In some email I received from Chris G Demetriou, they wrote:
> 
> > [discussion about nextpid and mpid]
> > Any idea why this little guy is no longer a global?
[...]
> it's unclear to me why it's worthwhile to have the next pid to be
> assigned (or last pid assigned) known.  I can't think of any _use_ of
> this data (except possible to excite somebody sitting in front of
> their machine, bored out of their mind, watching 'w'.  8-)

It can be quite entertaining to watch when you're waiting for it to get
to 29,999 in an effort to get a background process as close as possible
to this number whilst not cheating (writing a program to do it for you :).

The purpose of course, is to defeat 'w' (which sorts output on highest
pid :).  How on earth could something this dull be entertaining ?  Well,
when you're bored...:-)

cheers,
darren