Simon Travaglia

Author

About Simon Travaglia

The Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) is a fictional rogue computer operator created by Simon Travaglia, who takes out his anger on users (who are “lusers” to him) and others who pester him with their computer problems, uses his expertise against his enemies and manipulates his employer.Several other people have written stories about BOFHs, but those by Simon Travaglia are considered canonical.

The BOFH stories were originally posted in 1992 to Usenet by Travaglia, with some being reprinted in Datamation. They were published weekly from 1995 to 1999 in Network Week. Since 2000 they have been published regularly in The Register (UK). Several collections of the stories have been published as books.

By extension, the term is also used to refer to any system administrator who displays the qualities of the original.The early accounts of the BOFH took place in a university; later the scenes were set in an office workplace. In 2000 (BOFH 2k), the BOFH and his pimply-faced youth (PFY) assistant moved to a new company.

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Quotes by Simon Travaglia

Allowing yourself to smile takes 99% of the effort.

Simon Travaglia

Being able to write an idea down succinctly doesn’t make that idea any better than one which rambles on a bit. It just comes to the point sooner.

Simon Travaglia

Death is inevitable, but Life – that’s the tricky bit where things happen.

Simon Travaglia

Don’t borrow someone else’s spectacles to view yourself with.

Simon Travaglia

Excellent, there’s nothing quite like a blunt object to reinforce proper administration ethics.

Simon Travaglia

It ain’t the picture and it ain’t the camera – it’s the operator.

Simon Travaglia

It would absolutely suck if you paid a few bucks for a book only to find that on the first page it said, ‘Once upon a time they all lived happily ever after’ and the rest of the book was blank.

Simon Travaglia

It’s good to follow the path of personal happiness to some extent. People tend to get upset however when you drive a steamroller down it.

Simon Travaglia

Knowing the rules and remembering the rules are two completely different things.

Simon Travaglia

Names are what people sometimes use to excuse their thoughts and actions towards you.

Simon Travaglia

Of all the things I could know, my own faults and weaknesses are pretty much the most important.

Simon Travaglia

The greatest barrier to someone achieving their potential is their denial of it.

Simon Travaglia

The problem I have with making an intelligent statement is that some people then think it’s not an isolated occurrence.

Simon Travaglia

There’s no such thing as ‘facts of life’. Only standing theories that haven’t been disproved as of yet.

Simon Travaglia

What I think we fear is rapid, pronounced, and uncontrollable changes to ourselves, and because of this we have a form of personality inertia – something that resists rapid change.

Simon Travaglia