Amethyst
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factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
BuildIT! => <reply> $who, GUI creator for the Java 1.1 components set. URL: http://www.mat.uni.torun.pl/~scisly/buildit/
Buildkernel => <reply> $who, Automates the task of building a Linux kernel. URL: http://www.pobox.com/~wstearns/buildkernel/
Bulli => <reply> $who, Parquet Deformation Toolkit. URL: http://www.andrewcooke.free-online.co.uk/jara/bulli/index.html
BullSoft Enterprise Java Beans => <reply> $who, Open Source implementation of the EJB specification. URL: http://www.bullsoft.com/ejb/
Bullucks => <reply> $who, Experimental chess program. URL: http://home.wxs.nl/~fjjvh/bullucks.html
burch => <reply> $who, The beginnings of a portable i8086 emulator library. URL: http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/~md8reftl/burch.html
BurnIT => <reply> $who, Java front-end to cdrecord and mkisofs. URL: http://sunsite.auc.dk/BurnIT/
burn_baby_burn => <reply> $who, A set of utilities for burning to CD-R and CD-RW media.. URL: http://www.flyn.org/
Burt => <reply> $who, Burt - Backup and Recovery Tool. URL: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~jmelski/burt/
BusyBox => <reply> $who, A suite of tiny Unix utilities, for building rescue disks and embedded systems.. URL: http://perens.com/FreeSoftware/
Busycursor => <reply> $who, Change mouse cursor during X-application startup. URL: ftp://j250.ryd.student.liu.se/pub/linux/madebyme/busycursor-0.3.tgz
Buz/Linux driver => <reply> $who, Hardware driver for Iomega Buz video hardware. URL: http://www.munich-vision.de/buz/
Buzzer Electronic Notebook => <reply> $who, A note and to-do list program for X.. URL: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~glenn/notebook/
buz_tools => <reply> $who, MJPEG video capturing tools. URL: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~gz/buz/buz_tools/
bvi => <reply> $who, Editor for binary files using common vi commands. URL: http://bvi.linuxbox.com/
BWidget => <reply> $who, The 100% Tcl/Tk Widget Set. URL: http://www.unifix-online.com/BWidget/
BX/CIK => <reply> $who, Cold Fusion/BX Pro integration. URL: http://linux.ics.com/
Bynari TradeMail => <reply> $who, Enteprise email, information management for Linux. URL: http://cobra.bynari.net/
Byte Dump => <reply> $who, Inverse of Octal Dump. URL: http://cpwright.villagenet.com
bzexe => <reply> $who, bzexe permits you to compress you binaries with bzip2 keeping them executable. URL: http://linux-mandrake.com/lem/lem_tools.html
Bzflag => <reply> $who, 3D multiplayer tank battle game. URL: http://www.bigfoot.com/~bzflag/
factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
icewm => <reply> $who, Window Manager designed for speed, usability and consistency. URL: http://www.kiss.uni-lj.si/~k4fr0235/icewm/
ICI => <reply> $who, A dynamic, interpretive language with C-like syntax. URL: http://www.zeta.org.au/~atrn/ici/
iclock => <reply> $who, Nice little X11 clock with easy to use alarm and skins support. URL: http://wilma.ifas.ufl.edu/~cblack/iclock/
ICM => <reply> $who, InterAgent Communications Model. URL: http://www.nar.fla.com/Activities/Communication/communication.html
icmpmonitor => <reply> $who, Multiple host monitoring tool. URL: http://www.crocodile.org/software.html
ICMPush => <reply> $who, ICMPush is a tool that builds ICMP packets fully customized from command line.. URL: http://hispahack.ccc.de
icod => <reply> $who, Converts .ico files to .xpm. URL: http://www.syspac.com/~madlather/icod.html
Icon-2 => <reply> $who, A very high level language. URL: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/
IconMaker => <reply> $who, A utility to create app-icons for the WindowMaker window manager. URL: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~crn/wm/wings.html
icontact => <reply> $who, Image contact sheet maker. URL: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/mb/mbh/icontact-1.5.tar.gz
icoutils => <reply> $who, A set of programs that deal with MS Windows icons and cursors. URL: http://www.ludat.lth.se/~dat99oli/
icqlib => <reply> $who, ICQ interface library. URL: http://www.cn.ua/~denis/kde/icqlib.html
icqmail => <reply> $who, ICQ->Email gateway. URL: http://www.crocodile.org/software.html
ICQnix => <reply> $who, ICQ clone for X. URL: http://icqnix.linuxbox.com
icqtech => <reply> $who, A Unix console daemon that assists technical support via ICQ. URL: http://hnm.zzweb.com/utils/icqtech/
ICRADIUS => <reply> $who, Powerful cross platform radius server. URL: ftp://ftp.cheapnet.net/pub/icradius/
ics.el => <reply> $who, Emacs mode for internet chess server interactions. URL: http://www.camembert.freeserve.co.uk/mark/icsel/
id-utils => <reply> $who, Very fast, very high capacity indexer for C/C++ source code.. URL: ftp://tug.org/gnu/id-utils-3.2d.tar.gz
ID3.py => <reply> $who, ID3 MP3 info tag manipulation in Python. URL: http://csl.cse.ucsc.edu/~ben/python/id3.html
id3ed => <reply> $who, ID3 tag editor for mp3 files. URL: http://www.azstarnet.com/~donut/
id3ren => <reply> $who, Batch rename (from tags) and tag MP3s. URL: http://tscnet.com/pages/badcrc/apps/id3ren/
factpacks/MacErrorCodes.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Mac Error -807 => ( rcDBBadSessNum ) Invalid session number **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -808 => ( rcDBBadDDEV ) Couldn't find the specified database extension, or error occurred in opening database extension **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -809 => ( rcDBAsyncNotSupp ) The database extension does not support asynchronous calls **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -810 => ( rcDBBadAsyncPB ) Invalid parameter block specified **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -811 => ( rcDBNoHandler ) There is no handler for this data type installed for the current application **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -812 => ( rcDBWrongVersion ) Wrong version number **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -813 => ( rcDBPackNotInited ) The InitDBPack function has not yet been called **DatabaseAccess (Pack 13) Errors**
Mac Error -850 => ( hmHelpDisabled ) Help balloons are not enabled **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -851 => ( hmResNotFound ) ???? **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -852 => ( hmMemFullErr ) ???? **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -853 => ( hmBalloonAborted ) Because of constant cursor movement, the help balloon wasn't displayed **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -854 => ( hmSameAsLastBalloon ) Menu and item are same as previous menu and item **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -855 => ( hmHelpManagerNotInited ) Help menu not set up **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -856 => ( hmBadSelector ) ???? **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -857 => ( hmSkippedBalloon ) No ballon content to fill in **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -858 => ( hmWrongVersion ) Wrong version of Help Manager resource **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -859 => ( hmUnknownHelpType ) Help message record contained a bad type **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -860 => ( hmCouldNotLoadPackage ) ???? **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -861 => ( hmOperationUnsupported ) Bad method parameter **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -862 => ( hmNoBalloonUp ) No balloon showing **Help Manager Errors**
Mac Error -863 => ( hmCloseViewActive ) User using Close View won't let you remove balloon **Help Manager Errors**
factpacks/html.fact view on Meta::CPAN
html <IMG ALIGN> => (ALIGN="alignment") Here "alignment" should be one of TOP, MIDDLE, or BOTTOM. This causes the top, middle, or bottom of the image to be aligned with the text on the line containing the IMG tag."alignment" should be one of LEFT, RI...
html <IMG ALT> => (ALT="text") Here "text" is the text to be displayed by a browser that does not display images, such as Lynx, or to be used when image display is suppressed.
html <IMG BORDER> => (BORDER=number) Here number is the border thickness in pixels. (Do not use BORDER=0 for images that are links.)
html <IMG CONTROLS> => If present, and an AVI resource is being played, displays controls under the resource.
html <IMG DYNSRC> => (DYNSRC="url") Specifies an AVI resource to be played, or a VRML world. Always include a still image as well with the SRC attribute, for use by browsers that do not display inline video or VRML.
html <IMG HEIGHT> => (HEIGHT=number) This specifies the height of the image, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <IMG HSPACE> => (HSPACE=number) Here number is the space, in pixels, to leave to the left and right of the image.
html <IMG ISMAP> => (ISMAP="url") This attribute indicates that this image is a server side image map.
html <IMG LOOP> => (LOOP=number) The optional LOOP attribute will cause the resource to be played number times. LOOP="INFINITE" will cause the resource to be played continuously as long as the page is open.
html <IMG LOWSRC> => (LOWSRC="url") Specifies an image to be displayed while the SRC image is being loaded. This alternate image should take much less time to download then the SRC image: it should be lower resolution, black and white, etc.
html <IMG START> => (START="start option") The START attribute specifies when the browser should start to play the resource specified with the DYNSRC attribute. START=FILEOPEN instructs the browser to play the resource only when the file is opened. S...
html <IMG SRC> => (SRC="URL") Here "URL" identifies the image source, typically a GIF or JPEG file.
html <IMG UNITS> => (UNITS=units) Here units is one of pixels, meaning the width and height are measured in pixels, or en, meaning the width and height are measured in en spaces.
html <IMG USEMAP> => (USEMAP="url") This attribute overrides the ISMAP attribute, if present, and if the browser supports client-side image maps. It uses the MAP element found at url to translate clicks.
html <IMG WIDTH> => (WIDTH=number) This specifies the width of the image, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <IMG VSPACE> => (VSPACE=number) Here number is the space, in pixels, to leave above and below the image.
html <INPUT> => To be filled in at a later date <Form Input>
html <INS> => (Inserted Text) The inserted text tag marks text that has been inserted, for example in a group authoring situation or a legal document.
example <INS> => <INS> text </INS>
html <ISINDEX> => (Is Index) The isindex tag, which is only valid in a HEAD section, declares that the current HTML document is a searchable index. The user will be prompted for keywords to search for. A new URL will be formed by taking the base addr...
example <ISINDEX> => <ISINDEX HREF=URL> & <ISINDEX PROMPT=prompt>
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
crunch4 is 3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for ...
crunch5 is crunched BASIC source in order to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest} entries are often crunched; see the first example under that entry.
cruncha cruncha cruncha is /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj. An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a serious {grovel}. Also describes a notional sound made by groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, {grind} (se...
cryppie is /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
CTSS is /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing operating systems, ancestral to {{Multics}}, {{UNIX}}, and {{ITS}}. The name {{ITS}} (Incompatible Time-sharing System)...
CTSS2 is and to express some basic differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be presented to user programs.
CTY is /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [MIT] The terminal physically associated with a computer's system {{console}}. The term is a contraction of `Console {tty}', that is, `Console TeleTYpe'. This {{ITS}}- and {{TOPS-10}}-associated term has become l...
CTY2 is refer to the CTY as `the console'.
cube is n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).
cubing is [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing *again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles, either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable fo...
cursor dipped in X is n. There are a couple of metaphors in English of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common values of X are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol'). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what move...
cursor dipped in X2 is composing on-line). "Talk about a {nastygram}! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
cuspy is /kuhs'pee/ [WPI from the DEC acronym CUSP, for `Commonly Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people] adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program that performs well and interfaces ...
cuspy2 is [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one regarded as available. Implies a certain curvaceousness.
cut a tape is [poss. fr. mainstream `cut a check' or from the recording industry's `cut a record'] vi. To write a software or document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically cutting the medium! Though t...
cut a tape2 is speaks of analogously `cutting a disk' or anything else in this sense.
cybercrud is /si'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The computer equivalent of bureaucratese.
cyberpunk is /si'ber-puhnk/ [orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel `Neuromancer' (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's `True Na...
cyberpunk2 is Brunner's 1975 novel `The Shockwave Rider'). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since...
cyberpunk3 is tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See {cyberspace}, {ice}, {go flatline}.
cyberspace is /si'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional `information-space' loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of {cyberpunk} SF. At the time of this writing (mid-1991), ...
cyberspace2 is reality} interfaces modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are already under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the possibility ...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
droid3 is supermarket checkout assistant and bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government employees. The implication is that the rules and official procedures constitute software that the droid is executing. This become...
droid4 is properly debugged. The term `droid mentality' is also used to describe the mindset behind this behavior. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}; see {-oid}.
drool-proof paper is n. Documentation that has been obsessively {dumbed down}, to the point where only a {cretin} could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the `drool-proof paper syndrome' or to have been `written on drool-proof pape...
drool-proof paper2 is from Apple's LaserWriter manual "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
drop on the floor is vt. To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnew...
drop on the floor2 is {black hole}, {bit bucket}.
drop-ins is [prob. by analogy with {drop-outs}] n. Spurious characters appearing on a terminal or console as a result of line noise or a system malfunction of some sort. Esp. used when these are interspersed with one's own typed input. Compa...
drop-outs is n. 1. A variety of `power glitch' (see {glitch}); momentary 0 voltage on the electrical mains. 2. Missing characters in typed input due to software malfunction or system saturation (this can happen under UNIX when a bad connectio...
drop-outs2 is spurious character interrupts). 3. Mental glitches; used as a way of describing those occasions when the mind just seems to shut down for a couple of beats. See {glitch}, {fried}.
drugged is adj. (also `on drugs') 1. Conspicuously stupid, heading toward {brain-damaged}. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a joint (but see appendix B). 2. Of hardware, very slow relative to normal performance.
drunk mouse syndrome is n. A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usu...
drunk mouse syndrome2 is and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse pad 90 degrees. At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. ...
drunk mouse syndrome3 is up enough {cruft} to be unreliable, the mouse was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However, this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation of cruft, so the dousings became more a...
drunk mouse syndrome4 is declared `alcoholic' and sent to the clinic to be dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
dumbass attack is /duhm'as *-tak'/ [Purdue] n. Notional cause of a novice's mistake made by the experienced, especially one made while running as root under UNIX, e.g., typing `rm -r *' or `mkfs' on a mounted file system. Compare {adger}.
dumbed down is adj. Simplified, with a strong connotation of *over*simplified. Often, a {marketroid} will insist that the interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil mak...
dump is n. 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the slowest available output device (compare {core dump}), and most especially one consisting of hex or octal {ru...
dump2 is memory, mass storage, or some file. In {elder days}, debugging was generally done by `groveling over' a dump (see {grovel}); increasing use of high-level languages and interactive debuggers has made this uncommon, and the term `dump'...
dump3 is backup. This usage is typical only at large timesharing installations.
dup killer is /d[y]oop kill'r/ [FidoNet] n. Software that is supposed to detect and delete duplicates of a message that may have reached the FidoNet system via different routes.
dup loop is /d[y]oop loop/ (also `dupe loop') [FidoNet] n. An incorrectly configured system or network gateway may propagate duplicate messages on one or more {echo}es, with different identification information that renders {dup killer}s ine...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
giga- is /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
GIGO is /gi'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' --- usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program didn't complain about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, in...
GIGO2 is In, Gospel Out' this more recent expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have to put excessive trust in `computerized' data.
gillion is /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ [formed from {giga-} by analogy with mega/million and tera/trillion] n. 10^9. Same as an American billion or a British `milliard'. How one pronounces this depends on whether one speaks {giga-} with a hard or ...
GIPS is /gips/ or /jips/ [analogy with {MIPS}] n. Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of Instructions per Second'; see {gillion}). In 1991, this is used of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected t...
glark is /glark/ vt. To figure something out from context. "The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context." Interestingly, the word was originally `glork'; the context was "This gubblick contain...
glark2 is the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context" (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his "Metamagical Themas" column in the January 1981 `Scientific American'). It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the ve...
glark3 is established jargon term. Compare {grok}, {zen}.
glass is [IBM] n. Synonym for {silicon}.
glass tty is /glas T-T-Y/ or /glas ti'tee/ n. A terminal that has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both lik...
glass tty2 is display hacks, and like a display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy. An example is the early `dumb' version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor control). See {tube}, {tty}. See appendix A for an interesting true story...
glassfet is /glas'fet/ [by analogy with MOSFET, the acronym for `Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor'] n. Syn. {firebottle}, a humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.
glitch is /glich/ [from German `glitschen' to slip, via Yiddish `glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function. Sometimes recoverable. An interruption in electric service...
glitch2 is This is of grave concern because it usually crashes all the computers. In jargon, though, a hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and then forgot how he or she intended to complete it might say, "Sorry, I just glitched". 2....
glitch3 is [Stanford] To scroll a display screen, esp. several lines at a time. {{WAITS}} terminals used to do this in order to avoid continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the eye. 4. obs. Same as {magic cookie}, sense 2. All the...
glitch4 is technical meaning the term has to hardware people. If the inputs of a circuit change, and the outputs change to some {random} value for some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value, then that is called a glit...
glitch5 is depending on what the circuit is connected to. This term is techspeak, found in electronics texts.
glob is /glob/, *not* /glohb/ [UNIX] vt.,n. To expand special characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also called `globbing'). The UNIX conventions for filename wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive tha...
glob2 is English, especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly encountered include the following * wildcard for any string (see also {UN*X}) ? wildcard for any character (generally read this way only...
glob3 is a word) [] delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters {} alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus, `foo{baz,qux}' would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux' Some examples "He said hi...
glob4 is "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the talk.politics subgroups on {USENET}). Other examples are given under the entry for {X}. Compare {regexp}. Historical note The jargon usage derives from `glob', the name of a subprogram th...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
hook5 is formal and less hackish.
hop is n. One file transmission in a series required to get a file from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network. On such networks (including {UUCPNET} and {FidoNet}), the important inter-machine metric is the number of hops in the s...
hop2 is geographical separation. See {bang path}.
hose is 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in performance. "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the system." See {hosed}. 2. n. A narrow channel through which data flows under pressure. Generally denotes data paths tha...
hose2 is Cabling, especially thick Ethernet cable. This is sometimes called `bit hose' or `hosery' (play on `hosiery') or `etherhose'. See also {washing machine}.
hosed is adj. Same as {down}. Used primarily by UNIX hackers. Humorous also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to reverse. Probably derived from the Canadian slang `hoser' popularized by the Bob and Doug Mackenzie skits on SCT...
hosed2 is people in the mainstream sense of `in an extremely unfortunate situation'. Once upon a time, a Cray that had been experiencing periodic difficulties crashed, and it was announced to have been hosed. It was discovered that the crash...
hosed3 is hoses. The problem was corrected, and users were then assured that everything was OK because the system had been rehosed. See also {dehose}.
hot spot is n. 1. [primarily used by C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] It is received wisdom that in most programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time; if one were to graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one w...
hot spot2 is a lot of low-level noise. Such spikes are called `hot spots' and are good candidates for heavy optimization or {hand-hacking}. The term is especially used of tight loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as oppos...
hot spot3 is infrequent I/O operations. See {tune}, {bum}, {hand-hacking}. 2. The active location of a cursor on a bit-map display. "Put the mouse's hot spot on the `ON' widget and click the left button." 3. In a massively parallel comput...
hot spot4 is all 10,000 processors are trying to read or write at once (perhaps because they are all doing a {busy-wait} on the same lock).
house wizard is [prob. from ad-agency lingo, `house freak'] n. A hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position at a commercial shop. A really effective house wizard can have influence out of all proportion to his/her osten...
house wizard2 is suit. Used esp. of UNIX wizards. The term `house guru' is equivalent.
HP-SUX is /H-P suhks/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX, Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port. Features some truly unique bogosities in the filesystem internals and elsewhere which occasionally create portability problems. HP-UX is often referred t...
HP-SUX2 is respondent claims that the proper pronunciation is /H-P ukkkhhhh/ as though one were about to spit. Another such alternate spelling and pronunciation is "H-PUX" /H-puhks/. Hackers at HP/Apollo (the former Apollo Computers which was...
HP-SUX3 is complain that Mr. Packard should have pushed to have his name first, if for no other reason than the greater eloquence of the resulting acronym. Compare {buglix}. See also {Telerat}, {sun-stools}, {terminak}.
huff is v. To compress data using a Huffman code. Various programs that use such methods have been called `HUFF' or some variant thereof. Oppose {puff}. Compare {crunch}, {compress}.
humma is // excl. A filler word used on various `chat' and `talk' programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was important to say something. The word apparently originated (at least with this definition) on the MECC Timeshare Syste...
humma2 is time-sharing system running in Minnesota during the 1970s and the early 1980s) but was later sighted on early UNIX systems.
Humor, Hacker is n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor found among hackers, having the following distinctive characteristics 1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor having to do with confusion of metale...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
life3 is {USENET}. As in {Get a life!}
light pipe is n. Fiber optic cable. Oppose {copper}.
like kicking dead whales down the beach is adj. Describes a slow, difficult, and disgusting process. First popularized by a famous quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of IBM's mainframe OSes. "Well, you *could* write a ...
like kicking dead whales down the beach2 is kicking dead whales down the beach." See also {fear and loathing}
like nailing jelly to a tree is adj. Used to describe a task thought to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain. "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangeme...
like nailing jelly to a tree2 is graph is like nailing jelly to a tree, because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically."
line eater, the is [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the netnews software that used to eat up to BUFSIZ bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered by having the text of the article start with a space or tab. This bu...
line eater, the2 is creature called the `line eater', and postings often included a dummy line of `line eater food'. Ironically, line eater `food' not beginning with a space or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if ther...
line eater, the3 is line eater would eat the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be protecting. The practice of `sacrificing to the line eater' continued for some time after the bug had been {nailed to the wall}, and is ...
line eater, the4 is is still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some mail-to-netnews gateways. 2. See {NSA line eater}.
line starve is [MIT] 1. vi. To feed paper through a printer the wrong way by one line (most printers can't do this). On a display terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the screen. "To print `X squared', you just output `X', ...
line starve2 is starve causes the `2' to appear on the line above the `X', and the line feed gets back to the original line.) 2. n. A character (or character sequence) that causes a terminal to perform this action. Unlike `line feed', `line ...
line starve3 is terminology. Even among hackers it is considered a bit silly. 3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c (used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) that suppresses a {newline} or other character(s) that would normally be emitte...
link farm is [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to files in a master directory tree of files. Link farms save space when (for example) one is maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same source tree, e.g., when the...
link farm2 is object files. "Let's freeze the source and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms." Link farms may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of `-I' (include-file directory) arguments on older C prepr...
link-dead is [MUD] adj. Said of a {MUD} character who has frozen in place because of a dropped Internet connection.
lint is [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named perhaps for the bits of fluff it picks from programs] 1. vt. To examine a program closely for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, mos...
lint2 is used. This term used to be restricted to use of `lint(1)' itself, but (judging by references on USENET) it has become a shorthand for {desk check} at some non-UNIX shops, even in languages other than C. Also as v. {delint}. 2. n...
lint3 is draft has too much lint".
lion food is [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension, administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but agreed to meet after 2 months. When the...
lion food2 is overweight. The thin one says "How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me --- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass." The ...
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MIPS2 is attitude about the value of most {benchmark} claims, said attitude being one of the great cultural divides between hackers and {marketroid}s. The singular is sometimes `1 MIP' even though this is clearly etymologically wrong. See ...
MIPS3 is especially large computers, considered abstractly as sources of {computron}s. "This is just a workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement." 3. The corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company; among other things, th...
MIPS4 is 3100 workstation series. 4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).
misbug is /mis-buhg/ [MIT] n. An unintended property of a program that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a {bug} but turns out to be a {feature}. Usage: rare. Compare {green lightning}. See {miswart}.
misfeature is /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ n. A feature that eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate for a new situation which has evolved. It is not the same as a bug, because fixing it involves a substantial philoso...
misfeature2 is involved. A misfeature is different from a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies that the misfeature was actually carefully planned to be that way, but its future consequences or circumstances just weren't predicted ...
misfeature3 is having thought ahead about it at all. Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface design) arise because the designers/implementors mistook their personal tastes for laws of nature. Often a former feature becomes a misfeat...
misfeature4 is parameters subsequently changed (possibly only in the judgment of the implementors). "Well, yeah, it is kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to 6 characters, but the original implementors wanted to save directory ...
Missed'em-five is n. Pejorative hackerism for AT&T System V UNIX, generally used by {BSD} partisans in a bigoted mood. (The synonym `SysVile' is also encountered.) See {software bloat}, {Berzerkeley}.
miswart is /mis-wort/ [from {wart} by analogy with {misbug}] n. A {feature} that superficially appears to be a {wart} but has been determined to be the {Right Thing}. For example, in some versions of the {EMACS} text editor, the `transpose ch...
miswart2 is characters on either side of the cursor on the screen, *except* when the cursor is at the end of a line, in which case the two characters before the cursor are exchanged. While this behavior is perhaps surprising, and certainly i...
miswart3 is extensive experimentation to be what most users want. This feature is a miswart.
mod is vt.,n. 1. Short for `modify' or `modification'. Very commonly used --- in fact the full terms are considered markers that one is being formal. The plural `mods' is used esp. with reference to bug fixes or minor design changes in hardw...
mod2 is {patch} sets or a {diff}. 2. Short for {modulo} but used *only* for its techspeak sense.
mode is n. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. Use of the word `mode' rather than `state' implies that the state is extended over time, and probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is b...
mode2 is thesis mode." In its jargon sense, `mode' is most often attributed to people, though it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In particular, see {hack mode}, {day mode}, {night mode}, {demo mode}, {fireworks mode}...
mode3 is also often hears the verbs `enable' and `disable' used in connection with jargon modes. Thus, for example, a sillier way of saying "I'm going to crash" is "I'm going to enable crash mode now". One might also hear a request to "disab...
mode bit is n. A {flag}, usually in hardware, that selects between two (usually quite different) modes of operation. The connotations are different from {flag} bit in that mode bits are mainly written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom...
mode bit2 is lifetime of an ordinary program. The classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (#12) of the Program Status Word of the IBM 360. Another was the bit on a PDP-12 that controlled whether it ran the PDP-8 or the LINC instruction ...
modulo is /mo'dyu-loh/ prep. Except for. From mathematical terminology; one can consider saying that 4 = 22 except for the 9s (4 = 22 mod 9). "Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that {GC} bug." "I feel fine today modulo a slight he...
molly-guard is /mol'ee-gard/ [University of Illinois] n. A shield to prevent tripping of some {Big Red Switch} by clumsy or ignorant hands. Originally used of some plexiglass covers improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer's t...
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cruftsmanship => /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from cruft] The antithesis of craftsmanship.
crufty => /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or `cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The canonical example is "This is standard old crufty DEC software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of `crufty' holds tha...
crumb => n. Two binary digits; a quad. Larger than a bit, smaller than a nybble. Considered silly. Syn. tayste.
crunch => 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000. "...
cruncha cruncha cruncha => /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj. An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a serious grovel. Also describes a notional sound made by groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, grind (sense 3).
cryppie => /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
CTSS => /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing operating systems, ancestral to {Multics}, {UNIX}, and {ITS}. The name {ITS} (Incompatible Time-sharing System) was a hack on CT...
CTY => /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [MIT] The terminal physically associated with a computer's system {console}. The term is a contraction of `Console tty', that is, `Console TeleTYpe'. This {ITS}- and {TOPS-10}-associated term has become less common, as m...
cube => n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).
cubing => [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing *again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles, either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable form of self...
cursor dipped in X => n. There are a couple of metaphors in English of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common values of X are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol'). These map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leavi...
cursor dipped in X2 => composing on-line). "Talk about a nastygram! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"
cuspy => /kuhs'pee/ [WPI from the DEC acronym CUSP, for `Commonly Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people] adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program that performs well and interfaces well to u...
cut a tape => [poss. fr. mainstream `cut a check' or from the recording industry's `cut a record'] vi. To write a software or document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically cutting the medium! Though this usage...
cut a tape2 => speaks of analogously `cutting a disk' or anything else in this sense.
cybercrud => /si'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high MEGO factor. The computer equivalent of bureaucratese.
cyberpunk => /si'ber-puhnk/ [orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel `Neuromancer' (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's `True Names' (s...
cyberspace => /si'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional `information-space' loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of cyberpunk SF. At the time of this writing (mid-1991), serious eff...
cycle => 1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a "cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so many `clock cycles'. Often the computer can access its memory...
cycle crunch => n. A situation where the number of people trying to use the computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the system has probably begun to thrash. This is an inev...
cycle crunch2 => applied to timesharing. Usually the only solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this has rapidly become easier in recent years, so much so that the very term `cycle crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most hackers now use w...
cycle crunch3 => opposed to traditional timesharing systems.
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DRECNET => /drek'net/ [from Yiddish/German `dreck', meaning dirt] n. Deliberate distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So called because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification and then (either stupidly or as a mal...
driver => n. 1. The {main loop} of an event-processing program; the code that gets commands and dispatches them for execution. 2. [techspeak] In `device driver', code designed to handle a particular peripheral device such as a magnetic disk or tape u...
droid => n. A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following characteristics (a) na"ive trust in the wisdom of the parent organization or `the system'; (b) a propensity to believe obvious nonsense e...
drool-proof paper => n. Documentation that has been obsessively {dumbed down}, to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it, is said to have succumbed to the `drool-proof paper syndrome' or to have been `written on drool-proof paper'. For e...
drool-proof paper2 => from Apple's LaserWriter manual "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."
drop on the floor => vt. To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay s...
drop on the floor2 => {black hole}, {bit bucket}.
drop-ins => [prob. by analogy with drop-outs] n. Spurious characters appearing on a terminal or console as a result of line noise or a system malfunction of some sort. Esp. used when these are interspersed with one's own typed input. Compare drop-out...
drop-outs => n. 1. A variety of `power glitch' (see glitch); momentary 0 voltage on the electrical mains. 2. Missing characters in typed input due to software malfunction or system saturation (this can happen under UNIX when a bad connection to a mod...
drugged => adj. (also `on drugs') 1. Conspicuously stupid, heading toward brain-damaged. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a joint (but see appendix B). 2. Of hardware, very slow relative to normal performance.
drunk mouse syndrome => n. A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some computers. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync with the motion of the actual mouse. Can usually be c...
drunk mouse syndrome2 => and plugging it back again. Another recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse pad 90 degrees. At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks. When the st...
drunk mouse syndrome3 => up enough cruft to be unreliable, the mouse was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while. However, this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation of cruft, so the dousings became more and more fr...
drunk mouse syndrome4 => declared `alcoholic' and sent to the clinic to be dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.
dumbass attack => /duhm'as *-tak'/ [Purdue] n. Notional cause of a novice's mistake made by the experienced, especially one made while running as root under UNIX, e.g., typing `rm -r *' or `mkfs' on a mounted file system. Compare adger.
dumbed down => adj. Simplified, with a strong connotation of *over*simplified. Often, a marketroid will insist that the interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil making it sma...
dump => n. 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the slowest available output device (compare {core dump}), and most especially one consisting of hex or octal runes desc...
dup killer => /d[y]oop kill'r/ [FidoNet] n. Software that is supposed to detect and delete duplicates of a message that may have reached the FidoNet system via different routes.
dup loop => /d[y]oop loop/ (also `dupe loop') [FidoNet] n. An incorrectly configured system or network gateway may propagate duplicate messages on one or more echoes, with different identification information that renders {dup killer}s ineffective. I...
dup loop2 => eventually reaches a system through which it has already passed (with the original identification information), all systems passed on the way back to that system are said to be involved in a {dup loop}.
dusty deck => n. Old software (especially applications) which one is obliged to remain compatible with (or to maintain). The term implies that the software in question is a holdover from card-punch days. Used esp. when referring to old scientific and...
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Get a real computer!2 => computer' rises with time, and it may well be (for example) that machines with character-only displays will be generally considered `unreal' in a few years (GLS points out that they already are in some circles). See essential...
GFR => /G-F-R/ vt. [ITS] From `Grim File Reaper', an ITS and Lisp Machine utility. To remove a file or files according to some program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce name-...
gig => /jig/ or /gig/ [SI] n. See {quantifiers}.
giga- => /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.
GIGO => /gi'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' --- usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't complain about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, ...
gillion => /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ [formed from giga- by analogy with mega/million and tera/trillion] n. 10^9. Same as an American billion or a British `milliard'. How one pronounces this depends on whether one speaks giga- with a hard or soft `g'.
GIPS => /gips/ or /jips/ [analogy with MIPS] n. Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of Instructions per Second'; see gillion). In 1991, this is used of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected to change. Comp...
glark => /glark/ vt. To figure something out from context. "The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context." Interestingly, the word was originally `glork'; the context was "This gubblick contains many no...
glass => [IBM] n. Synonym for silicon.
glass tty => /glas T-T-Y/ or /glas ti'tee/ n. A terminal that has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both like a pri...
glass tty2 => display hacks, and like a display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy. An example is the early `dumb' version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor control). See tube, tty. See appendix A for an interesting true story about a glass t...
glassfet => /glas'fet/ [by analogy with MOSFET, the acronym for `Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor'] n. Syn. firebottle, a humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.
glitch => /glich/ [from German `glitschen' to slip, via Yiddish `glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function. Sometimes recoverable. An interruption in electric service is spec...
glob => /glob/, *not* /glohb/ [UNIX] vt.,n. To expand special characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also called `globbing'). The UNIX conventions for filename wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many h...
glork => /glork/ 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of 2 hours of editing and finds that the system has just crashed. 2. Used as a name for just about anything. See foo. 3. vt. Simi...
glue => n. Generic term for any interface logic or protocol that connects two component blocks. For example, {Blue Glue} is IBM's SNA protocol, and hardware designers call anything used to connect large VLSI's or circuit blocks `glue logic'.
gnarly => /nar'lee/ adj. Both obscure and hairy in the sense of complex. "Yow! --- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang.
GNU => /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym `GNU's Not UNIX!', see {{recursive acronym}}] A UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman (rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu). GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools desi...
GNUMACS => /gnoo'maks/ [contraction of `GNU EMACS'] Often-heard abbreviated name for the GNU project's flagship tool, EMACS. Used esp. in contrast with GOSMACS.
go flatline => [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon brain-death] vi., also adjectival `flatlined'. 1. To die, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance, this is used of machines only, human death being considere...
go flatline2 => employ jargon-jokes. 2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off before the system has gone flatline." 3. Of a video tube, to fail by ...
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holy wars => [from USENET, but may predate it] n. {flame war}s over {religious issues}. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularized the terms big-endian and little-endian in connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled "On Holy Wars...
holy wars2 => perennial Holy Wars have included EMACS vs. vi, my personal computer vs. everyone else's personal computer, {ITS} vs. {UNIX}, {UNIX} vs. VMS, BSD UNIX vs. {USG UNIX}, C vs. {Pascal}, C vs. LISP, etc., ad nauseam. The characteristic that...
holy wars3 => distinguishes {holy wars} from normal technical disputes is that in a holy wars most of the participants spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. See also th...
home box => n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he or she owns. "Yeah? Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2 BSD, so there!"
hook => n. A software or hardware feature included in order to simplify later additions or changes by a user. For example, a simple program that prints numbers might always print them in base 10, but a more flexible version would let a variable deter...
hop => n. One file transmission in a series required to get a file from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network. On such networks (including UUCPNET and FidoNet), the important inter-machine metric is the number of hops in the shortest path...
hose => 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in performance. "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the system." See hosed. 2. n. A narrow channel through which data flows under pressure. Generally denotes data paths that represent p...
hosed => adj. Same as down. Used primarily by UNIX hackers. Humorous also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to reverse. Probably derived from the Canadian slang `hoser' popularized by the Bob and Doug Mackenzie skits on SCTV. See hose...
hot spot => n. 1. [primarily used by C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] It is received wisdom that in most programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time; if one were to graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one would ty...
hot spot2 => a lot of low-level noise. Such spikes are called `hot spots' and are good candidates for heavy optimization or hand-hacking. The term is especially used of tight loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as opposed to (say) i...
hot spot3 => infrequent I/O operations. See tune, bum, hand-hacking. 2. The active location of a cursor on a bit-map display. "Put the mouse's hot spot on the `ON' widget and click the left button." 3. In a massively parallel computer with shared mem...
hot spot4 => all 10,000 processors are trying to read or write at once (perhaps because they are all doing a busy-wait on the same lock).
house wizard => [prob. from ad-agency lingo, `house freak'] n. A hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position at a commercial shop. A really effective house wizard can have influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible ra...
house wizard2 => suit. Used esp. of UNIX wizards. The term `house guru' is equivalent.
HP-SUX => /H-P suhks/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX, Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port. Features some truly unique bogosities in the filesystem internals and elsewhere which occasionally create portability problems. HP-UX is often referred to as `hoc...
huff => v. To compress data using a Huffman code. Various programs that use such methods have been called `HUFF' or some variant thereof. Oppose puff. Compare crunch, compress.
humma => // excl. A filler word used on various `chat' and `talk' programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was important to say something. The word apparently originated (at least with this definition) on the MECC Timeshare System (MTS, ...
Humor, Hacker => n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor found among hackers, having the following distinctive characteristics 1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor having to do with confusion of metalevels (see...
Humor, Hacker2 => laugh hold a red index card in front of him/her with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is funny only the first time). 2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such as specification...
Humor, Hacker3 => documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL), and even entire scientific theories (see {quantum bogodynamics}, computron). 3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre, ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitiv...
Humor, Hacker4 => puns and wordplay. 5. A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive currents of intelligence in it --- for example, old Warner Brothers and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early B-52s, and Monty Python...
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life => n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (`Scientific American', October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with it, and hackers at various places contr...
light pipe => n. Fiber optic cable. Oppose copper.
like kicking dead whales down the beach => adj. Describes a slow, difficult, and disgusting process. First popularized by a famous quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of IBM's mainframe OSes. "Well, you *could* write a C compile...
like kicking dead whales down the beach2 => kicking dead whales down the beach." See also {fear and loathing}
like nailing jelly to a tree => adj. Used to describe a task thought to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain. "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of n...
like nailing jelly to a tree2 => graph is like nailing jelly to a tree, because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically."
line eater, the => [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the netnews software that used to eat up to BUFSIZ bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered by having the text of the article start with a space or tab. This bug was qui...
line eater, the2 => creature called the `line eater', and postings often included a dummy line of `line eater food'. Ironically, line eater `food' not beginning with a space or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if there *was* ...
line eater, the3 => line eater would eat the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be protecting. The practice of `sacrificing to the line eater' continued for some time after the bug had been {nailed to the wall}, and is still humo...
line eater, the4 => is still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some mail-to-netnews gateways. 2. See {NSA line eater}.
line starve => [MIT] 1. vi. To feed paper through a printer the wrong way by one line (most printers can't do this). On a display terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the screen. "To print `X squared', you just output `X', line sta...
line starve2 => starve causes the `2' to appear on the line above the `X', and the line feed gets back to the original line.) 2. n. A character (or character sequence) that causes a terminal to perform this action. Unlike `line feed', `line starve' i...
line starve3 => terminology. Even among hackers it is considered a bit silly. 3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c (used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) that suppresses a newline or other character(s) that would normally be emitted.
link farm => [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to files in a master directory tree of files. Link farms save space when (for example) one is maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same source tree, e.g., when the only di...
link farm2 => object files. "Let's freeze the source and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms." Link farms may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of `-I' (include-file directory) arguments on older C preprocessors.
link-dead => [MUD] adj. Said of a MUD character who has frozen in place because of a dropped Internet connection.
lint => [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named perhaps for the bits of fluff it picks from programs] 1. vt. To examine a program closely for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. ...
lion food => [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension, administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but agreed to meet after 2 months. When they finally...
lion food2 => overweight. The thin one says "How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase me --- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass." The fat one repl...
lion food3 => office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"Lions Book n. `Source Code and Commentary on UNIX level 6', by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained (1) the entire source listing of the UNIX Version 6 kernel, and (2)...
lion food4 => discussing the algorithms. These were circulated internally at the University of New South Wales beginning 1976--77, and were for years after the *only* detailed kernel documentation available to anyone outside Bell Labs. Because Wester...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
microReid => /mi:'kroh-reed/ n. See bogosity.
Microsloth Windows => /mi:'kroh-sloth` win'dohz/ n. Hackerism for `Microsoft Windows', a windowing system for the IBM-PC which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with mess-dos that it is agonizingly slow on anything less than a fast 386. Comp...
microtape => /mi:'kroh-tayp/ n. Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a macrotape. A DECtape is a small reel, about 4 inches in diameter, of magnetic tape about an inch wide. Unlike drivers for today's macrotapes, microtape drivers allow...
middle-endian => adj. Not big-endian or little-endian. Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2 or 2-1-4-3, occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of minicomputer manufacturers who shall remain nameless. See {NUXI problem}.
milliLampson => /mil'*-lamp`sn/ n. A unit of talking speed, abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200 milliLampsons. Butler Lampson (a CS theorist and systems implementor highly regarded among hackers) goes at 1000. A few people speak faster. This un...
minifloppies => n. 5.25-inch vanilla floppy disks, as opposed to 3.5-inch or microfloppies and the now-obsolescent 8-inch variety. At one time, this term was a trademark of Shugart Associates for their SA-400 minifloppy drive. Nobody paid any attenti...
MIPS => /mips/ [acronym] n. 1. A measure of computing speed; formally, `Million Instructions Per Second' (that's 10^6 per second, not 2^20!); often rendered by hackers as `Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed' or in other unflattering ways. This...
misbug => /mis-buhg/ [MIT] n. An unintended property of a program that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a bug but turns out to be a feature. Usage: rare. Compare {green lightning}. See miswart.
misfeature => /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ n. A feature that eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate for a new situation which has evolved. It is not the same as a bug, because fixing it involves a substantial philosophical c...
Missed'em-five => n. Pejorative hackerism for AT&T System V UNIX, generally used by BSD partisans in a bigoted mood. (The synonym `SysVile' is also encountered.) See {software bloat}, Berzerkeley.
miswart => /mis-wort/ [from wart by analogy with misbug] n. A feature that superficially appears to be a wart but has been determined to be the {Right Thing}. For example, in some versions of the EMACS text editor, the `transpose characters' command ...
mod => vt.,n. 1. Short for `modify' or `modification'. Very commonly used --- in fact the full terms are considered markers that one is being formal. The plural `mods' is used esp. with reference to bug fixes or minor design changes in hardware or so...
mode => n. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. Use of the word `mode' rather than `state' implies that the state is extended over time, and probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is being carri...
mode bit => n. A flag, usually in hardware, that selects between two (usually quite different) modes of operation. The connotations are different from flag bit in that mode bits are mainly written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom explicitly ...
mode bit2 => lifetime of an ordinary program. The classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (#12) of the Program Status Word of the IBM 360. Another was the bit on a PDP-12 that controlled whether it ran the PDP-8 or the LINC instruction set.
modulo => /mo'dyu-loh/ prep. Except for. From mathematical terminology; one can consider saying that 4 = 22 except for the 9s (4 = 22 mod 9). "Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that GC bug." "I feel fine today modulo a slight headache."
molly-guard => /mol'ee-gard/ [University of Illinois] n. A shield to prevent tripping of some {Big Red Switch} by clumsy or ignorant hands. Originally used of some plexiglass covers improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer's toddler d...
Mongolian Hordes technique => n. Development by {gang bang} (poss. from the Sixties counterculture expression `Mongolian clusterfuck' for a public orgy). Implies that large numbers of inexperienced programmers are being put on a job better performed ...
Mongolian Hordes technique2 => `Chinese Army technique'; see also {Brooks's Law}.
monkey up => vt. To hack together hardware for a particular task, especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely crufty and consciously temporary solution. Compare {hack up}, {kluge up}, {cruft together}, {cruft together}.
monkey, scratch => n. See {scratch monkey}.
factpacks/pTkfunc.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Tk_EventInit => Use the Tk event loop without the rest of Tk - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_FindPhoto => manipulate the image data stored in a photo image. - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_FreeXId => make X resource identifier available for reuse - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GeometryRequest => specify desired geometry or internal border for a window - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_Get3DBorder => draw borders with three-dimensional appearance - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetAnchor => translate between strings and anchor positions - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetBitmap => maintain database of single-plane pixmaps - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetCapStyle => translate between strings and cap styles - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetColor => maintain database of colors - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetColormap => allocate and free colormaps - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetCursor => maintain database of cursors - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetFontStruct => maintain database of fonts - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetGC => maintain database of read-only graphics contexts - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetImage => use an image in a widget - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetJoinStyle => translate between strings and join styles - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetJustify => translate between strings and justification styles - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetOption => retrieve an option from the option database - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetPixels => translate between strings and screen units - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetPixmap => allocate and free pixmaps - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetRelief => translate between strings and relief values - TkLibrary Procedures
Tk_GetRootCoords => Compute root-window coordinates of window - TkLibrary Procedures
factpacks/techdict.fact view on Meta::CPAN
ITU => see International Telecommunications Union.
Java => This is a platform-independent programming language designed by JavaSoft. Java is much like C++, but includes some restrictions. Java mainly runs on Web browsers at the moment, but it can also run natively on operating systems or in a Java vi...
Javascript => A simple scripting language designed by Netscape to be embedded into HTML documents. It is unrelated to Java.
JDAP => (Java Directory Access Protocol) This is the Java answer to LDAP. It really means Java implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.
Joystick => This is an input device first found on arcade game machines, then home game systems, and finally on computers. It consists of any stick-like object that can be moved in four or more directions. Usually, there's a button in the vicinity of...
JPEG => (Joint Photographic Experts Group) This is a method of storing graphic images. It was specifically made for storing more than 256-color images. It compresses pictures much better than the GIF way (GIF is meant to store graphics of 256 colors ...
Jumper => A jumper fits on two metal connectors. It provides an electrical connection between the two wires to enable a semi-permanent hardware configuration. The Plug and Play initiative was designed to eliminate jumpers, but so far this hasn't work...
Karnaugh Mapping => A means to show the relationship between logic inputs and desired output. Generally, a truth table is mapped to a smaller, more workable grid of output values (1's and 0's). Karnaugh Mappings are often used when working with elect...
KB => see Kilobyte.
Kbps => (Kilo Bits Per Second) A measure of data transfer. A 14.4 Kbps modem transfers data at about 1.8 kilobytes per second or about 100 KB per minute.
Keyboard => The main input device on PCs, it consists of all the letters in the alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9. Usually, especially on computer keyboards, there are extra keys like cursor keys and function keys.
Kilobit => 1024 bits (2^10 bits)
Kilobyte => 1024 bytes (2^10 bytes)
L1 cache => (Level 1 Cache) The cache that's on the CPU, usually meant for holding instructions as they get executed. Sort of a death row for instructions.
L2 cache => (Level 2 Cache) This is cache memory that sits between the L1 cache of the processor and main memory.
LAN => (Local Area Network) A small isolated network at one office location. Most office computers are connected to a LAN, but may also be connected to the Internet, or a WAN.
Laptop => A computer small enough to fit completely on your lap.
Laser Printer => A printer that uses a laser to etch out what is to be printed. Toner goes on this etching and then the toner is heated to bond with the print material.
Latency => This is a measure of how long, on the average, it takes to get a response from something. This term usually refers to network response speed, and also to storage devices (hard drives, CD-ROM drives).
LCD Panel => (Liquid Crystal Display Panel) This is just a slab of specially treated glass which is used to sandwich liquid crystal. You can then send electricity through the treated glass to change the phase of the liquid, which then changes color. ...
LCD Projector => The same thing as an LCD panel, except it does not have any back so that you can put it on an overhead projector and shine a light through it.
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