[sunday_serif]

I love this!

I think it also emphasizes the complexity and capability of software that underlies the systems most people think about. I think it is a common misconception that your OS is the "lowest level" of the software stack, but in actuality, there is this firmware-ish code that truly owns your system. Sometimes it does a job and goes away, other times stays running the whole time your system is up, transparent even to the OS.

Sometimes, the attitude people have about this is along the lines of... "who cares, its just low level code to get my devices running, nothing serious can happen down there".

But knowing that you can get a whole IRC client down there doesn't make it too hard to imagine all the other nefarious things that could go on.