May 4, 2026
Sew slow it broke the internet
Re: Slow USB storage device? (util-Linux-ng, 2010)
Linus vs the world's slowest USB gadget as commenters scream about the dead internet
TLDR: Linus complained that an embroidery machine was so slow it took ages for a computer to recognize it, turning a tiny file transfer into a waiting game. But the comment drama stole the show, with readers spiraling into bot panic and joking that the internet itself now feels more broken than the gadget.
This old-school tech thread has everything: a famous founder, a hilariously cursed gadget, and a comment section instantly wandering into existential internet doom. The setup is almost too perfect. Linus Torvalds says his wife’s embroidery machine connects by USB and transfers files at a jaw-dropping 16 kilobytes per second — yes, the kind of speed that makes a loading bar feel like performance art. The files are tiny, so the speed itself isn’t the real scandal. The real rage-bait is that the computer then spends another half minute poking around, trying to identify the device before it even shows up properly.
That’s where the community mood turns from nerdy troubleshooting to full-on “what is happening online anymore?” energy. Instead of debating the slow gadget itself, one of the loudest reactions was a sharp, meme-ready complaint about spambots recognizing domains and dropping AI links, with the commenter declaring that “Dead internet reality is getting bad.” In other words: somehow a 2010 complaint about a painfully slow sewing gadget became fuel for a very 2020s panic about bots, fake engagement, and the internet eating itself.
The hottest take here isn’t really about cables or software delays — it’s that the machine is so absurdly slow it feels comedic, and the surrounding web ecosystem now feels even more cursed. It’s part tech support, part time capsule, part comment-section apocalypse. Honestly? That vibe may be the most relatable thing in the whole story.
Key Points
- •Linus Torvalds reported that a USB-connected embroidery machine storage device transferred data at about 16 kB/s but the larger problem was a roughly 30-second delay before the disk became usable.
- •Testing across multiple computers and cables produced the same behavior, leading Torvalds to conclude the hardware itself was consistently very slow.
- •Torvalds found that udev delayed device-node creation while waiting for probing tools such as blkid or vol_id to scan the device.
- •Measured commands showed `blkid -o udev -p /dev/sdc` taking about 13.7 seconds and `blkid -o udev -p /dev/sdc1` taking about 13.5 seconds.
- •Trace output showed a 69,632-byte read taking over 8 seconds, and another helper, `devkit-disks-part-id`, added roughly one more second parsing the MS-DOS partition table.