This is a satirical tech story. For readers who prefer the text version, it’s provided below.
I Learned Rust in 24 Hours to Eat Free Pizza Morally
This is not just a story about pizza. As a recent Phoronix article explains,
the Linux Rust subsystem got into major drama because of my humble quest.
Well, here’s my side of the story, with every kernel of truth exposed.
A Moral Quest for Pizza
Despite being an experienced programmer, I found myself in the familiar
situation of being down in my luck financially – mostly as a result of taking
extended sabbaticals to recover from burnout.
I’m not one to handle prolonged contact with the overt authoritarianism of the
typical HR department.
My bank account was approaching a segmentation fault – I wish I’d held meme
stocks a bit longer in 2021.
So, I entered my familiar survival mode: Grinding LeetCode, writing job
applications, and cutting luxuries like overpriced sushi delivery.
One well-known hack for programmers in such dire straits is, of course, the
free food circuit of programming meetups. Luck had it that a Rust meetup was
scheduled for the next day, with “pizza” explicitly mentioned in the event
title.
The catch? I had never touched Rust.
Here’s where my conscience started throwing exceptions: I couldn’t just
freeload pizza. I had to earn each slice. I had to know at least some Rust.
I had to become a Rustacean in just 24 hours.
Ownership, lifetimes, the borrow checker - all of the Rust Book got crammed
into my brain through copious amounts of cheap instant coffee and a sleepless
night.
Before leaving, I hyped myself up with some push-ups, and a shower to some
80’s synthwave, singing out loud Yazoo’s “Don’t Go” (a wise omen in
retrospect).
The Meetup
I stumbled into the co-working space, armed with the ability to nod knowingly
at entry-level Rust concepts.
The exposed bricks and Edison bulbs enhanced the feeling of limbo, neither
fully “work” nor “social event.”
Two hours in, the scent of pepperoni and Option was filling the
room as the ASCII progress bar of the last speaker’s fancy TUI slides had
traversed just 25%. My stomach was sending system calls.
The presentation ends, and the moment of truth arrives: The food table.
I devised a plan to maximize intake and abstractly offset my monetary
shortcomings. This military-grade operation involved timed passes around the
table, making sure to take sizable but stealthy bites, and securing additional
slices for consumption in a secluded area, only to return later for
more.
The first challenge came when a legitimate Rust developer started discussing
lifetimes with me, one of the hardest Rust topics.
“That’s right…” I managed, “The lifetimes are… almost Husserlian.”
He blinked. “Husserlian?”
Did he see through my bluff? My only choice was to double down:
“Yes the, uh, German philosopher… last name Husserl… You know, we experience
time as conscious beings in a temporal horizon… All is Rust. You know, man?”
My sleep-deprived brain attempted some desperate pattern matching.
He looked confused, then nodded slowly, perhaps mistaking my panic for
profundity. Mission accomplished. Another slice was mine.
I was on my fourth “first” slice (plus three more surreptitiously eaten ones)
and ready to leave, when someone mentioned the after-party.
The After-Party
What happened next exists in my memory like fragmented data blocks.
I found myself in deep conversation with a group of Venezuelan femboy Rust
developers who were building something revolutionary in the “post-capitalist
space.” Their programming socks were striped pink, and their confidence in
their technology was infectious.
“You should buy crypto options,” one of them suggested. “I have a hunch about
a meme coin. Trust me.”
In my altered state after several Aperol spritzes, this seemed like sound
financial advice. I FOMOed my puny savings at the obscure coin with a logo of
the Rust crab holding a bottle of coconut oil.
Minutes later, impossibly, the value shot up 400%. Our phones buzzed with
profit notifications. The only thing to do then was to celebrate by visiting
that ketamine bar everyone had been whispering about.
The Kernel Incident
In our transcendent state, over hardcore techno music, we did what any group
of intoxicated “nouveau riche” programmers would do: We pair programmed a
patch to the Linux kernel’s Rust subsystem.
It essentially replaced close to 50% of the code base with Rust, thanks to
some inspired macro magic and a 100% use of our brainpower. The tests were
passing until we got bored and terminated the process.
I considered the morality of sending such a huge patch on a whim, but I was
operating under a different set of ethical principles at that point – ethics
of a more cosmic nature.
We submitted it at 6:47 AM with a commit message that just read: “The crab has
awakened. Prima Nocta is imposed on all unsafe languages.”
commit deadbeefb9e1d3f5a6c8e2b4d7f9a1c3e5b7d9f2a4c6e8b1d3f5a7c9e2b4d6f8a
Author: Sebastian Carlos <sebastiancarlos@protonmail.com>
Date: Tue Jun 03 06:47:23 2025 +666
The crab has awakened. Prima Nocta is imposed on all unsafe languages.
Fixes: All memory safety issues
Co-authored-by: Valentina Bitcoinita <val.php.lambo@cryptofemboys.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Esperanza Rustacean <esperanza.blazingly.fast@caracas.rs>
Co-authored-by: Sir Borrow Checkington <sir.borrow.checkington@vatican.va>
Tested-at: The Ketamine Bar <qa@post.capitalist.space>
Pure blackout after that. I woke up two days later in my apartment.
The Reckoning
Our Linux patch had not only been rejected but had apparently been the final
straw for Linus Torvalds, who announced in a profanity-laden email that he was
removing all Rust code from the kernel.
“I’ve had it,” his email read. “At least C developers know when they’re
drunk.”
Phoronix was in uproar about the “Ketamine Kernel Incident.” My GitHub profile
had become a cautionary tale.
After soberly checking my earnings, I realized my $100 investment resulted in
a profit of just $400 before fees and taxes. Not enough to quit my job hunt.
In retrospect, the whole experience reminded me of my last job: Good
intentions, moral compromises, and spectacular burnout.
But the real shock came when I opened my wardrobe that evening, looking for
clean clothes to wear to my job interview in a couple of hours.
There was a collection of striped pink programmer socks. Dozens of them, like
some sort of Rust swag. Where had they come from?
But hey, at least I got pizza, and the socks were surprisingly comfortable.