Mankind conquered the universe, settling planets with ease, but was that enough? Oh no. Not content to ruin merely their own home planet, they sought to ruin several simultaneously. It was more efficient that way.

Human beings cracked the subtle complexities of their own DNA and were able to not only eliminate the rogue markers causing debilitating diseases, but also to configure the body to actually thrive on junk food. Were they satisfied? Well, once you could enable the body to cope with a steady diet of fatty foods and other dubious vices and still remain peak physical condition, why not tinker with a few more things?

Humanity mastered the oddities and vagaries of artificial intelligence, committing them to do all of the tedious, menial and ultimately undesirable tasks; which was everything. Maybe humans would never know the value of a hard day's work again, but that noise was for the birds (or robots if you preferred (or the robotic birds if you further preferred)). This would surely satisfy humanity. Surely this would make their days of sitting on the rock hard buns they didn't deserve watching television complete. Wouldn't it?

No. They wanted just a bit more.

"Ladies and Gentlemen across the galaxy," said Kirk Douglas, the eminent thespian, novelist, historian and galactically revered gardener. "Welcome to what is sure to be the greatest event in human history." This was met by thunderous applause from the audience in the vast opera hall. This was also met by applause from other lesser events throughout the Milky Way which were recorded and routed through the opera hall's speakers. Not to be short on applause, the producers of the gala pumped recorded applause through the speakers as well for good measure. Kirk Douglas, who was named after an ancient actor (as was the custom amongst performers), couldn't be more pleased with himself and the wonderful clapping.

Nerds, who were now almost an entirely separate species, did not attend the event, though they had every right to. It was determined that their pasty, pale skin and generally unappealing appearance was off-putting to the rest of those in attendance, especially to the finer class of society who had paid for everything. The Nerds didn't mind this so much as their eyes had become painfully sensitive to sunlight over the years and were quite happy viewing the festivities in a darkened room huddled around a single viewing screen.

These learned nocturnal pariahs proposed and produced the logical end-result of their labors: a technological singularity. This singularity would be a uniting, all-encompassing uber-mind that would bring together all forms of technology into a self-sustaining, self motivated progression bettering the lives of humans without humans actually raising a finger. This would be the greatest of all accomplishments since the discovery of fire and the invention of the iPod (as blasphemous as the later was to the Holy Jobsian Synagogue). In retrospect, many felt they should have settled for the smart robots.

The concept of the ceremony was a beautiful in its simplicity. Kirk Douglas would enter the final seven binary digits of the colossal program into a keypad, push the large red button inscribed with the sacred word "ENTER" and the uber-mind's operating system would begin to boot up and so would a new age of laziness for the Human Race. Later, many thought it was strange that a ten digit keypad was used to enter in only zeros and ones.

Following a performance symbolizing mankind's growth of knowledge and enlightening slothfulness, it came time to enter the final seven digits and passing the buck of existence to "DM Gygax", which was the name the Nerds given the uber-mind. The Nerds were strangely quiet about the meaning of the uber-mind's name. The name wasn't explained on the basis that people would make them change it if they knew its true meaning, saying only that "DM Gygax is programmed to be lawful-good, and that's all you need to know." No one knew exactly what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded reassuring.

A large screen came down over the stage of the hall which would display the digits as they were entered. Kirk Douglas began.

"1"

The crowd cheered wildly.
"0"

The crowd cheered even more wildly.
"0"

The crowd cheered even more wildly than the last time they cheered wildly.
"0"

This time, the crowd grew bored with trying to top its last cheer and simply clapped enthusiastically.
"1"

"I'm losing them," Kirk Douglas thought, "Time to turn on the old charm." With a flair of the wrist and a flashy smile, he entered the next number.
"0"

The crowd went wild with elation, nearly unable to contain themselves. Kirk Douglas felt very proud of himself and wondered how he would be immortalized in history; perhaps in song or with some grand galaxy-wide holiday. "Or maybe they'll make a statue of me," he thought, "that would be nice too."

"2"

Without looking at his latest entry he raised his arms to the crowd and they cheered their wildest yet, also without looking at the screen. In the darkened room containing the Nerds, however, they were screaming their heads off. They knew immediately what it would mean if "ENTER" were pressed.
What happened when Kirk Douglas hit "ENTER" with his fist is what's known as an infinite loop (coincidentally, "1 Infinite Loop" was the address of the Jobsian Main Synagogue). The code became garbled information that GM Gygax fed and re-fed through its processors until, eventually, the uber-mind single-handedly destroyed all electronics in the galaxy that it had access to, which, as it turns out, were all of them.

Everything shut down.

In the gathering darkness and growing coldness, Kurt Douglas mustered all the command in the voice that he could and took control of the panicked crowd.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we will find out what happened and restore what we can in the mean time. But. first things first. Who knows how to make fire?"