Rainman.exe

rainman.exe was first spawned on March 10, 1976 in Newville, PA — during a cold and snowy week, because of course the system had to boot up in the harshest conditions possible. Snow on the ground, frost in the air, and somewhere in Cumberland County a new process entered the world ready to README everything in sight.

No one expected the process would still be running 50 years later — but here we are, and kill -9 has never worked. Forged in a Pennsylvania snowstorm, this thing was built to survive anything.

The original documentation was lost, but rumor has it the first words logged to stdout were: "Hello, World?" — with a question mark, because even from day one, he was questioning everything.

Happy 50 years of uptime. Zero planned downtime. Countless unplanned reboots.

At Orrstown, my troubleshooting methodology for the Ironport was simple: when in doubt, reboot. Rainman found this deeply peculiar. To me — a young technologist — this was standard operating procedure. You don’t question the restart. The restart is life.

It wasn’t until Rainman and crew started opening my eyes that I realized “randomly power-cycling production hardware” wasn’t exactly a best practice. Who knew?

Appreciate everything you’ve done for me personally and professionally. You made me a better person and engineer.

But you’re still a jackass.

At this age, gravity is undefeated. Good day to double-check that the boys aren’t outpacing the inseam on shorts. Happy 50th!