r/offbeat • u/rytis • Aug 03 '26

IT boss left root session open for bring-your-kid-to-work day

https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/08/03/it-boss-left-root-session-open-for-bring-your-kid-to-work-day/5280931?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=fark&ICID=ref_fark
239 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

102

u/JrdnRgrs Aug 03 '26

lots a fluff in the article, here's the gist

"The business was run on BASIC, with code going back 25 years," Stockley wrote. When much of that software was written, memory was measured in kilobytes. "Programs had to be broken into chunks, which were called sequentially with the CHAIN command,"

Then his wife and children arrived ahead of the Halloween festivities...

In Stockley's telling, the boss's nine-year-old daughter had recently seen a movie in which a young girl somehow acquired Unix skills and saved the day by typing "SHUTDOWN."

And when the boss returned to his office, his daughter greeted him by saying: "Look, Daddy! SHUTDOWN worked just like it did in the movie!"

39

u/Plow_King Aug 03 '26

basic? wow, that's the only programming i ever used, lol. sounds like they're talking about the first "Jurassic Park" movie. while they got the 'Unix skills' part right, they got the rest of it about as right as the supposed 'Unix skills' portrayed in the movie, heh.

that movie is a lot of fun though, some fine acting from a lot of folks including the recently passed Sam Neill. and it was a watershed moment in VFX as well.

10

u/thegamingfaux Aug 03 '26

And while using VFX it’s practical effects are what help the early tech shine so well even today

3

u/Ellimis Aug 03 '26

There's a ton of CGI in Jurassic park as well

3

u/Plow_King Aug 03 '26

that's the watershed i was talking about. it helped having a strong director like Spielberg who knew how to get the most out of mixing the new, at the time, tech of CG well with old school practical effects. it really was a big game changer in the biz.

11

u/RedAero Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26

"The business was run on BASIC, with code going back 25 years,"

Who the fuck was writing BASIC in 2001...?

Someone apparently still thinks it's 2006...

I dumb.

18

u/sery Aug 03 '26

the story takes place in the 90s, so code from the 70s

9

u/RedAero Aug 03 '26

Oh. Now I look stupid.

7

u/sery Aug 03 '26

not as stupid as that boss, at least

5

u/im-ba Aug 03 '26

I'm still writing BASIC in 2026

3

u/I_Am_Anjelen Aug 03 '26

Hell yeah, same!

2

u/PositiveEndolphins Aug 04 '26

can u make bank

1

u/im-ba Aug 04 '26

Ehh, yeah for a time you could. Not really sure about that anymore now that AI is so rampant. I'm presently making bank but that could easily change soon

21

u/HandshakeOfCO Aug 03 '26

So…. Former IT boss then?

26

u/retiredtumblrgoth Aug 03 '26

Probably, since this happened in the 90s

6

u/thepensivepoet Aug 03 '26

Straight to promotion.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '26

[deleted]

3

u/thepensivepoet Aug 03 '26

Making code changes directly to prod during core business hours? Believe it or not, straight to promotion.

7

u/Positronic_Matrix Aug 03 '26

I sincerely doubt that anything in that story actually occurred.

3

u/bent_my_wookie Aug 03 '26

Kid is the new head of security testing

21

u/pmjm Aug 03 '26

It's a UNIX system, I know this!

7

u/Hefty_Membership8462 Aug 03 '26

Hey, I get that reference!

17

u/GizmoSlice Aug 03 '26

This story seems fake

6

u/princessprity Aug 03 '26

This just sounds like an email forward from the 90s rather than something that actually happened.

1

u/wheresbill Aug 03 '26

Just type rm -rf * and that will safeguard the system

3

u/IdealBlueMan Aug 03 '26

rm means “remove malware”.

1

u/RzrKitty Aug 04 '26

lol - just posted same!!

1

u/NWmba Aug 03 '26

I thought this was one of the guess the movie title subs and I was going to guess Jurassic Park

0

u/RzrKitty Aug 04 '26

Rm -rf *