Terminal Cruise

Morons Shouldn’t Design Operating Systems

Calculate the square root of 2 to 2,500 decimal places:

bc
scale=2500
sqrt(2)

TC176: When Malphas was taken to meet the king of Salem he apparently didn’t rate an audience before the actual throne. Instead he saw the cherub in his salon with only Prince Melchizedek in attendance. The lack of pomp was striking. He surmised the king had no wish to be humiliated before his subjects. But he was taken to the chamber by the king’s daughter, Lilith, a yan leather-garbed in parody of a soldier. Malphas found it to be personally offensive. Very well. He would trade barb for barb.

TC177: Lilith came to the required number of paces before Melchiyahu and sank to her knees while Malphas pointedly did not do so. She said, “My father and liege-lord, this lan, Malphas by name, claims to be a prince of the city of Adan.”

Melchiyahu ignored the breach of protocol made by Malphas. He said, “I know of one son of Rimmon by that name. Such a one I have never met, as a thousand leagues lie between here and Adan. And such a one was never granted leave to make utterance in Salem.

TC178: “Sire,” replied Malphas, “were I the get of a lowly stonemason like this lan named Hamon who is disturbing the peace of the Lord’s realm, even so I would have leave to preach here in Salem, for I am the Voice of Shemhazai, and your kingdom still lies, however uneasily, within the East Lands.”

“Yet were Shemhazai himself come to Salem he could not pronounce death as you have done, even for a stonemason’s son. That is my power, solely, and the giving of the scepter is without repentance.”

TC179: Malphas said, “Then sire, at the very least I counsel restraining this Hamon by fetters if not by death.”

“Not in haste, O Voice of Samael. My own daughter admires this prophet and puts his words into action, which gladdens my heart in a way I cannot tell you.”

“Your Majesty, the ideas admired by your daughter spread through the East Lands like a plague. Already the river of pilgrims who flow to Adan seeking absolution ebbs. Hamon is like a dagger pointed at the heart of the state.”

TC180: “What do you mean?”

“Sire, the priests have been forced to double their rates!”

Melchiyahu looked at Malphas with a mixture of pity and amusement. Abruptly the prince realized Melchiyahu’s purpose in limiting the audience to just three nobles in this private setting. Any grandstanding was impossible. In their raw state his words sounded insane even to himself.

The king said, “I will listen to this Hamon’s words with my own ears and judge whether they disturb Shemhazai’s peace.

TC180: “Have a care, Melchiyahu!” the prince dared to exclaim. “I assure you the Lord will not hesitate to bring an errant cherub to heel through war!”

Melchizadek and Lilith were both startled, not by the bold words of Malphas but by the deadly calm on the face of their father in the wake of the affront. The king gracefully rose to his feet and said, “I leave this matter to you, son. Remember, one day you will rule Salem.”

After his father departed, Melchizedek struck off the Killing Relic.

TC181: The eyes of Malphas grew wide. This confirmed many things. The ruling house in Salem had divine assistance and the usurper Hamon did not merely imagine himself to speak for Bat-El.

“Say no more words,” Melchizadek warned, shouting over the noise of the Relic. “You would be cut in twain even as you spoke.”

To underscore this threat he sliced the corner of the massive and ornate stone table as though it were made of bread. The severed piece crashed to the floor and did not bounce once.

TC182: Melchizedek allowed the hissing black rip in reality to fully retract into the golden hilt he held in his hand. Then he continued much more quietly. “A horse shall be given to you with comestibles to see you to the town of Odargas thirty leagues east of Salem. Tarry you there. A messenger shall follow after Cherub Melchiyahu himself has heard this Hamon preach. But Malphas, real son of King Rimmon or no, should you ever return to this city, take heed to do so at the head of a large army.”

TC183: “That is sound counsel, I deem,” said Malphas. He broke the clay seal on the blank scroll of parchment that was, in fact, his credentials as the Voice of Shemhazai. At once he was surrounded by a transparent sphere in the likeness of a ball of glass or crystal. The grounds of the palace of Rimmon were seen within. “Think you Bat-El alone works signs of wonder?” In an instant the sphere disappeared and Malphas was gone with it, leaving only a crater in the stone floor of the king’s salon.

#whatis

Get a one-line description for all the files in a directory, delete lines that have no description:

ls -l /usr/bin | awk '{print $9}' | xargs whatis | sed '/appropriate/d'