In the fourth year lab, there is a log book for errors with machines. When looking through this log book someone in the lab pointed out that for one of the errors was written: Out of Cheese Error. This however was not the really funny thing, that was the fact that someone had signed the error off as being corrected.

Anyway on first hearing this I thought that I had heard it somewhere before however couldn't remember where. After forgetting all about this I was sitting in bed a few nights ago reading Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett. This book contains a machine called Hex which was made by a wizard, basically it's the first computer ever on the Discworld, it works by having thousands of ants running through tubes, controlled by leavers and a huge keyboard. It tends to add things onto itself and grows larger and more complex on its own. A mouse had made its nest in the middle of the machine and when it was removed it made the whole thing not work, therefore it was left and allowed to live there.

An extract of the book is given below, a wizard named Ponder Stibons has just used the machine to generate a spell and had said Thank you to it:

He was beginning to suspect that Hex was redesigning itself. And he'd just said 'Thank you'. To a thing that looked like it had been made by a glassblower with hiccups. He looked at spell it had produced, hastily wrote it down and hurried out. Hex clicked to itself in the now empty room. The thing that went 'parp' went parp. The Unreal Time Clock ticked sideways. There was a rattle in the output slot. 'Don't mention it. ++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.'

I knew I had seen the Out of Cheese Error somewhere before!

++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.
- Chris