If Linux Was A Car
Here's a spoof of Linux from Brooks Hatch via the LangaList Newsletter:
M: Hey Pete, Can you help me put a radio in my Debian?
P: You're an Idiot, RTFM!
M: I need more help than that.
P: You're an idiot! I did a Google search. It's in the page
referenced by the footnote in the 37th hit. If I could find
it, so can you.
GS: (good Samaritan) You need to rebuild the engine to add a
radio.
M: Rebuild the engine?
P: You're an idiot!
GS: There's a how-to. It's written for a "Hat", but it's
mostly correct except that engine is in the rear. It's
translated from German, but they did a pretty good job. It'll
tell you to hook the radio to the red and black wires, but
since you've got a Debian, there won't be any red and black
wires. And you still need to write the radio driver. Don't
forget to regrind the camshaft. If you don't, you'll get an
error message that you don't have permission to change the
tire pressure, but it's the camshaft. You'll need a lot of
tools, but you can get them for free. Most of them come with
instructions... about 900 pages in all. Read 'em all carefully
and understand 'em before you start. Should be able to figure
it all out in a couple of months.
[MUCH LATER...]
M: Hey Pete, I didn't get all the stuff I needed to rebuild my
engine. Can I borrow your Drake again?
P: The wife has the Drake, but you can borrow the Hat.
M: This is different. Where's the steering wheel?
P: That dashboard was really using a lot of gas. This has what
is called a CLI. Just type CTRL-L to go left and CTRL-R to go
right.
M: What about the gas and brakes?
P: That's all combined into a single speed number. Just type
ps | grep speed. The headings are in Klingon, but the third
number is the one you want. Just divide by the speed of light
to get meters/second. You'll have to parse it out, calculate
the new speed and use the nice function to change the priority
of the process. That changes the speed. If you had just read
the manpage, I wouldn't have had to tell you all that.
M: Which manpage?....never mind... What if I need to stop in a
hurry?
P: Gotcha covered. There's a script for panic stops. Just type
PanicStop-3.8.63278665-HAT when=now. It will ask you for a
password. Enter the password and hang on cause you're gonna
stop real quick. I'm really proud of the deceleration
optimization routine. Be careful typing, it's case sensitive.
If it gives you a cryptic error message and doesn't stop, it's
probably because you forgot to add yourself to the brakes
group. It's all in the manpage.
M: Which manpage?....never mind...
[MUCH, MUCH LATER....]
M: I wish I hadn't sold my Gates. At least I could drive it to
town and pick up Granny....
P: You're an idiot!.....
8:18:10 AM 
