Linus cuts through the crap and no longer sugarcoats his responses. After having to deal with so many idiots day in and day out he just doesn't waste his time with it. I'd say that's different from the 'lulzy mocking nerd' that the parent commenter describes.

Well: http://quotes.cat-v.org/programming/

Choose your mockin nerd.

You can rephrase most of these sometimes 20 years old+ quotes for each technical news we have seen recently.

A lulz is just another caricature of a nerd. Mimicking a trait like a monkey is not capturing the essence of the thing.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of the expert -- Feynman