kill -1 -1 solves all...
As a student I did some naughty things. I'd occasionally remote into lab machines I knew probably wouldn't be used until the next tutorial and set them working on problems (I don't recall if it was SETI, but this outfit gave rewards). One day a tutorial was in there unexpectedly (probably rescheduled). Fortunately I happened to walk past the lab maybe 5 minutes into the class with a lot of confused people wondering why everything was running so slow.
I got to another computer room at a run, ssh'd to each machine and issued a kill -1 -1. Had it been any longer, the dispatched tech would have found me out very quickly... fortunately he was of the "oh, it seems to have solved itself - glad I could help" type; no root cause was done.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
