The GitHub page for the RAM-Altman project includes a dry run option that any Linux user with a Bash terminal should be able to paste and run without the need for email trolling. When the threshold is exceeded, each test result features a generated prank email, so repeated runs produce different funny examples.
git clone
cd ram-altman
chmod +x ram-altman.sh test-ram-altman.sh
./ram-altman.sh --status # see the evidence against you
./ram-altman.sh --dry-run # preview an email without sending itA test run of the script on my Fedora 44 KDE machine confirmed the author’s measurements. Within the System – Information Center of my Fedora desktop, the system reports 14.9 GiB of total usable system RAM after the kernel and firmware take the necessary portions of the 16 GiB of physical memory. This reflects the total amount of capacity the system has to work with, not the amount available at any given time. The Ram-Altman script shows that of that total pool of 14.9 GiB, 10 GiB are used, with 4.9 GiB available (33.1 percent). That figure is not the simple sum of the “free” and “cache” lines displayed by the script, but rather a figure calculated by the kernel that represents the total amount of memory that can be reclaimed.
nick@fedora:~$ git clone
cd ram-altman
bash ram-altman.sh --dry-run
Cloning into 'ram-altman'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 9, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (9/9), done.
remote: Total 9 (delta 2), reused 3 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (9/9), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), done.
Total: 14.9 GiB
Used: 10.0 GiB
Available: 4.9 GiB (33.1%)
Free: 1.8 GiB
Cache: 2.4 GiB
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Unused RAM detected in the wild
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2026 10:10:43 -0600
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated
Hi Sam,
Daily status report:
Total RAM: 14.9 GiB
Available: 4.9 GiB (33.1%)
Threat level: someone at OpenAI might notice
Stay allocated,
A concerned RAM owner
--
Sent automatically, at most once a day, by a small script on one PC.
Reply if you'd like it to stop.
The project admits the nuance that Altman was referring to how long memory is used, while the script measures how much capacity is free at the time of measurement. While the script might tell Altman that 33 percent of your system’s RAM is available, it doesn’t describe how often that is the case. The concession affects the joke slightly, but keeps everyone honest.
GitHub does well to point out that “--dry-run It’s the best way to enjoy this. It costs nothing and all the jokes are there.” Used irresponsibly, this blatant joke could morph into a bullying tool, and Kay is quick to point out that the script does not include anyone’s email, including Altman’s. Users implementing their own working version are advised to use only their own real email addresses and honor any stop requests, as described at the bottom of the output generated by the script.
If you’re interested in taking a look at some of the emails generated without having to power on a Linux machine that reports system status every five minutes, the ram-altman.lol project website rotates through sample emails generated by the script. Kay writes on the website that, “To be fair, he says the comments were taken out of context, posted ‘I want you to have so much RAM’ and briefly called Ram Altman on X. That makes this script a daily progress report.”
