
A tale of 132 e's - smpetrey
https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2018/12/e98e/
======
Nadya
I loosely followed this after seeing the repo. Once it was taken down I made
an organization and repo in honor of it:
[https://github.com/Ifyoudonotwantpeopleusingthemaximumchar/a...](https://github.com/Ifyoudonotwantpeopleusingthemaximumchar/acterlimitthenyoushouldprobablylowerwhatthemaximumcharacterlimitis)

e38e had become much like [https://github.com/jezen/is-
thirteen](https://github.com/jezen/is-thirteen) or
[https://github.com/jackdclark/five](https://github.com/jackdclark/five) in my
opinion. Except instead of being a silly NPM package it was a silly Rosetta
Stone of programs that returned "e" in some way. The only difference was the
ridiculous name that used the full character limit.

The Conway's Game of Life mentioned at the bottom of this blog was a thing of
beauty, so I hope the creator is able to get an archive and recover it.

E: Turns out the Repo is back up. So here's Conways Game of E:
[https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeee...](https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/pull/330)

~~~
skykooler
I would love to see an animated version of the GoL version, perhaps in one of
the browser-based simulators? I don't know how to work with .rle files though.

~~~
Nadya
I recorded 30 seconds of it from an online Golly [0] for you:
[https://kimiwo.aishitei.ru/i/Yx0hEmgDapyLLoyx.webm](https://kimiwo.aishitei.ru/i/Yx0hEmgDapyLLoyx.webm)

[0]
[http://golly.sourceforge.net/webapp/golly.html](http://golly.sourceforge.net/webapp/golly.html)

~~~
skykooler
Thank you!

------
gpm
Incredibly disappointing response by GitHub support. Making up a bullshit
limit that is clearly not the least bit based on reality given the massive
number of projects that violate it.

> “We’d ask that you limit the organization and repository names to 10
> characters each for now.” - GitHub support
> [https://linuxwit.ch/assets/github-
> email-3.txt](https://linuxwit.ch/assets/github-email-3.txt)

~~~
SpaceManiac
10 characters each is a depressingly low limit. Many usernames and project
names exceed it with no problems. Imposing such a nonsensical sanction on
someone for lighthearted fun also seems... odd, to say the least.

------
ekimekim
Another update, it's now archived:
[https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2018/12/everything-that-lives-is-
de...](https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2018/12/everything-that-lives-is-designed-to-
end/)

------
ebcode
> I then did the most chaotic neutral thing I could and created the longest
> possible repository name.

This sentence just made my day. Thanks for posting.

~~~
stcredzero
Can a Lawful Evil character infiltrate somewhere and pose as Chaotic Neutral?

I'd like to design an RPG where some stats can become alignments. This would
be just to have people identify their characters as Chaotic Stupid or Lawful
Clumsy.

------
gpm
The HN title should be changed to
"eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee".

------
anonymousisme
Many people may not know that in the olden days, a disk was formatted with all
bytes in all sectors set to hexadecimal E5 (11100101). When dumped, or looked
at with a hex/ASCII editor, the E5 was displayed as 'e' because nobody cared
about extended ASCII back then (and Unicode did not yet exist). So to me, a
Github repo name with all 'e's is a pretty cool thing.

~~~
anonymousisme
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that 132 characters was the most you could print
on a single line of a line-printer back before laser printers were invented...

------
wyldfire
It's pretty puzzling that somehow this repo became polarizing. It seems
entirely harmless and silly.

~~~
SZJX
There are always trolls out there for everything. Maybe their own lives aren't
going well and they get some sort of consolation in attacking others etc.

------
tectonic
This is a thing of pure beauty: [https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/3859/49709410-c842...](https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/3859/49709410-c8420b00-fbf9-11e8-995e-ea3a2270f161.png)

------
spiznnx
The GitHub support response makes me incredibly sad. Programming is supposed
to fun.

~~~
java-man
have you looked at any legacy code bases lately? ;-)

------
yosefzeev
The origin of the letter "e" might be helpful in the interpretation of this
event: [http://www.templestudy.com/2008/02/17/the-origin-of-the-
lett...](http://www.templestudy.com/2008/02/17/the-origin-of-the-letter-e/)

------
merlincorey
I think the most interesting part, that I don't fully understand as yet, is
that it cannot be cloned, apparently, but people are making pull requests, so
they must be using lower level mechanisms to achieve it.

~~~
nneonneo
Two ways:

1) edit a file using the web interface, creating a PR in the process (assuming
you don’t have write privs to the repo) 2) fork the repo to your own user
account but use a shorter name for your fork, clone your copy and make a PR
the usual way

Both of these work - you just can’t clone the original e98e repo directly.

------
stcredzero
There should be another such account, but pirate themed and based on "r"

------
ohiovr
I’m eeeeeeeeeestatic its back up

eee

------
_lm_
Eeeee ee eeeeeee eee Eeeeeee Eeeeeee! E eeeee!!!

------
bayindirh
This is some heavy-handed testing & I love it. I think it's an instant
classic.

------
htor
aww, thought this was going to be a story about 132 molly adventures! maybe
not the right forum..

------
doctorpangloss
> Someone asked “what it is supposed to represent that an employee of a large
> company is making such a garbage repository” as if my employment at a
> massive dystopian megacorporation quickly taking over the world has anything
> to do with this.

That if you were an intelligent person, you could in the past be a doctor or a
lawyer and also a philosopher. But nowadays, all the intelligent people
working for Amazon and Google _think_ they have philosophizing opinions.

But unlike past professional disciplines, computer science, I.T. and STEM
stuff is actually so removed from society, that these people have nothing
really valuable to add to the daily conversation in society at all. So
instead, they engage in the massive production of one-dimensional "hot take"
content, broadly called "Irony" or "weird Internet." This provides the facade
of meaning to their otherwise obviously finance and prestige driven lives.

~~~
neetdeth
How can they be finance and prestige driven when their Twitters are full of
snarky comments about how capitalism is to blame for everything? Are you
implying that ironic humor is somehow used as a salve for cognitive
dissonance?

~~~
stcredzero
Never ever happens!

