I have much more books than I can put on my night-stand. Books that are on my night-stand are quickly accessible (when I'm in bed, that is), and books on the shelf are not (I hate getting up from the cozy, warm, bed). So, when I suddenly feel like reading a book that is not on the night- stand, I have no choice but to go to sleep. In the morning, I wake up and always find the book I wanted next to the bed! As it turns out, when I was asleep, another process, known as "sleepwalkd" got me the book I wanted. Also, when my nightstand already has too many books on it, The sleepwalk process moves one of the books - the one I'm least likely to want to read next - back to the shelf.
Last month, four Europeans with weird names decided to mess around with my book-reading system. One called Alan decided that in some cases I should move *all* my books to the shelf, go to bed without any books the same night, and instead fill the nightstand with crap. And if somehow all my shelves are full I should just burn one at random (if it burns the whole shelf, or the wrong shelf, who cares).
Another one, called Andrea, decided that I should redesign my whole sleepwalking routine according to his master-plan. However, this made my sleepwalking become so strange, that people were hesitant to call me "stable" any more. Alan thought my new sleepwalking was a sure sign of be not being stable.
But then a third European, Linus, finally made a judgment-call, and decided that I was stable, even with Andrea's new sleepwalking routine. He then told yet another European, Marcello, that from now he's resposible for keeping me stable. I thought it was my shrink's resposibility, but Marcello said no, that now that he finally has some responsibility he's not going to just give it up.
| Author | Nadav Har’El |
| Work | Hackers-IL Message No. 1,408 |