NAME

think - you don't have to think, the computer can think for you

SYNOPSIS

think [ -detach ]

DESCRIPTION

Think simulates a thinking brain.

This can be useful if someone is not wanting to think at invocation time or if someone is needing some thinking about something. It can also be helpful if someone's brain is not working correctly at invocation time.

When invoked, think will go ahead and look at all of the commands and keystrokes that a user has made during the current login session. Think will then look at what files the user has. From this and what level the user is listed at in the file /usr/lib/think, think will figure out what the user was trying to do when think was invoked.

DEVICES

The process that think uses to help a user is greatly aided if the user is wearing a brain interface bus (bib) device. A bib device is normally worn on the head, and if being used, then think will try to see what was going through the users head at the time of invocation. After think does this, it will send electric signals to the users brain, causing the user to type in whatever keystrokes are necessary to accomplish the task that he/she doesn't want to think about.

OPTIONS

-detach: also known as "Must mother do all of your thinking for you?"-mode. This options causes think to run in the background as a daemon that watches for users who look like they may need assistance. When a user is found to be exercising cluelessness, think will lock up their keyboard and will proceed to execute what seems to be the most likely sequence of commands that the user had intended to execute. This flag may only be used by the super-user.

FILES

/dev/brain: bib device special file.
/usr/lib/think: file to indicate various user abilities. The format of this file is a username on each line followed by some whitspace and then a number. The higher the number for a given user, the more likely think is to assume that that user knows what he/she is doing. Unfortunately, what think considers a large number will vary with usage.

BUGS

If a user is using a bib device and actually lacks a brain of their own, then there is a high risk that think will take over their (non-existent) minds. This has the upshot that someone other than the user will have to stop the program. (Perhaps this is a feature.)

It may illegal in some areas to force users to wear bib devices.

AUTHOR

This man page was written by John Guthrie <guthrie@math.upenn.edu> with suggestions from Kevin Whyte <kwhyte@math.upenn.edu> for the alt.sysadmin.recovery man page collection.