Related:

• bring X to its knees: v. To present a machine, operating system, piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or {pathological} that it grinds to a halt.
  To bring a MicroVAX to its knees, try twenty users running {vi} -- or four running {EMACS}....
• Bill Gates says no matter how much more power we can supply, he'll develop some really exciting software that will bring the machine to its knees.
  -- Intel VP David House, In _EE_Times_, 16 October 1989...
• Bring Windows to it's knees: Start an application.
• boot v.,n. [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] To load and initialize the operating system on a machine.
  This usage is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are still jargon....
• well-behaved adj. 1. [primarily MS-DOS] Said of software conforming to system interface guidelines and standards.
  Well-behaved software uses the operating system to do chores such as keyboard input, allocating memory and drawing graphics....
• You don't need to bring your adversaries to their knees, just to their senses.
• mail storm n. [from broadcast storm, influenced by `maelstrom'] What often happens when a machine with an Internet connection and active users re-connects after extended downtime -- a flood of incoming mail that brings the machine to its knees.
  See also hairball....
• Elephants have four knees.
• PC-ism /P-C-izm/ n. A piece of code or coding technique that takes advantage of the unprotected single-tasking environment in IBM PCs and the like running DOS, e.
  g., by busy-waiting on a hardware register, direct diddling of screen memory, or using hard timing loops....