Unix witticisms

[Ron Natalie]

While not quite a UNIX witticism, we did have a USENIX fun and game.    When I was playing university administrator at Rutgers, I had a student who decided that in order to get a good job he needed to go to USENIX and hang out with all the high powered hackers there.    He convinced some professor to actually fund his attendance, but he wanted to make a good impression.    He got on a rather popular (non-UNIX) mailing list and asked what people wore to the conference.    He thought that he'd actually have to wear a suit.   I pointed out that it was really casual.     Then Erik Fair got a hold of him and told him, yes, you wear shorts and a t-shirt, and sandals, and they had to be Birkenstocks.   So off goes this kid in the dead of winter in New Jersey looking for Birkenstocks.    I think he finally found them.

He went out to the show and had a pretty good time hanging out.    A week after we got back he comes in sporting a new haircut.    I made a polite inquiry about what was up, but he didn't catch my drift.   My then girlfriend bluntly asked him why he had a homosexual (not the word she used) haircut.    He said that all the hackers we hung out with at the conference had that hairstyle.   I had to point out to him that they were all gay.

Never did find out what happened to that kid after graduation.