I had a dream the other day that I was learning Linux Kernel programming. In real life, I’ve never done that.

You need to be extra careful about accessing shared memory and locks, so that you don’t lock up the system. I was trying to copy a string, and I was using a new method I was unfamiliar with. I accidentally copied Beckah!!!

Now there were two Beckahs there. And they did not get along. They were always arguing. Her host father was like “Listen. I cannot handle the two of you arguing and yelling all the time. One of you has to go.” and they were each like “Oh no, I’m staying. You go.” “Oh no, I’M staying. You go.”

I pointed out that we needed to go into the computer and fix some stuff that I broke. Maybe we could all three of us go in there (I thought I needed all the help I could get) and then decide about this later.

They agreed, and we went inside the computer and there were all sorts of cool 3-D visual effects and computer-generated graphics and stuff. We had all sorts of exciting adventures – jumping on the floating platform as it moved by and then jumping to other ones until we were across the chasm, for example. Or continually deflecting the glowing ball that was pursuing us. That type of thing.

Eventually, we found the thing we needed to fix and we totally fixed the computer. We then went back out into the real world. I was sure, at this point, that the two Beckahs would have been united by their shared experiences and trials. Indeed, they seemed to be getting along a little better.

At this point, we had to file our reports of what had happened inside the computer. I wrote up my impressions of what had happened, and then I collected the papers that the Beckahs had written. Sadly, I found that each of them took all the credit for all the things that either Beckah did, and then went out of their way to point out that the other Beckah did not help out.

sigh. Some people will never learn.