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Comment by ritter2a | Hacker News Reader

What about adding "echo sleep 0.01 >> ~/.bashrc" to their .bashrc (or whichever shell config file is used)?

The real evil comes from putting it in ~/.bash_logout or equivalent so it doesn't get as much visibility as a bashrc might.

I don't get it. What's so bad/annoying about sleeping for 10 milliseconds whenever a new shell is opened? I don't think anyone would notice. "sleep 1000", on the other hand...

EDIT: I misunderstood it as executing

   echo sleep 0.01 >> ~/.bashrc

once instead of adding that line to .bashrc – even though that's exactly what you wrote...

It appends another sleep each time you start a new shell, so it subtly slows down over time.

wouldn't it do so exponentially?

The first time it does it once, the second time the statement is there twice so it does it twice, then 4, 8, 16, etc. ?

No, because;

    echo sleep 0.01 >> ~/.bashrc

adds this to .bashrc;

    sleep 0.01

It doesn't add itself, so the sleep tie grows linear by 0.01sec each time a shell is opened.

No, the entire statement isn't added each time, only the sleep portion.

the third time the statement is there three times ..

The idea is to add the 'echo ..' to the .bashrc, not just run the command once.

Ah, now I get it. Thanks! That's evil, indeed.

Wouldn't it add another ten Ms every time you opened a new terminal session?

yeah its windows 95 simulator :)

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