The Cursed Computer iceberg Meme

I admit, it's hard to get me interested in something continuously for more than an hour or so.
Sure, I can focus on a project for days in a row, sometimes even weeks, but I just never had something interest me so much I waste 3 hours on it. But that's what [this website](https://suricrasia.online/iceberg/] managed to do that.

The website, or webpage pointing to many different websites I should say, was, simply put it, a collection of facts, stories, legends, memes, and events in computer history and future. It's meant to get people interested in the mysterious side of computers, and to be honest I do think it succeeded.

Featured items range from [bugs you've probably already heard of](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem), [dangerous shell commands](https://askubuntu.com/questions/159491/why-did-the-command-make-my-system-lag-so-badly-i-had-to-reboot), and [terrifying unix error messages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lp0_on_fire). It's definitely a recommended read.

I already knew of some of these, but others were rather surprising. Personal favorites include [the 500 mile email](http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles),
[Weird api](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/ActivityManager.html#isUserAMonkey(%29) [functions](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20190731-00/?p=102743) which for some reasons like to treat users as monkeys,
and [The lost focal interpreter](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20200616-00/?p=103869).

Having said all that, the list does have a few items that, in my opinion at least, just don't belong on it. For example, simple criticism of language features or philosophy just don't fit in, since there is nothing uniquely terrifying about them. Also, I don't know about others, but the "x is turing complete" articles just don't surprise me one bit. Sure, some things are complicated as well, so what? I don't know what's so terrifying about the fact one can build a computer out of magic the gathering cards, but again, to each their own.

All in all, if you have 3 hours to waste, this is definitely an interesting rabbithole to go down. You might just learn something new.

 hope you find it as interesting as I did.

tags: meme, mystery, websites