lpr YouStupidPrinterTakeThis.txt
The other day I had the joy and the privilege to debug some printing code. Oh yeah, it was as much as fun as you might be thinking. To make it even better the bug was showing up only on certain distributions of Linux. Seriously, you can dial back the jealously now, I already realize how lucky I am.
Cursing at the printer took me back to my days in college working in the computer labs. Back then Linux was old Infomagic CD’s and getting anything to come out of the printer, whether it was what you wanted or not, was a major accomplishment.
*wavy screen and chime music*
*wavy screen and chime music*
*wavy screen and chime music*
The year was 1995-ish and this thing called the Internet was just starting to become all the rage. But that’s not really the point, that’s a cheap hook to set the tone and mood. Back then I was a “Student Lab Consultant” or some such title which translated directly into “Dude that sat at the desk with the phone in the public computer labs.”
Now being the dude with the phone meant that you did lots of things, but only three things were really important.
1. Help people clean off all the viruses they brought into the lab on the 3.5″ floppy disks that they’ve had since the 6th grade.
2. Consul them when said floppy from the 6th grade goes to that great disk drive in the sky taking their thesis with it.
3. Keep the stupid printers running.
That last one was the bad one. The first two the user had only themselves to blame, the other one was your fault. (Even if it wasn’t your fault, like say if there was no more blank paper in the lab.) It brings a warm feeling to my heart thinking about all the times an irate graduate student screamed at me because they couldn’t print out their research paper for a class that started in two minutes. No matter how many times I told them that a “A Study of the Radiation of the Enzyme Aldehyde Oxidase Decoduosomethingoranother in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster” probably wasn’t going to be a best seller it didn’t matter.
In fact, it is probably a testament to my fight or flight breakaway speed that I wasn’t bludgeoned to death with a toner cartridge. Or perhaps a thesis about fruit flies.
Regardless, the lesson then still applies today, printers are out to get you at all times. They are not be trusted and must be watched carefully. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen that LaserJet in a while, I wonder where he is…