sudo Give Mommy Love!

Tonight during the usual negotiation trying to get Tommy and Annie to go to bed, I issued the usual "Give Mommy love!" command (which is customarily then followed by me then escorting them each to their rooms and tucking them in).

Because they're smart and evil, and despite that they love Mommy very much, the "Give Mommy love!" command is usually ignored at first, and for as long as possible, until I am willing to make dire warnings and threats and/or resort to my wrestling skills or Jedi Mind Tricks.

But this time, Tommy said, "You forgot to say the magic word, from your shirt." And I didn't know what he was talking about.

After some brief confusion, we realized he meant: "sudo". I have this on a t-shirt: http://xkcd.com/149/

And last time I wore it, he wanted to know what the t-shirt meant. So I told him about unix servers, and privileges, and how the root user has privileges that other users don't, which means he can issue commands that others can't. I told him about how the "sudo" command can be configured to allow some users to issue commands as though they are the root user, by issuing the same command with "sudo" in front of it.

When I initially explained all of that to him, then went back over the joke on my shirt, he laughed and laughed and laughed.

But I forgot about it for a couple of days, while apparently he didn't.

So tonight I had to tell my kids, "*sudo* give Mommy love", and "*sudo* go to bed". Unfortunately, I don't think children are implemented on the unix platform, because it only worked for a moment, and then he was off to the side trying to avoid the bedroom and his bed again.

But at least I was entertained, and left with the feeling that I am raising my children right.