Oct 24, 2026, 2:22 PMI have an IRC transcript here that I've saved for 27 years because I'm still angry about it. I was writing a talk about Unix internals and I couldn't remember the name of a particular kernel data structure. So I went into #unix and asked “Consider the per-process table that the kernel uses to map file descriptor numbers into open files. What is this table usually called?”
And I was instantly kicked, with the remark “wow, you didn't even bother to change the wording of the homework question”.
Which reminds me of the way people are now claiming that the em-dash is an "AI tell", apparently because the em-dash is so rare and so mysterious that NO MERE HUMAN could possibly figure it out. In the minds of these illiterate jackasses, my question was too clear and too well-composed to be anything other than plagiarism.
Let me know when Claude does that, and I'll reconsider my position.
