> Perhaps I'm severely impaired, is the suggestion that > this somehow caused it? Yes. > Is this hinting at a conspiracy? Not conspiracy, incompetenc

> Perhaps I'm severely impaired, is the suggestion that > this somehow caused it? Yes. > Is this hinting at a conspiracy? Not conspiracy, incompetency (Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."). > I didn't quite understand "we forgot about the VAX" > and rebooting it part. I'll break it down: Relevant characters: - "the gnome" (the company comptroller) - "the data center manager" - "the shift supervisor" (of the datacenter) - the author/narrator, who is the VAX expert The gnome is using the VAX to transfer a trillion dollars from one bank to another. During this process, there is a period of time when the money has been withdrawn from one bank, but is not yet deposited in the new bank. While the money is in this in-between state, the data center manager saw the narrator, which reminded him of the VAX, which (to his knowledge, since he didn't check his messages) hadn't been checked on during the whole ordeal. This causes the data center manager to scream "we forgot about the VAX" to the shift supervisor. So, "he" (either the data center manager or the shift supervisor) reboots the VAX, since he is incompetent at working with the machine. It is suggested that because the machine was rebooted before the money was deposited in the new bank, the money disappeared. The date suggests that this sudden disappearance of one trillion dollars caused the stock market crash.