It is grey a dull, overcast day here in downtown Amsterdam. The weather is rather oppressive, summer’s smile long gone and my wine cellar miraculously has grown to quiet emptiness. However, I know a not too-well guarded secret. Hidden in the cracks, just at the edge of your eyesight, is extra humorous functionality in your favourite free software applications. Silent professional Easter eggs are waiting stealthily to make you smile.

Do not worry; no animals were involved in testing (other than me, myself and I), just Ubuntu 7.10 and an aged and generic desktop. Strap on your goggles, sit firmly back in your comfortable chair, turn the boom box up and relax. Let the games begin and the mutant cow like creature roars desperately for supremacy.

To be or not to be a bovine

The grey day and lack of viable alcohol sources left me with one choice; to research my next article on GNU/Linux related Easter eggs. What is it with cows and GNU/Linux? Let me answer my own self-serving question and show you some varied and slightly bizarre examples of human randomness. Assuming you are running under Ubuntu from a terminal type:

apt-get help | grep -i super

This APT has Super Cow Powers.

OK, let us generate some somewhat warped and deranged ASCII

apt-get moo
         (__)
         (oo)
   /------\/
  / |    ||
 *  /\---/\
    ~~   ~~
...."Have you mooed today?"...

Having fun yet? My brain is starting to bake trying to work out the meaning of it all. There are even serious and well researched Ubuntu bug reports on the subject.

How about trying to use aptitude from the command line to discern a recognizable and potentially disturbing pattern of social humor. Can we get aptitude to talk sense? Let us beat it around the head verbally and see if we can get it to admit its origins.

aptitude -v moo
There really are no Easter Eggs in this program.
aptitude -vv moo
Didn't I already tell you that there are no Easter Eggs in this program?
aptitude -vvv moo
Stop it!
aptitude -vvvv moo
Okay, okay, if I give you an Easter Egg, will you go away?
aptitude -vvvvv moo
All right, you win.

                               /----\
                       -------/      \
                      /               \
                     /                |
   -----------------/                  --------\
   ----------------------------------------------
 aptitude -vvvvvv moo

What is it?  It's an elephant being eaten by a snake, of course.

Yes now I understand life clearly. Well, if you cannot beat them with sharp pointy objects, then join them I say. Let me introduce to a small program called cowsay, a man’s best friend, a configurable talking cow. Just what you need when you already have multiple personalities and two children. From your favourite terminal, please type:

sudo apt-get install cowsay
cowsay what the

 ----------
  what the
 ----------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w||
                ||     ||

Cows, cows everywhere and not a pint of milk to drink.

Cows, cows everywhere and not a pint of milk to drink

Warning: the following text discusses cows, but the experts among you will of course realize that although the animal in question has udders it is, in fact, a mutated creature of unknown genesis… possibly goat. Cow is the nearest meaningful definition I can find without consulting world-renowned experts who have designed nuclear reactors and viewed, sadly, in a state of pizza engulfed enlightenment, every single Star Trek episode.