From: henrydm@HYDRA.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.college
Subject: Don't forget to log out!
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:36:38 GMT
Reply-To: henrydm@HYDRA.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: hydra.rose-hulman.edu


	I know this story was posted once last year but I can tell it much
better and I have finally gotten around to posting it.

	I go to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana and spend
a great deal of time in the Computing Center just screwing around,
wasting time.  I sat down to log into a terminal one afternoon to log
in and noticed that someone had forgotten to log off.  After a quick
check, I discovered that it was the person who at the time was sitting
across from me.  I thought that it was sort of silly for him to be logged
in to his own terminal and the one across from him but this individual
was well known to be short on clues.  His name is Omar and is from
Texas but his family is from Pakistan.  He talks really funny too, sort
of like he has peanut butter in his mouth.

	Well, I thought that this was too good of an opportunity to pass
up.  After some discussion with others in the room, we decided that I
would kill the process he was currently in, effectively logging HIM out.
The action of his screen suddenly going blank elicited the response of
Haaaaaay!, Ted, what happened. (Ted was my roommate and a computing center
manager)  Well, every time that Omar logged in, I would log him back out.
He was Very upset over this.  What's worse is that after about  3 or 4
times, another friend (Mike) who happened to have a walkman, went over to
Omar and said "You know, I've noticed that every time I push play on my
walkman, your terminal logs you out."  Lo and behold, Mike pushed play and
I logged Omar out.  Omar, being an electrical engineering major should have
seen through this immediately but as I said, he is a little short on clues.
Mike proceeded to make a big deal about it and demonstrated the heretofore
unknown "walkman effect" to everyone who entered the room.  This was almost
more than poor Omar could handle.  He decided to call his father, a physics
professor at University of Texas and ask him if this was possible. (For
electromagnetic interference from a walkman to log out a VT220)  Much 
to everyone's surprise, his father thought it was possible and instructed
Omar to run some tests.  (Either Omar's father is as clueless as he is or
thinks he is a moron)  

	Two days later, Omar borrowed Mike's walkman to run the tests.
Mike was doing homework in the computer center and was present for the
test.  Everyone in the room thought they knew what was about to happen.
They thought that since I was not there logging him out and that since
Omar wasn't logged in twice, the test wouldn't work.  Omar stepped up
to the terminal, pushed play and...........his terminal went blank.
Everyone present was utterly shocked.  How could it be?  That was until
they looked up and noticed t
Ted grinning.  Omar had indeed forgotten to log out again and Ted had 
control of the process.  

	To this day, Omar doesn't know what caused the mysterious 
"walkman effect"


Note:  email me if you liked this story, there are a lot more about
Omar.  henrydm@rosevc.rose-hulman.edu