tend to repair itself. Because of redundancy in the design.  

9 May 2003 @ 15:51 by martha : sounds
like a Borg. Has the invasion begun?  

9 May 2003 @ 17:40 by ming : Message
Maybe it is from the Borg queen. I think she wants me.  

10 May 2003 @ 04:21 by jazzolog : Re: dumbdance
The only people who "need" to hear the same message over and over and over are being trained or are training themselves by an authoritarian mind. Actors want to memorize the lines before they give the play the works---and probably wish then the brain is a computer. Otherwise the poet delights in the moment (s)he discovers yet another way to say Beauty Is Truth.  

10 May 2003 @ 13:10 by sharie : Hey Ming...
What is it you want to communicate?  

10 May 2003 @ 14:07 by ming : Communicate
I was simply reporting what my printer printed. To me it is good advice for computer programmers. And for any kind of technology designers.  

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