What Did Santa Claus Bring You?

Fake News written by James Baughn on December 28, 1999

Right now is that bizarre intra-holiday week between Christmas and New Year's Day when nobody wants to do anything but eat, sleep, and play with their gifts. We here at Humorix were desperate for some comedy filler material to round out the year, but at the same time we didn't to do anything that would require extensive mental effort. So, we decided to interview several people and ask them what they received from Santa Claus (or their local equivalent).

Linus Torvalds: Santa didn't bring me anything, but Tim O'Reilly just gave me a large sum of money to publish my new book, "Linus Torvalds' Official Guide To Receiving Fame, Fortune, and Hot Babes By Producing Your Own Unix-Like Operating System In Only 10 Years". Of course, once Transmeta has its IPO next year, I'll be so wealthy that I won't need to care about Christmas presents ever again.

Bill Gates: Will you people quit bothering me? I'm Bill Gates of Winchester, Tennessee! Next Christmas I'm going to get a restraining order against Humorix reporters. I should get a legal name change to, maybe something like Mr. Humorix Sucks.

Linux Hacker: I kept hinting to my friends and family that I wanted to build my own Beowulf Cluster. My grandmother got mixed up and gave me a copy of "Beowulf's Chocolate Cluster Cookbook". I like chocolate, but I would've preferred silicon.

Jon Splatz: No, Santa Fraud didn't bring me anything. You know, Santa Claus and the whole Christmas holiday represent exactly what's wrong with this country. It's yet another manifestion of the evil that lawyers and marketers have spread throughout American culture.

Think about it... We have millions of parents lying to their children about Santa Claus. They use the Santa myth to get their children to behave, effectively bribing them with the gifts. Such behavior scars children at an early age, preparing them for a career in the legal field. it's a simple fact: the children of immoral parents will subconsciously yearn to become immoral lawyers when they grow up. We are raising a generation of liars, lawyers, and marketers all because of some stupid myth designed to sell more overpriced made-in-China-with-slave-labor toys.

And don't get me started about the commercialization of the holidays! This is supposed to be the "Season of giving". Giving to whom? Large multinational corporations, of course. Christmas, as practiced today, is all about sharing your money with greedy Capitalistic fatcat materialists in exchange for crappy merchandise nobody really wants. It's a wonderful life... but only if you're a CEO.

Oh, and one other thing... [rest of Splatz diatribe snipped for brevity]

Anonymous Coward: all i wanted for xmas was a T1 line so i can post "FIRST POST ABOUT NAKED AND PETRIFIED GRITS MEEPT!!!" comments on /. at ten times the rate i do now... it didnt happen.

Linux Convert: I kept hinting for a SGI box, but instead my wife got me an old Packard Bell. Unfortunately, she bought it at CompUSSR, which doesn't take returns, so I'm stuck with it. I haven't been able to get Linux to boot on it, so this machine will probably become a $750 paperweight.

Slashdot Resident Language Pedant: I just bought a clue stick so I can hit Rob Malda over the head every time he makes a dumb spelling or grammatical error on Slashdot. You'd think somebody as wealthy and popular as Taco Boy would be able to use "its" and "it's" properly. Oh, and I'm going to knock senseless everybody that claims New Year's Day is the start of "the new millenium". One, millennium is spelled with two N's, and second, the millennium begins in 2001. This wouldn't be a problem if everybody counted from zero like computer scientists do.

Linux Zealot: My parents bought me a nice dual-Celeron box, which was exactly what I wanted, but they also agreed to sign up with MSN for three years in exchange for a $400 credit. It's like selling your soul to Satan in exchange for a new penny. Now I'm stuck using Windows anytime I want to access the Internet... er, Microsoft Internet.

Jesse Berst: I got a coupon redeemable for the full copy of Windows 2000 when it comes out in February. Win2K is the most innovative, enterprise-ready, stable, feature-enriched, easy-to-use operating system on the market. I don't see how Linux can survive against Microsoft's far superior offering. I ask you: could you get fired for NOT choosing Windows 2000? You bet.

Linux Freak: Pigs are ice skating in hell right now... I just got a beta version of Windows 2000, and IT'S NOT THAT BAD! I know, I know, wash my mouth out with lye soap for I have just spoken the unspeakable. Yes, I still prefer Linux, and yes, only dot com millionaires will be able to pay for all of the Windows licenses necessary to run any kind of non-trivial network. But still, Win2K is pretty impressive, considering it's coming from Redmond.

Linux Longhair: My friends sent me a two-year subscription to several Ziff-Davis publications, much to my dislike. I don't want to read Jesse Berst's rants against Linux, or John Dvorak's spiels about how great Windows 2000 is. Still, I suppose this isn't so bad. Ziff-Davis glossy paper makes an excellent lining for fireplaces.

Joe Schmoe: I suppose Santa Claus has something against me, because I got a lump of coal for Christmas. I'm not complaining, though, because 500 tons of low-sulphur Wyoming coal is quite valuable. Plus, if Y2K brings about TEOTWAWKI, then I'll have plenty of fuel to start my own power plant and begin the first tentative steps toward global domination.

Webmaster of LinuxSuperMegaPortal.com: One of my in-laws gifted me a CD-ROM containing the text of every "...For Dummies" book ever published. It's a shame IDG never published "Hiring A Hitman To Knock Off Your Inlaws... For Dummies", because that's something I'm itching to do. At any rate, I'm using the CD as a beer coaster.

Bero Not-So-Anonymous Coward: Throughout the year, I've been told 417 times, by 394 different people, to get a life -- so I hoped someone would give me a life for Christmas. But once again, it didn't happen... not even a response to my usual counterquestion ("where can I download that? Will it run on Linux?"). I didn't even get that Humorixia Citizenship kit I wanted. Well, guess that's enough ranting about Santa not bringing what I expected. Time to mention my good plans for the next year:
I will stop working on Linux 24 hours a day.
I will stop working on Linux 24 hours a day.
I will stop wor...
Darn, the mailer just crashed, might be a problem in glibc...
[root@localhost /root]# vi /usr/src/CVS/glibc/sys/linux/i386.h

The Latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Bashing Linux

Fake News written by James Baughn on December 22, 1999

At this point everybody knows that the easiest way to increase a company's stock price is to insert the magic word 'Linux' in a press release. However, many people haven't caught on to the latest way to make money from Linux: writing an editorial bashing it. This strategy, once tightly guarded by the likes of Jesse Berst and Fred Moody, is now open to any pundit, and it can be quite lucrative -- as USAToday.com columnist Will Rodger discovered today.

The idea is simple:

1. Write a scathing article attacking some facet of Linux ("I had trouble installing it..." articles are the most popular).

2. Publish it on the Net.

3. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot.

4. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article and load the advertising banners. Listen to the ca-chink sound of the advertising revenue that's pouring in.

5. As soon as the maelstrom quiets, publish another scathing article about the immaturity of the Linux "community", excerpting some of the nasty flames from Linux longhairs denouncing your intelligence and claiming that you're on the Microsoft payroll.

6. Arrange for the article to be mentioned on LinuxToday or Slashdot.

7. Watch as thousands of angry Linux zealots storm your article...

8. Wait for a few weeks, and repeat. Cash your inflated paycheck, invest the proceeds in some Linux stocks, and retire early. You've "earned" it!

Fred "I've Been Assimilated By Microsoft" Moody and Jesse "Could You Get Fired For Choosing Linux?" Berst have successfully used this strategy for years. Indeed, advertising revenue from Berst's "AnchorDesk" is probably the only thing keeping Ziff-Davis afloat. Today's anti-Linux op-ed on USAToday.com ("Linux: Windows competitor... Not!") is currently enduring the LinuxToday Effect and the author is undoubtedly receiving at least 2.32 flames per minute.

To help you get started with this latest get-rick-quick scheme, we here at Humorix have composed the perfect anti-Linux diatribe guaranteed to increase your hit count manyfold. Just take this article, make a few modifications, publish it, and sit back and relax (while ignoring the 10,000 irate flame emails and bomb threats you receive).

LINUX WORLD DOMINATION? YEAH, BUT ONLY IF THE "WORLD" IS THE SIZE OF A PENNY

By Mr. Jesse Berst Wannabe, Whiff-Davis AnchorSoapBox

Linus Torvalds, the ultra-geeky hippie get-back-to-earth spirtualist who created his own operating system, is said to be plotting world domination. Hell will freeze over before the you-must-be-a-geek-to-use-it Linux operating system becomes more than a Wall Street fad. The only thing Bill Gates needs to worry about is whether some unaccountable federal court breaks up Microsoft and the whole notion of free-market Capitalism with it.

Linux is based on Unix, a system born of the Drug Culture '60s that has this quaint little thing called a "command line". I for one am glad that Bill Gates innovated the concept of a graphical desktop with cascading menus, colorful icons, and intuitive dialog boxes, because command lines just plain suck. Imagine trying to converse with somebody who doesn't speak English using only two-cans-and-a-string, and you'll understand what a command line feels like.

Of course, it doesn't matter what interface Linux uses if you can't install it. And, if by some miracle of the heavens, you are able to successfully install and boot it before the next Ice Age, the system will probably not recognize 50% of your hardware. Meanwhile, you can purchase a new PC at Wal-Mart, boot it up, and Plug-n-Play Windows will automatically auto-detect your hardware and you'll be all set (plus you'll never deal with a command line).

I speak from experience. Last week I obtained the book "Linux For Dummies" in the bargain bin of the local bookstore; the book comes fresh with the Slackware 1.0 distribution on CD-ROM. It was a nightmare. My first impressions were horrible; Slackware (what kind of a name is that?) had the outright gall to force me to "re-partition" my hard drive, and then, to make matters worse, demanded that I save a backup of my Windows partition because it might be accidentally deleted. Which is exactly what happened.

To make a long story short, I finally got Linux up and running. Sort of. The sound card doesn't work, the USR WinModem isn't detected, and the behavior of the [expletive] DELETE and BACKSPACE keys varies in every program! I haven't been able to use something called the "X Window System" (whatever that is); I keep getting dire warnings that improperly configuring my monitor settings might cause it to blow up or something. I've never had to face that kind of risk with Windows, so I gave up on that.

As you can imagine, I haven't accomplished much. It seems I can't do much in Linux without running into my new enemy, the vi "text editor". I can't begin to describe how appalling this software (created by Satan, no doubt) truly is. Forcing criminals to use it on a regular basis would be declared Cruel and Unusual Punishment by the courts. I say: Give me WordPad or give me death!

The only Linux program I've been able to successfully use is fortune, a virtual children's toy that spits out a random epigram with each execution. It usually spits out obfuscated quotes or obscure in-jokes that only a long-time nerd could possibly find interesting. Indeed, the fortune program seems to be Linux's way of telling me: "You don't belong here. You're not a nerd. You don't eat, sleep, and breathe computers. You're not a snot-nosed 14 year old punk with acne and no life. This operating system is not for you. Go away."

Linux's technical problems account for only half of the picture. The Linux community, and its constituent members, are another force to be reckoned with (or, more precisely, to be avoided). The system's developers, often socially-inept teenagers, are more interested in ego-reinforcement than in producing an innovative, user-friendly, paradigm-shifting, enterprise-capable operating system that can compete with Microsoft offerings (which Linux is NOT by any means).

Ego-boosting for Linux "hackers" often revolves around Code Envy ("my program requires more command-line options than yours does!"), adding bloat to programs without any real planning ("my patch to fortune allows it to read email and surf the Web!"), and producing jokes and parodies that only other nerds could appreciate ("Get rick quick by bashing Linux!"). How these anarchistic Gates-wannabes have been able to produce an operating system that works at all is something scientists will ponder for centuries to come.

To top it off, a new wave of carpetbaggers, Wall Street moguls, and get-rich-quick schemers have joined the Linux ranks now that the system has become (for now) financially fashionable. I, for one, do not want to use an operating system controlled by money-grubbing, grave-robbing, spin-doctor marketers who would sell their own mother for stock options. That's why I use Microsoft Windows and not Linux.

Windows has been, and always will be, the foundation of computing. Linux longhairs might be having fun now, but it won't last long. Mark my words, next year all of today's high-flying millionaire Linux zealots will be flipping burgers at MickeyD's after the Great Linux Stock Bubble implodes.

Linux will suffer the same fate as Beta VCRs, New Coke, and the Edsel. It's doomed. Long live Microsoft and the best operating system ever devised, Windows!

The Truth About Microsoft Linux

Fake News written by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer on December 22, 1999

Microsoft accidentally revealed some details about the upcoming top-secret release of Microsoft Linux [Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Linux will be a registered trademark of Microsoft as soon as the government accepts the bribes] in an article published on their website, which explains how to remove Linux and install an inferior OS. The article, however, apparently due to the incompetence of its writer, reveals some secrets about Microsoft Linux.

The partition types used by the Linux and Windows operating systems are incompatible

Microsoft has added a very valuable patch to the kernel - it has removed support for some inferior technologies (msdos, umsdos, fat, vfat and ntfs filesystems) that bloated the kernel for quite a while. Thank you, Microsoft. It's about time someone dared to do this.

The Linux operating system is generally installed on partition type 83 (Linux native) or 82 (Linux swap)

Microsoft Linux introduces another innovative(tm) technology - the possibility to install the whole system on a swap partition. The Vast Spy Network(tm) informs us that this is for FUD purposes ("Linux becomes unstable if you use it with less than 64 GB RAM - it will overwrite arbitrary data on your harddisk").

"Superblock" in Linux terminology means that the Linux partition should be the active partition

Microsoft Linux introduces a new filesystem that doesn't need superblocks anymore (and it's not fat or ntfs - they removed those... Maybe cpmfs?) - but apparently the new filesystem can't be booted from.

Remove native, swap and boot partitions used by Linux

Cool - another feature from Microsoft Linux - partition type boot (type b0). What's it for? dd if=vmlinux of=/dev/hda1?

Insert either a bootable floppy disk or a bootable CD-ROM for the Linux operating system on your computer, and then press CTRL+ALT+DELETE to restart your computer. [...] To remove LILO, type fdisk /mbr at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

Well, I just got "Unable to open /mbr" when trying this on Red Hat Linux - seems Microsoft indeed ported Microsoft fdisk to Linux! Is it GPL? Where can I download it? And why would I want to? Microsoft is rather good at throwing up interesting questions lately.

Also, Linux recognizes more than 40 different partition types

"More than 40" is a nice way to put "about 100 last time I checked". I wonder if they'll advertise that Windows 2000 can make use of more than 10 kB RAM.

Jargon Coiner 2.0

Feature written by James Baughn on December 20, 1999

Jargon Coiner is an irregular Humorix feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. If any of this jargon is actually adopted in the Real World, rest assured that we will waste no time in bragging about it. Of course, if it isn't adopted, then we will quietly delete this article from the archives and nobody will be the wiser.

sjs@sjswebhack.com sent in these Microsoft-inspired phrases:

• Patch-22
  An endless cycle of releasing patches to fix bugs, that cause more bugs, that require more patches.

• The Hair of the Dogfood that Bit Me
  When you force your employees to use the same shabby products you sell to others.

• You Windows Some, You Lose Some
  Grouping disparate products under a common title, like "Windows Powered," in the hope that customers won't know which base technology to blame for poor performance.

• BIMBY (Buried in My Backyard)
  A truely stupid piece of software, like Bob, that you never want anyone to see again.

• Act Like a Little Billby
  When you order the dumping a popular product, like Visual J++, because you don't want to answer to someone else's contractual rules.

• Stuck in Net-tral
  Waiting for an Internet company to do something innovative, so you can buy it.

• Just Off the Bloat
  The release of another gigabyte-sized product, like Office.

• A Pain in the Net
  The supreme effort involved in keeping a Web site running with a system like Windows NT.

• Op'd a Feel
  The process of grabbing the best features from another operating system and trying to cram them into yours.

• Buggy Wuggy
  A form of dance wherein you skip around saying the word "bug," instead you always say "issue."

• That's Where I Draw the Linux
  Refusing to cooperate with the open source movement because you might lose your overpriced tech support income.

And the rest of these come from various members of our Vast Spy Network(tm):

• HOBTOB (Hanging Out By The O'Reilly Books)
  Seeking free Linux technical support at a bookstore by waiting near the computer books for a geek to come by and then casually asking them for help.

  Example: Eric The Linux Zealot walked over to the Operating Systems shelf and was accosted by a hobtobber who said slyly, "Hey, I see you're looking at a Linux book... Do you happen to know anything about Linux? You see, I've been having this problem setting up PPP..."

• MOOLA (Marketing Officially Organizes Linux Adoptance)
  A press release issued by a Dot Com (or Dot Con?) heralding their "support" for Linux (i.e. "BigPortal.com adopts Linux as their official operating system by adding five Linux-related links to their BigDirectory"); used to inflate their stock price and rake in moola even though none of their employees have ever used Linux and don't really care.

• Segfault Effect
  The recent wave of "Naked and Petrified", "Grits", and "MEEPT" junk comments posted to Slashdot by insecure teenagers who came from Segfault after the low-budget humor site disabled comment posting.

• Karma Kollector
  Slashdot user who treats the acquisition of "karma" as a game; often has a detailed strategy on how to sucker moderators into raising the score of their posts (i.e. posting a comment with a title like "Microsoft Sucks!!! (Score 3, Insightful)" or using "Only a fool would moderate this down" as a signature). Also known as "Karma Whore" in some circles.

• IPO (I've Patented the Obvious)
  Acquiring patents on trivial things and then hitting other companies over the head with them.

  Example: "Amazon just IPO'd one-click spam and is now threatening to sue B&N."

• IPO (I'm Pissed Off)
  Exclamation given by a Linux user who was unable to participate in a highly lucrative Linux IPO due to lack of capital or E*Trade problems. Also uttered by Linux hackers who did not receive The Letter from Red Hat or VA Linux even though their friends did.

• YAKBA (Yet Another Killer Backhoe Attack)
  The acronym that describes network outtages caused by a careless backhoe operator.

  Examples: "Don't blame us, our website was offline after we suffered a YAKBA". "Don't worry about Y2K, what we need to think about is YAKBA-compliance."

• Ninety-Niners
  In 1849, a horde of people ("Forty-niners") headed to California to pan gold and get rich quick. In 1999, a horde of people ("Ninety-niners") headed to California to invest in Linux companies and get rich quick. Some things never change.

• Zoo
  The ubiquitous shelf of O'Reilly Animal Books that many nerds keep next to their computer

• They're Multiplying Like Portals
  The proliferation of Linux portals that have the latest headlines from Slashdot and LinuxToday but offer little original content.

• You Can't Spell EVIL Without vi
  A curse uttered by freshman Computer Science students struggling with vi's insert mode for the first time.

Humorixia Nation Founded

Fake News written by Jon Splatz on December 17, 1999

The red tape has been cut, the T's have been crossed and the I's dotted. It's official. Humorixia -- the island paradise in the Pacific built for geeks by geeks -- is now an officially recognized independent nation-state by the United Nations. The day for revolution against the oppressive regime of lawyercrats and ultra-Capitalists is at hand.

For the revolution to succeed, however, we need your help. We need people to man the waste-to-energy power plants, to staff our Vast Spy Network(nontm), to grow food in our hydroponics farms, to mine precious metals from the sides of volcanic Mt. Coredump, to administer the nation's computer systems and cryptographic data havens. Most of all, we need people to defend the ideals of Humorixia and fight for the rights of the common man against the bourgeois class of greedy middlemen, of evil lawyers.

Citizenship is free (think free speech and free beer... especially free beer) to those who qualify. If you love freedom, and individual rights, and the spirit of voluntary sharing, then apply for Citizenship. Agree to the liberal terms of the General Social License and become an official Citizen of the World's first true meritocracy with the underlying philosophy, "No Lawyers, No Microsoft, No Bullshit". If, however, you hold a Law Degree, or have ambitions to enter the so-called legal "profession", then you need not apply.

You can apply for Citizenship from the comfort of your own browser within minutes. Simply post a comment to the Humorixia Grand Message Board stating your intention to join this nation, along with a brief essay on why lawyers are evil (or, if you prefer, a juicy lawyer joke), and you shall become a Citizen, with all of the Rights, Privileges, and Responsibilities enumerated in the General Social License.

Humorixia is based on a set of beliefs and principles designed to eliminate the injustices that occur in traditional lawyer-centric societies. Tossing all modesty out the window, I am calling these ideas the "Splatzian Doctrine" and codifying them in my soon-to-be-published book, "Unleashing Your Inner Pundit". (This book, licensed under my new OpenPundit License, will be provided to all new Humorixia Citizens.)

The Splatzian Doctrine is based on these five tenets:

1. The laws and regulations of a government should be 'Open Source'.
2. Intellectual property laws should be as minimal as possible.
3. Society, politics, and the legal system should be structured so as to eliminate any need for lawyers.
4. Democracy is obsolete; government should be operated as a meritocracy.
5. Individual rights should not be abridged without a damn good reason.

Guided by these five principles, Humorixia shall triumph against the hordes of lawyers that have oppressed the rest of society for centuries long. The days of frivolous lawsuits, pork-barrel government spending, totalitarian governments, and stifling intellectual property laws are over. The Revolution is at hand. Will you join it?

Microsoft Acquires Red Hat

Fake News written by Bernhard Rosenkraenzer on December 9, 1999

REDMOND, WA -- Microsoft stock surged 86% earlier today on rumors that the company had acquired Red Hat, Corel, and SuSE. Ziff-Davis was the first to publish the rumors in the story, "Pigs Are Flying: Microsoft Acquires Linux Companies". MSNBC quickly followed suit with their article, "Bill Gates Will Feast On Cooked Penguin Tonight".

However, both news agencies were forced to retract their sensational stories after it was discovered (thanks in part to Humorix's Vast Spy Network(tm)) that the rumors were greatly exaggerated. Bill Gates did indeed purchase Red Hat... or rather, a nice bright red fedora at a fashion store in Redmond. And, he did purchase two gifts for his daughter: a piece of coral from the Pacific, and a Dr. Seuss book.

In a retraction posted reluctantly by Ziff-Davis, the reporter states, "One of my well-placed sources inside Microsoft called me and said that Bill Gates had just acquired a red hat, some coral, and a Seuss book. The connection wasn't very clear, so I thought he said that Bill Gates had acquired Red Hat, Corel, and SuSE..."

At the height of the maelstrom Taco Boy demonstrated his journalistic integrity by posting an article titled "HOLY SHIT! ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!!!!" on Slashdot, generating upwards of 850 comments within an hour. The responses ranged from "First post! I rule!" (Score 2, Funny) to "I told you Red Hat was like Microsoft" (Score 5, Insightful) to "Did anybody actually read the press release that Microsoft just issued? Bill Gates purchased a red hat, not the company!" (Score -1, Flamebait)

Kernel Hackers: Detectives For A Day

Fake News written by James Baughn on December 4, 1999

Disaster struck Augusta, Maine yesterday when a mission-critical Linux server crashed and died unexpectedly. The tragic incident prompted Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and other kernel hackers to immediately fly to Augusta on charter flights to investigate the cause of the computercide. "I've never heard of a Linux box biting the dust like this," Torvalds said. "I had to find out what caused this freak mishap."

The tragic incident occured in the Computer Science Lab of Maine University yesterday morning. The Linux server, used by students in CS235 ("Non-Microsoft Operating Systems") and CS315 ("Advanced ed & vi", a five-hour course), crashed unexpectedly, and then refused to boot. Word quickly spread throughout campus of the tragedy, and a crowd of onlookers and gawkers quickly assembled near the lab. The CS faculty moved the dead machine to another room, replacing it with a rectangular chalk outline, and they surrounded the disaster area with police tape.

The kernel hackers arrived that afternoon. A goon from the Department of Public Safety, trying unsuccessfully to break up the crowd of gawkers by yelling, "Move along! There's nothing to see here!", obstructed the new arrivals. "Who are you? Where's your ID card? If you're a guest, you need to register," he demanded of Linus Torvalds. However, one of the students recognized the hackers and shouted, "Look! That's Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox!"

Several dozen CS majors surrounded the kernal hackers and demanded autographs from their idols. Even a few CS professors joined in. "Wow, this is what I call tech support! If you have a major problem with Linux, the head gurus themselves will show up personally to provide assistance. Mr. Jesse "Linux-Is-Unsupported" Berst can bite me," Professor Gruhenwald said.

Eventually the commotion died down and Torvalds & Co. were able to sit down in front of the dead machine and perform an autopsy. They opened the case up and were shocked to discover that the Intel CPU had melted. "I've always joked about how you can fry eggs on a Pentium, but this is ridiculous," Stephen Tweedie said.

The rest of the machine appeared to be intact. Cox unplugged the hard drive and installed it in another nearby machine, hoping that the drive's logfiles might provide some clue as to what happened. The final entries in /var/log/messages provided no help. The Kernel Krew grepped the entire drive for clues but came up empty handed.

The group discussed the situation and Alan Cox threw out possible theories. "Maybe it was the Slashdot Effect. Or a Denial Of Service Attack. Or cosmic rays. Or a Big Uncontrolled Singularity. At any rate, we've got ourselves a bona fide mystery. Torvalds responded, "Dammit, Cox, I'm a kernal hacker, not a detective!"

And then, an epiphany hit Linus. He'd solved the mystery. Just like Sherlock Holmes could take a few trivial clues and deduce that the butler did it with a knife in the Conservatory, he had pieced together the mystery. Torvalds suddenly announced, "This was not a random kernel bug or a hardware fault. Somebody committed murder."

"I remember seeing a file called crash.c in a student's home directory," he said to the other stunned hackers and professors. Sure enough, the file, found in /home/student153, was the culprit. It contained this C function:

void guess_what_this_does()
{
   char *p = malloc( 1024 * 1024 );
   fill_it_with_crap( p );
   dump_crap_out_to_disk( p );
   guess_what_this_does();
}

"Hmmm... a recursive function that eats up memory, CPU time, and disk space. Probably every teenage hacker writes one of these just to see what will happen," Cox said. "But, why would something like this crash the machine? We're not dealing with Windows here, Linux should be able to handle this. When the system runs out of memory, malloc returns a null pointer and the program segfaults. No harm done. So what happened?"

Tweedie chimed in, "This recursive program ate all of the CPU time, causing the Pentium to overheat. The darn thing got too hot and melted. We've solved the mystery. student153 committed the computercide."