#!/bin/bash
clear
echo "Welcome to the world of Linux, where geeks manifest and nerds multiply."
echo "And where there's no place for poets who just sit and watch the stars go by."

InfoXpression’11, the annual college fest of USIT, concluded yesterday amongst heavy fanfare. And I’m glad that I could a part of it by being more than just a silent spectator! Those who are wondering about the connection of Linux and that horrendous piece of code (and not to mention, the utter bullshit piece of poetry, if you can call it that) with it, then I must tell you that I headed the organization of one of the technical events in the fest, titled “Linux Command Ninja”.

“You’re a ninja, and you’re on a mission!” That’s what one of the contestants got to hear when he tried to enquire about the event beforehand. He was pissed off, of course. But then again, he managed to emerge as the winner.

Linux Command Ninja was a carefully designed event, that tested a contestant’s detective skills as well as his knowledge of the linux command line. They were given a set of tasks to complete, which resembled an electronic treasure hunt. With clues hidden all over the system, they had to carefully go ahead; keeping their eyes open for the smallest of the leeway, squinting hard to look for the tiniest ray of hope that lingered in the horizon; so that they may collect what was required of them – a password, a private key, and a passphrase.

As soon as I’d taken the responsibility of conducting this event, I’d decided that I won’t be asking any of the run-of-the-mill textbook questions. I wanted something different, something exciting, that could capture the fancy of the intellectual crowd… that could make them want to do this… that could lead them on to a wild goose chase while still keeping them hungry for more! LCN was the result of all that.

What followed was a careful study of The Complete Reference to Linux, the history of Ninjas, and Japanese baby names (yes!) to decide on the tasks that were to be given out. Once a sequence was decided, I spent an entire day implementing the necessary technicals on my own system, and then some more hours installing the necessary files on the college computers. It was boring, and hard work… But I’m glad that on the D-Day, everything worked as expected. A fanboy’s dream, you can say!

Yes! iwannadoitagain!!