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Labscam: "Labscam--A Preliminary Report
Dennis Ritchie jaynote: he is the creator of Unix
This is a brief account of an interesting practical joke we perpetrated recently. A better treatment by another author will be forthcoming, as will a video. I will tell the story in linear fashion as a straight history, instead of striving for dramatic effect.

In the fall of 1989, Rob Pike met Penn Jillette, of the comedy/magic team of Penn and Teller. The introduction and initial conversations were through e-mail, and the mutual acquaintance who started things off was Mike Hawley, now enmeshed at the Media Lab at MIT. After a series of electronic letters, Rob attended one of Penn's Friday movie nights, which was just as described by Calvin Trillin in his recent New Yorker profile of P&T. (Meet in the Times Square HoJo's. Rob wondered, `How will I know you?' and Penn said, `I have samurai hair and I'll be at the back.')

Penn's interest in visiting Bell Labs had already been piqued not only by Hawley, but also by Ron Graham (BTL mathematician/juggler), another mutual acquaintance. By the time Rob met Penn, thoughts of something more than a mere see-the-sights visit began to stir: there was the possibility of pulling off a great trick."

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