On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 nom_de_plume@altavista.net wrote:

I don't remember the URL. I didn't bookmark it either, and in
Lynx all pages look more or less the same. Alta Vista, Excite and
Infoseek provide no clue whatsoever. I just downloaded the
program from one of the millions of sites out there.

Interesting opening lines, to say the least...

binary but, Bliss notwithstanding, there are no Linux viruses,
right? I decided to take my chances.

Well, actually... but you're in an Alpha, so you're safe. Maybe. You use
PGP and MD5SUM to verify signatures, don't you? ;-)

[major snip]

error: core dumped
_

If my poor K6 would dump core like that... I mean, I would not object to
such a kawaii binary dump even if it would turn my life upside-down ;-)

good. Hmmmm, no core file. Strange.

She was sitting in your lap, didn't you notice that? ^_-  Talk about
piping something to /dev/reality...

    "Ah, you _really_ are a bakahead! Disappear, gone, puf! If
for any reason you shut down, there's a crash, or the power goes,
so does Lan-chan, forever. That's the way Computer Girls
work...."

That's it. I'm buying a UPS tomorrow. And installing the suspend to disk
patches right now. You never know... 

[major snip]

She flickered once... twice... and disappeared.

Oh my.

I realize it is too late now, but should something like that
happen to you again, try:

kill -STOP `ps aux | awk '{print $2}' | grep -v bash | grep -v init | \
grep -v PID`

(as root, obviously... and DO IT FROM A LOCAL TEXT CONSOLE. add a "| grep
-v videogirlprocessname" to it if you don't want to risk freezing the
video-girl in time)

It could have bought her enough time to apply the patch The Man was
working on. Not to mention the 20MB of breathing room you could have
earned her by killing X right off...

01001001 01101100 01101111 01110110
01100101 01111001 01101111 01110101

(!)  Excuse me, I think I've got something in my eyes...

There are over one hundred million web pages and ftp sites on the
Internet, more than ten billion files in all, increasing every   
day in number, but only one matters to me. Only one.

I wish you luck, fellow friend of the penguins. May Skuld help you in your
search for your loved one.

<begin of the real C&C>

I rather liked this fic, even if I am not such a fan of sad endings...
As usual, my english skills are too feeble to do a proper technical C&C,
but I didn't have any touble with reading flow, and I really liked Lan's
characterization.

What I can't understand is why you didn't sign it. This little piece
deserves something more than a simple @altavista.com address to identify
its author.

Oh well, please *do* keep up with the good work.

PS: You'll find her ^_-. Video-girls, as rare as they come, don't fall in
love with their clients. Yours was very special, and those are not just
wiped out of existence that easily according to the available literature.
Someone else other than her creator was at work there.

---
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh <henriqmh@dca.fee.Unicamp.br>