Yes, but most, if not all of things were after I arrived, among the first of a brace of fresh hot blood imported to grow 127. Things definitely felt looser by the mid-80s.

Look, I'm not complaining. I absolutely loved working in the CS research group. But culturally, at least upon my arrival, I felt like a fish out of water.

-rob

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 9:42 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:

i would add the general atmosphere of the Unix room, especially the very heavy mobile hung from
the ceiling for a while (until someone noticed the cable supporting it was visibly stretching).

also the bowling alley (the corridor that rob, ken, denis, doug and my offices were on) — the pins
were under the printer table at the end. i also recall the time the bowling ball got away from the
Unix room rolling down the main corridor towards a group of visitors led by peter weinberger.
luckily, dave presotto grabbed the ball before anyone got hurt (but it was close).

i would also mention labscam; its not often we see a prank involving rob pike, Penn and a Noble Prize winner.

On Jan 11, 2022, at 2:17 PM, John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 3:45 PM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote:

Similar. Everyone at Bell Labs was so proper. (Except Ken, of course. Ken is sui generis, and a Californian).

Perhaps (probably maybe) I misunderstand. There was nothing "proper" about the Peter face on the water tower, or lock-picking a boot to move it to a patrol car, of Scott Knaur wandering the halls in a Darth Vader costume, or Jellicat wearing a Cats costume, or a thousand other examples. There was a lot of playfulness in the Labs (at least in the early days), and I think it was wonderful.