Amethyst
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Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Excuse.pm view on Meta::CPAN
old inkjet cartridges emanate barium-based fumes
manager in the cable duct
Well fix that in the next (upgrade, update, patch release, service pack).
HTTPD Error 666 : BOFH was here
HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power
The ATM board has run out of 10 pound notes. We are having a whip round to refill it, care to contribute ?
Network failure - call NBC
Having to manually track the satellite.
Your/our computer(s) had suffered a memory leak, and we are waiting for them to be topped up.
The rubber band broke
We're on Token Ring, and it looks like the token got loose.
Stray Alpha Particles from memory packaging caused Hard Memory Error on Server.
paradigm shift...without a clutch
PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)
The cables are not the same length.
Second-sytem effect.
Chewing gum on /dev/sd3c
Boredom in the Kernel.
the daemons! the daemons! the terrible daemons!
I'd love to help you -- it's just that the Boss won't let me near the computer.
struck by the Good Times virus
Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Purldoc.pm view on Meta::CPAN
my $reply = $self->reply_to($message, $output);
$reply->send;
}
return 1;
}
# I probably don't need to pass the array to the subroutine, but
# it looks more impressive when the subroutine is all pr0totyped,
# etc., and perhaps I can distract you, the noble reader, from
# noticing the other less impressive bits of this code by putting
# in overly complicated code. We pass the array because we're only
# using return values if the sub blows up. Lame? Yes. Stupid?
# Perhaps. Intentional? Sure! This is perl, it's supposed to
# be fun. ;)
sub purldoc_lookup ($\$\@) {
my $self = shift ;
Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Purldoc.pm view on Meta::CPAN
`purldoc' or `perldoc'.
=head1 PUBLIC INTERFACE
(Depends on your triggers, but generally:)
purldoc <topic>
=head1 DESCRIPTION
This looks up the given words as parts of a question in the Perl FAQ,
and returns the top three matching questions.
=head1 AUTHORS
Masque <masque@pound.perl.org>
Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Zappa.pm view on Meta::CPAN
Don't eat yellow snow!
Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 nuclear powered pansexual roto-plooker....and you're gonna have to pay for it.
He was in a quandary...being devoured by the swirling cesspool of his own steaming desires... uh.. the guy was a wreck
All people have the right to be stupid, some people just abuse it!
And now....you are going to dance...like you've never danced before!
Bring the band on down behind me, boys.
Not a speck of cereal.
Nothing but the best for my dog.
You drank beer, you played golf, you watched football - WE EVOLVED!
It looks just like a Telefunken U-47!
Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
They're serving burgers in the back!
Jazz is not dead...it just smells funny. -- Beebop tango introduction
I have a message to deliver to the cute people of the world...if you're cute, or maybe you're beautiful...there's MORE OF US UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS OUT THERE THAN YOU ARE!! So watch out.
Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?
You're an asshole! You're an asshole! That's right! You're an asshole! You're an asshole! Yes yes!
Number one ain't you... You ain't even number two.
Who are the brain police?
A prune isn't really a vegetable... CABBAGE is a vegetable...
Here's one for mother
Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Zappa.pm view on Meta::CPAN
You've got to be digging it while it's happening 'cause it just might be a one shot deal -- Waka/Jawaka
There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved. -- Tonight Show, C.A. 1988
Heaven would be a place where bullshit existed only on television. (Hallelujah! We's halfway there!) -- The Real Frank Zappa Book
Don't expect anything,don't expect fun, don't expect friends.. if you get something...it's a BONUS
Golly, do I ever have alot of soul!!
Shoot low, they're riding Shetlands
Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself -- after being notified there were 'cops in uniform' in the audience.
Children are naive-they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.
The ONLY thing that seems to band all nations together, is that their governments are universally bad.. -- German television interview
If we can't be free at least we can be cheap.
Nobody looks good bent over. Especially to pick up a cheque. -- Guitar Magazine 1984
The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garde...
When we talk about artistic freedom in this country We sometime lose sight of the fact that freedom is often dependent on adequate financing.
If you want to get laid, go to college, but if you want an education, go to the library.
Outdoors for me is walking from the car to the ticket desk at the airport -- Regarding secondhand smoke in The Real FZ Book
My music is like a movie for your ear
Here I stand hoping against hope that it's a chick with a low voice -- After a guy in the audience yelled out, 'Eat me Zappa'
Don't clap for destroying America. This place is as good as you want to make it.
The whole Universe is a large joke. Everything in the Universe is just subdivisions of this joke. So why take anything too serious. -- September 1992 during an interview about the Yellow Shark.
Kid's heads are filled with so many nonfacts that when they get out of school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school system as a whole qualifies. -...
Drop out of school, before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts...--SLUG Magazine June 1995
Never stop until your good becomes better, and your better becomes the best.
The people of your century no longer require the service of composers. A composer is as useful to a person in a jogging suit as a dinsoaur turd in the middle of his runway.--from the Them Or Us The Book
THE VERY BIG STUPID is a thing which breeds by eating The Future. Have you seen it? It sometimes disguises itself as a good-looking quarterly bottom line, derived by closing the R&D Department. -- The Real Frank Zappa Book.
Most rock journalism is people who can not write interviewing people who can not talk.
The typical rock fan is not smart enough to know when he is being dumped on.
It's not pretty, also you can't dance to it.
It's all one big note.
Ladies and gentleman, watch Ruth. All through the show, Ruth has been thinking...Ruth has been thinking? ALL THROUGH THE SHOW???
You can tell what they think of our music by the places we are forced to play it in. This looks like a good spot for a livestock show. -- April 1968, Chicago, Mothers of Invention open for Cream
I'm not going to be Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better.
Consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph. -- FZ on why he gave his children such odd names
I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to. -- about his music from the Yellow Shark.
I never set out to be weird. It was always the other people who called me weird.
Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.
Why doncha come on over to the house and I'll show 'em to ya? -- PMRC Hearings to Sen. Hawkins in reply to her comment: 'I'd like to see what kind of toys your children play with.'
You get nothing with your college degree -- from Roxy & Elsewhere
With the power of soul you can do anything you wanna do.
Playing guitar with this band is like trying to grow WATERMELON IN EASTER HAY.
Always get a second opinion. -- His personal physician did not diagnose prostate cancer before it was too advanced to treat with any success.
The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn't, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that's a bonus. -- Playboy Interview May 2, 1993
I never took a shït on stage, and the closest I ever came to eating shït anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973. -- The Real Frank Zappa Book
You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
Nobody looks good in brown lipstick
Whenever your down, just think about how you got there.
To me, cigarettes are food -- Response to an assertion that his nicotine habit conflicted with his anti-drug stance
May you'll never hear a vloerbedekking again.
Seeing a psychotherapist is not a crazy idea, its just wanting a second opinion of ones life.
You can't always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
Bad facts make bad laws -- Said during the PMRC hearings
Well, you know people, I'd rather have my own game show than enough votes to become president.
Anything can be music -- Answer to critics accusing him of not doing actual music on Uncle Meat
Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion? -- Concert at the Rockpile, Toronto, May 1969
Yeah, I tell them to change the channel if they see some guy in a brown suit with a telephone number at the bottom of the screen asking for money. -- response to Tipper Gore when asked if there was anything on the TV he _didn't_ allow his kids to wa...
factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
ALINKA LCM => <reply> $who, Tool for the management and configuration of Linux Beowulf clusters.. URL: http://www.alinka.com/
ALINKA RAISIN => <reply> $who, Web based tool to build and administrate beowulf type clusters. URL: http://www.alinka.com/
Alkaline UNIX/NT Search Engine => <reply> $who, Web site and intranet search engine and spider, ala Altavista or Excite.. URL: http://www.vestris.com/alkaline/
Allen Bradley Ethernet utils => <reply> $who, Simple utilities for Allen Bradley Ethernet PLCs. URL: http://home.att.net/~rongage/ab/abplc5.tar.gz
ALSA driver => <reply> $who, An alternative implementation of Kernel sound support. URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/
AlsaPlayer => <reply> $who, PCM (audio) player for Linux/ALSA. URL: http://www.alsa-project.org/~andy/
Altara netlib => <reply> $who, Asynchronous networking library for Java. URL: http://www.altara.org/netlib.html
Altima => <reply> $who, A free version of the Ultima online. URL: http://www.worldforge.org/
AMANDA => <reply> $who, Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver. URL: http://www.amanda.org/
Amapi => <reply> $who, A free modeler for Linux. URL: http://www.tgs.com/Amapi/
AMaViS => <reply> $who, A Mail Virus Scanner, looks for viruses in e-mail attachments. URL: http://amavis.org/
Amaya => <reply> $who, Ttest-bed browser/authoring tool of the W3C. URL: http://www.w3.org/Amaya/
AMC => <reply> $who, Answering Machine Checker. URL: http://www.multimania.com/lionelbouton/
AMC (ATOM Module Compiler) => <reply> $who, A programmable compiler. URL: http://www.freeyellow.com/members7/mygfya/amc/
AMC Mail Client => <reply> $who, Gnome-Integrated Mail Client. URL: http://www.faceprint.com/~axion/index.html
Amcl => <reply> $who, A simple Mud CLient for X written in GTK libs.. URL: http://www.localhost.nu/apps/amcl/
AMD K6-II CTX-Kern Patch => <reply> $who, Linux Kernel 2.0.36 AMD K6-II CTX-Kern Patch. URL: http://www.klografx.de/misc/ctx/
AMessage => <reply> $who, GTK+ rewrite of XMessage. URL: http://ayerie.linuxbox.com/
amiwm => <reply> $who, . URL: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~marcus/amiwm.html
AML => <reply> $who, AML -- an implementation of a basic register machine with support for ASM.. URL: http://www.cris.com/~adhawan/
AMMP => <reply> $who, Molecular mechanics, dynamics, and modeling package. URL: http://asterix.jci.tju.edu/ammp.html
factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
kgrep => <reply> $who, Find lines on either side of a matching pattern.. URL: http://www.skyjammer.com/software/general/
KGryzzles => <reply> $who, Little puzzle game for KDE. URL: http://freecenter.digiweb.com/games/kgryzzles/
kgui => <reply> $who, Yet another KDE GUI Builder. URL: ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/apps/ide/kgui-0.1.tar.gz
Kgutenbook => <reply> $who, KDE port of the perl app gutenbook, to download, and read etexts from Gutenburg. URL: http://www.llornkcor.com/software.htm
KHealthCare => <reply> $who, A hardware monitoring program for LM compatible hardware monitoring chips.. URL: http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg7229/khealthcare/index.html
KHeisePro => <reply> $who, Lets you search the Heise Register. URL: http://programmierer.freepage.de/pritscha/kde/kheisepro/
KHexEdit => <reply> $who, Versatile binary file editor for KDE. URL: http://home.sol.no/~espensa/khexedit/
KHotKeys => <reply> $who, This application lets you assign commands to different hotkey combinations.. URL: http://dforce.sh.cvut.cz/~seli/en/khotkeys/
khylafax => <reply> $who, KDE utility to set up a Fax server with hylafax.. URL: ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/unstable/apps/comm/khylafax-0.3.1.tar.gz
Kibble => <reply> $who, A knowledge base program. URL: http://wish.student.harvard.edu/kibble/
kicq => <reply> $who, ICQ clone for KDE that looks like Mirabilis' ICQ client. URL: http://www.cn.ua/~denis/kde/kicq.html
kidentify => <reply> $who, KDE utility to show more file details, magic, used shared libraries, .... URL: http://www.franken.de/users/duffy1/rjakob/
kidSister => <reply> $who, a task management application geared towards programmers. URL: http://kidsister.tjw.org
Kife => <reply> $who, Frontend for Kinstall data base. URL: http://home.retribution.net/products/kife/index.php3
killer => <reply> $who, Background/idle Job Killer. URL: http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~gerdts/killer/
killpppd => <reply> $who, Brings down pppd from non-root login. URL: http://users.smileys.net/~leonb/killpppd/
KIllustrator => <reply> $who, Vector drawing program for KDE. URL: http://wwwiti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~sattler/killustrator.html
Kim => <reply> $who, The Kim is interactive process manager for OS Linux.. URL: http://home.zf.jcu.cz/~zakkr/kim/
Kimon => <reply> $who, An ISDN-monitor for the K Desktop Environment. URL: http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~dahlweid/kimon.html
KInetEd => <reply> $who, Configure inetd (network daemon) using a KDE GUI.. URL: http://krutov.sax.hks.se/source/kineted-0.8.tar.gz
King of the Hill => <reply> $who, Full client/server multiplayer artillery game in the scorched earth tradition. URL: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~tetron/koth/
factpacks/html.fact view on Meta::CPAN
html <FN> => <Footnote> The footnote tag defines a footnote, ideally displayed in a pop-up window. The text that refers to this footnote does so with a standard anchor tag using anchor-name.
example <FN> => <FN ID=anchor-name> text </FN>
html <FONT> => The font tag defines text with a smaller or larger font than usual. The normal font size corresponds to 3; smaller values of number will produce a smaller font, and larger values of number will produce a larger font. See: <FONT> 2
html <FONT> 2 => If number has a sign (for example +1), the font will be changed relative to the BASEFONT.
example <FONT> => <FONT SIZE=number> & <FONT COLOR="#RRGGBB"> & <FONT COLOR="colorname"> & <FONT FACE="facename1, facename2...">
html <FONT COLOR> => The COLOR attribute allows you to change the colour of the text.
example <FONT COLOR> => <FONT COLOR="#RRGGBB"> & <FONT COLOR="colorname">
html <FONT FACE> => The FACE attribute specifies the face to be used, such as Arial or Courier. If multiple names are specified, the first one listed that is installed on the client machine is used.
example <FONT FACE> => <FONT FACE="facename1, facename2...">
html <FORM> => The form tag introduces a form, which is made up of INPUT elements, described in the sections that follow. See: <FORM> 2
html <FORM> 2 => A form may be inside structural HTML tags & may also contain structural tags. Using tables and other elements a form can take on various shapes and looks.
example <FORM> => <FORM ACTION=action base> form tags </FORM> & <FORM METHOD=method> form tags </FORM> & <FORM ENCTYPE=media type> form tags </FORM>
html <FORM ACTION> => The ACTION attribute defaults to the document's base address.
example <FORM ACTION> => <FORM ACTION=action base> form tags </FORM> & <FORM ACTION=action base TARGET="target window name"> form tags </FORM>
html <FORM METHOD> => The METHOD attribute can be GET or POST. GET specifies a query form, used to get data from a server. See: <FORM METHOD> 2
html <FORM METHOD> 2 => POST specifies a form that gives information to the server and perhaps causes a database to be updated or a message to be sent.
example <FORM METHOD> => <FORM METHOD=method> form tags </FORM>
html <FORM ENCTYPE> => See: example <FORM ENCTYPE>
example <FORM ENCTYPE> => <FORM ENCTYPE=media type> form tags </FORM>
html <FORM SCRIPT> => The SCRIPT attribute points to a script to be run. The browser must be able to run the type of script that is specified.
example <FORM SCRIPT> => <FORM SCRIPT=URL> form tags </FORM>
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
bit is [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT'] n. 1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes are equally probable. 2. [techspeak] A computation...
bit2 is values, such as true and false or 0 and 1. 3. A mental flag a reminder that something should be done eventually. "I have a bit set for you." (I haven't seen you for a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.) 4. More ...
bit3 is of belief. "I have a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS." (Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this isn't true.")...
bit4 is way of indicating that you intend only a short interruption for a question that can presumably be answered yes or no. A bit is said to be `set' if its value is true or 1, and `reset' or `clear' if its value is false or 0. One spea...
bit5 is or `invert' a bit is to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. See also {flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.
bit bang is n. Transmission of data on a serial line, when accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the appropriate times. The technique is a simple loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte. Input is more...
bit bang2 is and output at the same time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the {wannabee}s. Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros with ...
bit bang3 is instance of the {cycle of reincarnation}, this technique is now (1991) coming back into use on some RISC architectures because it consumes such an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense not to have a UA...
bit bashing is n. (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit twiddling}) Term used to describe any of several kinds of low-level programming characterized by manipulation of {bit}, {flag}, {nybble}, and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data; the...
bit bashing2 is encryption algorithms, checksum and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors of graphics programming (see {bitblt}), and assembler/compiler code generation. May connote either tedium or a real technical challenge...
bit bashing3 is decoding for the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the control registers still has bugs." See also {bit bang}, {mode bit}.
bit bucket is n. 1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit buck...
bit bucket2 is {/dev/null}. Sometimes amplified as `the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky'. 2. The place where all lost mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed according to {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more lik...
bit bucket3 is mail, which has an almost 100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all un...
bit bucket4 is article to the bit bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you those figures last week; they must have ended in the bit bucket." Co...
bit bucket5 is in jest. It is based on the fanciful notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term `bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time ...
bit bucket6 is told that when the CPU stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the bit box'. See also {chad box}. Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the `parity preservation law', the number ...
bit bucket7 is equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.
bit decay is n. See {bit rot}. People with a physics background tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle decay. See also {computron}, {quantum bogodynamics}.
bit rot is n. Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time has passed, even if `nothing has changed'. The t...
bit rot2 is were radioactive. As time passes, the contents of a file or the code in a program will become increasingly garbled. There actually are physical processes that produce such effects (alpha particles generated by trace radionuclide...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
codewalker2 is As in "This new `vgrind' feature would require a codewalker to implement."
coefficient of X is n. Hackish speech makes rather heavy use of pseudo-mathematical metaphors. Four particularly important ones involve the terms `coefficient', `factor', `index', and `quotient'. They are often loosely applied to things you ...
coefficient of X2 is there are subtle distinctions among them that convey information about the way the speaker mentally models whatever he or she is describing. `Foo factor' and `foo quotient' tend to describe something for which the issue ...
coefficient of X3 is example is {fudge factor}. It's not important how much you're fudging; the term simply acknowledges that some fudging is needed. You might talk of liking a movie for its silliness factor. Quotient tends to imply that the ...
coefficient of X4 is "I would have won except for my luck quotient." This could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor", but using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck overpowering good luck (or someone else's good luck ov...
coefficient of X5 is `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that can be larger or smaller. Thus, you might refer to a paper or person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you ...
coefficient of X6 is bogosity factor'. `Foo index' suggests that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of fricti...
coefficient of X7 is one of personal preference; e.g., some people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a combination of factors and thus say `bogosity inde...
cokebottle is /kohk'bot-l/ n. Any very unusual character, particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the `control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people complained rig...
cokebottle2 is commands at MIT. After the demise of the {space-cadet keyboard}, `cokebottle' faded away as serious usage, but was often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or non-intuitive keystroke command. It may be due...
cokebottle3 is window manager, `mwm(1)', has a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or not) `control-meta-bang' (see {bang}). Since the exclamation point looks a lot...
cokebottle4 is have begun referring to this keystroke as `cokebottle'. See also {quadruple bucky}.
cold boot is n. See {boot}.
COME FROM is n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go to'; `COME FROM' <label> would cause the referenced label to act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control would quietly and {automagically} be tran...
COME FROM2 is FROM'. `COME FROM' was first proposed in a {Datamation} article of December 1973 (reprinted in the April 1984 issue of `Communications of the ACM') that parodied the then-raging `structured programming' {holy wars} (see {consi...
COME FROM3 is the `assigned COME FROM' and the `computed COME FROM' (parodying some nasty control constructs in FORTRAN and some extended BASICs). Of course, multi-tasking (or non-determinism) could be implemented by having more than one `C...
COME FROM4 is label. In some ways the FORTRAN `DO' looks like a `COME FROM' statement. After the terminating statement number/`CONTINUE' is reached, control continues at the statement following the DO. Some generous FORTRANs would allow arb...
COME FROM5 is the statement, leading to examples like DO 10 I=1,LIMIT C imagine many lines of code here, leaving the C original DO statement lost in the spaghetti... WRITE(6,10) I,FROB(I) 10 FORMAT(1X,I5,G10.4) i...
COME FROM6 is statement labeled 10. (This is particularly surprising because the label doesn't appear to have anything to do with the flow of control at all!) While sufficiently astonishing to the unsuspecting reader, this form of `COME FROM...
COME FROM7 is all, control will eventually pass to the following statement. The implementation of the general form was left to Univac FORTRAN, ca. 1975. The statement `AT 100' would perform a `COME FROM 100'. It was intended strictly as a...
COME FROM8 is promised to anyone so deranged as to use it in production code. More horrible things had already been perpetrated in production languages, however; doubters need only contemplate the `ALTER' verb in {COBOL}. `COME FROM' was su...
COME FROM9 is 15 years later, in C-INTERCAL (see {INTERCAL}, {retrocomputing}); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from the shock.
comm mode is /kom mohd/ [ITS from the feature supporting on-line chat; the term may spelled with one or two m's] Syn. for {talk mode}.
command key is [Mac users] n. The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as `flower', `pretzel', `clover', `propeller', `beanie' (an apparent reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie), or {...
command key2 is The proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle peril of iconic interfaces.
comment out is vt. To surround a section of code with comment delimiters or to prefix every line in the section with a comment marker; this prevents it from being compiled or interpreted. Often done when the code is redundant or obsolete, but...
comment out2 is the intent of the active code clearer; also when the code in that section is broken and you want to bypass it in order to debug some other part of the code. Compare {condition out}, usually the preferred technique in languages...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Foonly4 is the F-1 (a.k.a. Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used to create the graphics in the movie "TRON". The F-1 was the fastest PDP-10 ever built, but only one was ever made. The effort drained Foonly of its financial...
Foonly5 is smaller, slower, and much less expensive machines. Unfortunately, these ran not the popular {TOPS-20} but a TENEX varient called Foonex; this seriously limited their market. Also, the machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped en...
Foonly6 is attention from more than usually competent site personnel, and thus had significant reliability problems. Poole's legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not help matters. By the time of the Jupiter project c...
Foonly7 is build another F-1 was eclipsed by the {Mars}, and the company never quite recovered. See the {Mars} entry for the continuation and moral of this story.
footprint is n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed program (often in plural, `footprints'). See also {toeprint}.
for free is adj. Said of a capability of a programming language or hardware equipment that is available by its design without needing cleverness to implement "In APL, we get the matrix operations for free." "And owing to the way revisions are...
for free2 is trees for free." Usually it refers to a serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (compare {big win}), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary feature.
for the rest of us is [from the Mac slogan "The computer for the rest of us"] adj. 1. Used to describe a {spiffy} product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe {spiffy} but very ov...
for the rest of us2 is with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not `confuse' a na"ive user. This places an upper bound on how far tha...
for the rest of us3 is get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor lusers might not be able to handle them...
for the rest of us4 is third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also {WIMP environme...
fora is pl.n. Plural of {forum}.
foreground is [UNIX] vt. To foreground a task is to bring it to the top of one's {stack} for immediate processing, and hackers often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foregr...
foreground2 is Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to the user; oppose {background}. Nowadays this term is primarily associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears...
foreground3 is OS/360. Normally, there is only one foreground task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way to {lose}.
forked is [UNIX; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj. Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system slowed to incredibly bad speeds because of a process recursively spawning copies of itself (using the UNIX system call `for...
Fortrash is /for'trash/ n. Hackerism for the FORTRAN language, referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.
fortune cookie is [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. Items from this lexicon have often been used as fortune cookies. See {cookie file}.
forum is n. [USENET, GEnie CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums'] Any discussion group accessible through a dial-in {BBS}, a {mailing list}, or a {newsgroup} (see {network, the}). A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit {posting}s ...
forum2 is Contrast real-time chat via {talk mode} or point-to-point personal {email}.
fossil is n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example the retention of octal as default base for string escapes in {C}, ...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
green card2 is addressing mode for that instruction." Some green cards are actually booklets. The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to a scen...
green card3 is room at Yorktown in 1978. A luser overheard one of the programmers ask another "Do you have a green card?" The other grunted and passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point the luser turned a delicate shade of ol...
green card4 is return. See also {card}.
green lightning is [IBM] n. 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being downloaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some genius within IBM suggested it would let th...
green lightning2 is That, it certainly does. Later microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics displays were actually *programmed* to produce green lightning! 2. [proposed] Any bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or ...
green lightning3 is the 88000 architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green lightning". See also {feature}.
green machine is n. A computer or peripheral device that has been designed and built to military specifications for field equipment (that is, to withstand mechanical shock, extremes of temperature and humidity, and so forth). Comes from the o...
Green's Theorem is [TMRC] prov. For any story, in any group of people there will be at least one person who has not heard the story. [The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus. --- ESR]
grep is /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p , where re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it, via {{UNIX}} `grep(1)'] vt. To rapidly scan a file or f...
grep2 is pattern. By extension, to look for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin board for the system backup schedule, would you?" See also {vgrep}.
grind is vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. This usage was associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare; {prettyprint} was and is the generic term for such op...
grind2 is version of a document from the nroff, troff, TeX, or Scribe source. The BSD program `vgrind(1)' grinds code for printing on a Versatec bitmapped printer. 3. To run seemingly interminably, esp. (but not necessarily) if performing ...
grind3 is Similar to {crunch} or {grovel}. Grinding has a connotation of using a lot of CPU time, but it is possible to grind a disk, network, etc. See also {hog}. 4. To make the whole system slow. "Troff really grinds a PDP-11." 5. `grin...
grind crank is n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not refer to a grind crank out loud, but merely makes t...
grind crank2 is {grind} and {wugga wugga}. Historical note At least one real machine actually had a grind crank --- the R1, a research machine built toward the end of the days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959. R1 (also known as `...
grind crank3 is as `The Rice University Computer' (TRUC)) had a single-step/free-run switch for use when debugging programs. Since single-stepping through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and gear arrang...
grind crank4 is button. This allowed one to `crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep on cranking.
gritch is /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a {glitch}). 2. vi. To complain. Often verb-doubled "Gritch gritch". 3. A synonym for {glitch} (as verb or noun).
grok is /grok/, var. /grohk/ [from the novel `Stranger in a Strange Land', by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally `to drink' and metaphorically `to be one with'] vt. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Co...
grok2 is Contrast {zen}, similar supernal understanding as a single brief flash. See also {glark}. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok the `void' type these days."
gronk is /gronk/ [popularized by Johnny Hart's comic strip "B.C." but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To clear the state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than `to {frob}'. 2. [TMRC] To cut, sever, smash, or similarl...
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Humor, Hacker2 is 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 spec...
Humor, Hacker3 is 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 cou...
Humor, Hacker4 is 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 Mon...
Humor, Hacker5 is this trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favored. 6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See {has the X nature}, {Discordianis...
Humor, Hacker6 is See also {filk}, {retrocomputing}, and appendix B. If you have an itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you are (a) correct and (b) respo...
Humor, Hacker7 is recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout {{science-fiction fandom}}.
hung is [from `hung up'] adj. Equivalent to {wedged}, but more common at UNIX/C sites. Not generally used of people. Syn. with {locked up}, {wedged}; compare {hosed}. See also {hang}. A hung state is distinguished from {crash}ed or {down}, ...
hung2 is but because it is not running rather than because it is waiting for something. However, the recovery from both situations is often the same.
hungry puppy is n. Syn. {slopsucker}.
hungus is /huhng'g*s/ [perhaps related to slang `humongous'] adj. Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable. "TCP is a hungus piece of code." "This is a hungus set of modifications."
hyperspace is /hi'per-spays/ n. A memory location that is *far* away from where the program counter should be pointing, often inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. "Another core dump --- looks like the program jumped off to hyperspac...
hyperspace2 is never-never land}.) This usage is from the SF notion of a spaceship jumping `into hyperspace', that is, taking a shortcut through higher-dimensional space --- in other words, bypassing this universe. The variant `east hypers...
hyperspace3 is hackers.*I didn't change anything! interj. An aggrieved cry often heard as bugs manifest during a regression test. The {canonical} reply to this assertion is "Then it works just the same as it did before, doesn't it?" See also...
hyperspace4 is applications programmers trying to blame an obvious applications problem on an unrelated systems software change, for example a divide-by-0 fault after terminals were added to a network. Usually, their statement is found to be f...
hyperspace5 is admit some major restructuring of the program that shouldn't have broken anything, in their opinion, but which actually {hosed} the code completely.
I see no X here. is Hackers (and the interactive computer games they write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or "X is missing." or "Where's the X?". This goes back to...
I see no X here.2 is respond in this wise if you asked it to do something involving an object not present at your location in the game.
i14y is // n. Abbrev. for `interoperability', with the `14' replacing fourteen letters. Used in the {X} (windows) community. Refers to portability and compatibility of data formats (even binary ones) between different programs or implementat...
i18n is // n. Abbrev. for `internationali{z,s}ation', with the 18 replacing 18 letters. Used in the {X} (windows) community.
IBM is /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-{infinite} number of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Ma...
IBM2 is illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers have long felt toward the `industry leader' (see {fear and loathing}). What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't so much that they are underpowered and over...
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Nightmare File System5 is 1970s.) See also {broadcast storm}.
NIL is /nil/ [from LISP terminology for `false'] No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the `-P' convention. See {T}.
NMI is /N-M-I/ n. Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80{88,[1234]}86. In contrast with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
no-op is /noh'op/ alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] n. 1. (also v.) A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). See als...
no-op2 is nothing to a project, or has nothing going on upstairs, or both. As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting money into a ...
no-op3 is into the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to go away. "Oh, well, that was a no-op." Hot-and-sour soup (see {great-wall}) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup'; so is wonton soup if everybody else...
noddy is /nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] adj. 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}. Noddy co...
noddy2 is bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily connot...
noddy3 is sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy {awk} script to dump all the first fields." In North America this might...
NOMEX underwear is /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ [USENET] n. Syn. {asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on the racing equipment market, used as a fire resista...
non-optimal solution is n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person speaking looks completely serious. Compare {stunni...
nonlinear is adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic and unpredictable fashion. When used to describe the behavior of a machine or program, it suggests that said machine or program is being forced to run far outside of design ...
nonlinear2 is induced by unreasonable inputs, or may be triggered when a more mundane bug sends the computation far off from its expected course. 2. When describing the behavior of a person, suggests a tantrum or a {flame}. "When you talk to...
nonlinear3 is go nonlinear for hours." In this context, `go nonlinear' connotes `blow up out of proportion' (proportion connotes linearity).
nontrivial is adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial"). The preferred ...
nontrivial2 is See {trivial}, {uninteresting}, {interesting}.
notwork is /not'werk/ n. A network, when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}. Compare {nyetwork}. Said at IBM to have orig. referred to a particular period of flakiness on IBM's VNET corporate network, ca. 1988; but there are independent repor...
NP- is /N-P/ pref. Extremely. Used to modify adjectives describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem to be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a pri...
NP-2 is this algorithm to perform correctly in every case is NP-annoying." This is generalized from the computer-science terms `NP-hard' and `NP-complete'. NP is the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those that can be complete...
NP-3 is amount of time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input; a solution for one NP-complete problem would solve all the others.
nuke is vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a given directory or storage volume. "On UNIX, `rm -r /usr' will nuke everything in the usr filesystem." Never used for accidental deletion. Oppose {blow away}. 2. Syn. for {d...
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octal forty is /ok'tl for'tee/ n. Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing a blank." Octal 40 is the {{ASCII}} space character, 0100000; by an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (01000000) is the {{EBCDIC}} space character. See {wall}.
off the trolley is adj. Describes the behavior of a program that malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually {crash} or abort. See {glitch}, {bug}, {deep space}.
off-by-one error is n. Exceedingly common error induced in many ways, such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at 1 or vice versa, or by writing `< N' instead of `<= N' or vice-versa. Also applied to giving something to the perso...
off-by-one error2 is Often confounded with {fencepost error}, which is properly a particular subtype of it.
offline is adv. Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on {USENET} to suggest that a discussion be taken off a public newsgroup to email.
old fart is n. Tribal elder. A title self-assumed with remarkable frequency by (esp.) USENETters who have been programming for more than about 25 years; often appears in {sig block}s attached to Jargon File contributions of great archeologica...
old fart2 is the second or third person but one of pride in first person.
Old Testament is n. [C programmers] The first edition of {K&R}, the sacred text describing {Classic C}.
one-line fix is n. Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to the moment it crashes the system. Usually `cured' by another one-line fix. See also {I didn't change anything!}
one-liner wars is n. A game popular among hackers who code in the language APL (see {write-only language}). The objective is to see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly...
one-liner wars2 is was practiced among {TECO} hackers. Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with a one-liner that, given a number N, produces a list of the prime numbers from 1 to N inclusive. It looks like this (2 = 0 +.= T...
one-liner wars3 is character, the assignment arrow is a single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.
ooblick is /oo'blik/ [from Dr. Seuss's `Bartholomew and the Oobleck'] n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonia...
ooblick2 is resists rapid motion like a solid and will even crack when hit by a hammer. Often found near lasers. Here is a field-tested ooblick recipe contributed by GLS 1 cup cornstarch 1 cup baking soda 3/4 cup water N drops o...
ooblick3 is non-Newtonian as a pure cornstarch ooblick, but has an appropriately slimy feel. Some, however, insist that the notion of an ooblick *recipe* is far too mechanical, and that it is best to add the water in small increments so that...
ooblick4 is through as it *becomes* ooblick can be grokked in fullness by many hands. For optional ingredients of this experience, see the "Ceremonial Chemicals" section of appendix B.
open is n. Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' --- used when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. To read aloud the LISP form (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say "Open defun foo, open eks close, open, plus eks one, close clos...
open switch is [IBM prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved question, issue, or problem.
operating system is [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The foundation software of a machine, of course; that which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications. The facilities an o...
operating system2 is design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around its host machines. Hacker folklore has been shaped primarily by the {{UNIX}}, {{ITS}}, {{TOPS-10...
operating system3 is {{CP/M}}, {{MS-DOS}}, and {{Multics}} operating systems (most importantly by ITS and UNIX).
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
oriental food2 is science-fiction fandom) has never been satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best local Chinese place and be right at least three times o...
oriental food3 is {stir-fried random}, {laser chicken}, {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}. Thai, Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.
orphan is [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by `init(1)'. Compare {zombie}.
orphaned i-node is /or'f*nd i'nohd/ [UNIX] n. 1. [techspeak] A file that retains storage but no longer appears in the directories of a filesystem. 2. By extension, a pejorative for any person serving no useful function within some organizatio...
orthogonal is [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, s...
orthogonal2 is system and are in some sense non-overlapping or mutually independent. For example, in architectures such as the PDP-11 or VAX where all or nearly all registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respect to any instr...
orthogonal3 is orthogonal. Or, in logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal, but the set `nand', `or', and `not' is not (because any one of these can be expressed in terms of the others). Also used in comments on human disco...
OS is /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An acronym heavily used in email, occasionally in speech. 2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy. See appendix A.
OS/2 is /O S too/ n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel 286- and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it right the second time, either. Mentioning it is usually good for a cheap laugh among hackers --- the design wa...
OS/22 is 1.x so bad, that 3 years after introduction you could still count the major {app}s shipping for it on the fingers of two hands --- in unary. Often called `Half-an-OS'. On January 28, 1991, Microsoft announced that it was dropping it...
OS/23 is leaving the OS entirely in the hands of IBM; on January 29 they claimed the media had got the story wrong, but were vague about how. It looks as though OS/2 is moribund. See {vaporware}, {monstrosity}, {cretinous}, {second-system ...
out-of-band is [from telecommunications and network theory] adj. 1. In software, describes values of a function which are not in its `natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that some kind of exception has occurred. Many C fun...
out-of-band2 is nonnegative integral value, or indicate failure with an out-of-band return value of -1. Compare {hidden flag}, {green bytes}. 2. Also sometimes used to describe what communications people call `shift characters', like the E...
out-of-band3 is terminals, or the level shift indicators in the old 5-bit Baudot codes. 3. In personal communication, using methods other than email, such as telephones or {snail-mail}.
overflow bit is n. 1. [techspeak] On some processors, an attempt to calculate a result too large for a register to hold causes a particular {flag} called an {overflow bit} to be set. 2. Hackers use the term of human thought too. "Well, the {{...
overflow bit2 is but I could hack it OK until they got to the exception handling ... that set my overflow bit." 3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to make a trip to the Room of Porcelain Fixtures "I'd better proce...
overrun is n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if your {sil...
overrun2 is machine takes longer than 2 msec to get to service the interrupt, at least one character will be lost. 2. Also applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay my electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I got four ph...
overrun3 is your message to overrun." When {thrash}ing at tasks, the next person to make a request might be told "Overrun!" 3. More loosely, may refer to a {buffer overflow} not necessarily related to processing time (as in {overrun screw}...
overrun screw is [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on core} produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array is static; if it is auto, the result may b...
overrun screw2 is in {heisenbug}s of the most diabolical subtlety. The term `overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles beyond the end of arrays allocated with `malloc(3)'; this typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the ...
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ping2 is a phone greeting. See {ACK}, also {ENQ}. 2. vt. To verify the presence of. 3. vt. To get the attention of. From the UNIX command `ping(1)' that sends an ICMP ECHO packet to another host. 4. vt. To send a message to all members ...
ping3 is order to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends." The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in Janua...
ping4 is comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting th...
ping5 is on the NeXT, then wrote a script that repeatedly invoked `ping(8)', listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet. Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ......
ping6 is turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time.
Pink-Shirt Book is `The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC'. The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has...
Pink-Shirt Book2 is pink shirt. See also {{book titles}}.
PIP is /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, and OS/8 (derived from a utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8 and RT-11 for just about every other file ...
PIP2 is that when the program was originated, during the development of the PDP-6 in 1963, it was called ATLATL (`Anything, Lord, to Anything, Lord').
pistol is [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice pistol!"
pizza box is [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes. Two meg single-platter removable disk packs ...
pizza box2 is they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza oven. It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
ANSI standard pizza is /an'see stan'd*rd peet'z*/ [CMU] Pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of that flavor. See also {rotary debugger}; comp...
plain-ASCII is /playn-as'kee/ Syn. {flat-ASCII}.
plan file is [UNIX] n. On systems that support {finger}, the `.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user is fingered. This feature was originally intended to be used to keep potential fingerers apprised of one's locatio...
plan file2 is almost universally to humorous and self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}). See {Hacking X for Y}.
platinum-iridium is adj. Standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage silly. The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard...
platinum-iridium2 is Weights and Measures near Paris. (From 1889 to 1960, the meter was defined to be the distance between two scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in that vault --- this replaced an earlier definition as 10^7 times the di...
platinum-iridium3 is along a meridian through Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact value of the circumference of the Earth. From 1960 to 1984 it was defined to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of krypton-86 ...
platinum-iridium4 is as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. The kilogram is now the only unit of measure officially defined in terms of a unique artifact.) "This garbage-c...
platinum-iridium5 is platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris." Compare {golden}.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
poke is n.,vt. See {peek}.
poll is v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check with someone "I keep polling him, but he's n...
poll2 is out." 3. To ask. "Lunch? I poll for a takeout order daily."
polygon pusher is n. A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of multi-colored polygons). Also `rectangle slinger'.
POM is /P-O-M/ n. Common acronym for {phase of the moon}. Usage usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means {flaky}.
pop is [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] (also capitalized `POP' /pop/) 1. vt. To remove something from a {stack} or {pdl}. If a person says he/she has po...
pop2 is he/she has finally finished working on it and can now remove it from the list of things hanging overhead. 2. When a discussion gets to too deep a level of detail so that the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone will s...
pop3 is level!" The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a finger pointing to the ceiling.
POPJ is /pop'J/ [from a {PDP-10} return-from-subroutine instruction] n.,v. To return from a digression. By verb doubling, "Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see, where were we?" See {RTI}.
posing is n. On a {MUD}, the use of `' or an equivalent command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain physical action that has no effect on the game (it may, however, serve as a social signal or propaganda device that induc...
posing2 is example, if one's character name is Firechild, one might type ` looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on the nearest terminal' to broadcast a message that says "Firechild looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on ...
post is v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}. Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for example "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known users?"
posting is n. Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that {post} can be nouned). Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary {email} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a ...
posting2 is perhaps the best dividing line is that if you don't know the names of all the potential recipients, it is a posting.
postmaster is n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the same as the {admin}. It is conventional for each machine to have a `postmaster' address that is aliased to t...
pound on is vt. Syn. {bang on}.
power cycle is vt. (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle') To power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state. Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare {V...
power cycle2 is see the AI Koan in appendix A about Tom Knight and the novice.
PPN is /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL, BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers from the PDP-10 era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on ...
precedence lossage is /pre's*-dens los'*j/ [C programmers] n. Coding error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or logical operators by the compiler. Used esp. of certain common coding errors in C due to the nonintuitivel...
precedence lossage2 is `<<', and `>>' (for this reason, experienced C programmers deliberately forget the language's {baroque} precedence hierarchy and parenthesize defensively). Can always be avoided by suitable use of parentheses. {LISP}...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
You know you've been hacking too long when... is The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following * not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember ...
You know you've been hacking too long when...2 is postal one. * your {SO} kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}." * you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in oct...
You know you've been hacking too long when...3 is value than your car. * in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10. * more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language. * you realize you have ...
You know you've been hacking too long when...4 is early version of this entry said "All but one of these have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The ringer ...
You know you've been hacking too long when...5 is made up out of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually happening. --- ESR]
Your mileage may vary is cav. [from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1. A ritual warning often found in UNIX freeware distributions. Translates roughly as "Hey, I tried to write this porta...
Your mileage may vary2 is system?" 2. A qualifier more generally attached to advice. "I find that sending flowers works well, but your mileage may vary."
Yow! is /yow/ [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] interj. A favored hacker expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. "Yow! Check out what happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display hack!" Compare {gurfle}.
yoyo mode is n. The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down. Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits....
yoyo mode2 is SIGPLAN '88. Tourists staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish is /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ n. obs. The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which ...
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish2 is covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand....
zap is 1. n. Spiciness. 2. vt. To make food spicy. 3. vt. To make someone `suffer' by making his food spicy. (Most hackers love spicy food. Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it makes you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.)...
zap2 is correct; esp. used when the action is performed with a debugger or binary patching tool. Also implies surgical precision. "Zap the debug level to 6 and run it again." In the IBM mainframe world, binary patches are applied to programs...
zap3 is `superzap', whose file name is `IMASPZAP' (I M A SuPerZAP). 5. vt. To erase or reset. 6. To {fry} a chip with static electricity. "Uh oh --- I think that lightning strike may have zapped the disk controller."
zapped is adj. Spicy. This term is used to distinguish between food that is hot (in temperature) and food that is *spicy*-hot. For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon Chicken is a kind of chicken salad that is cold but zapped; by contrast,...
zapped2 is zapped. See also {{oriental food}}, {laser chicken}. See {zap}, senses 1 and 2.
zen is vt. To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally applied to problems of life in general. "How'd you figure out the buffer allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned...
zen2 is time-extended version of zenning a system. Compare {hack mode}. See also {guru}.
zero is vt. 1. To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words (esp. in the construction `zero out'). 2. To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories, where `zeroing' need not involve actually w...
zero2 is zeroed. One may speak of something being `logically zeroed' rather than being `physically zeroed'. See {scribble}.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
big win => n. Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists discovered high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule. Small mistake; big win!" See {win big}.
big-endian => [From Swift's `Gulliver's Travels' via the famous paper `On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace' by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] adj. 1. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric repr...
bignum => /big'nuhm/ [orig. from MIT MacLISP] n. 1. [techspeak] A multiple-precision computer representation for very large integers. More generally, any very large number. "Have you ever looked at the United States Budget? There's bignums for you!" ...
bigot => n. A person who is religiously attached to a particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see {religious issues}). Usually found with a specifier; thus, `cray bigot', {ITS bigot}, `APL bigot', `VMS bigot', {Berkele...
bit => [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT'] n. 1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes are equally probable. 2. [techspeak] A computational quant...
bit bang => n. Transmission of data on a serial line, when accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the appropriate times. The technique is a simple loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte. Input is more interesti...
bit bang2 => and output at the same time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the wannabees. Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros with a Zilog PIO b...
bit bang3 => instance of the {cycle of reincarnation}, this technique is now (1991) coming back into use on some RISC architectures because it consumes such an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense not to have a UART.
bit bashing => n. (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit twiddling}) Term used to describe any of several kinds of low-level programming characterized by manipulation of bit, flag, nybble, and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data; these include lo...
bit bashing2 => encryption algorithms, checksum and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors of graphics programming (see bitblt), and assembler/compiler code generation. May connote either tedium or a real technical challenge (more usual...
bit bashing3 => decoding for the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the control registers still has bugs." See also {bit bang}, {mode bit}.
bit bucket => n. 1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'. On ...
bit bucket2 => /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as `the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky'. 2. The place where all lost mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed according to {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely to end u...
bit bucket3 => mail, which has an almost 100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all unwanted ma...
bit bucket4 => article to the bit bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you those figures last week; they must have ended in the bit bucket." Compare {bla...
bit bucket5 => in jest. It is based on the fanciful notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term `bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time hackers a...
bit bucket6 => told that when the CPU stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the bit box'. See also {chad box}. Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the `parity preservation law', the number of 1 bits ...
bit bucket7 => equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.
bit decay => n. See {bit rot}. People with a physics background tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle decay. See also computron, {quantum bogodynamics}.
bit rot => n. Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time has passed, even if `nothing has changed'. The theory exp...
bit rot2 => were radioactive. As time passes, the contents of a file or the code in a program will become increasingly garbled. There actually are physical processes that produce such effects (alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceram...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
code police => [by analogy with George Orwell's `thought police'] n. A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst into one's office and arrest one for violating programming style rules. May be used either seriously, to underline a ...
code police2 => violation is dangerous, or ironically, to suggest that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by anal-retentive weenies. "Dike out that goto or the code police will get you!" The ironic usage is perhaps more common.
codewalker => n. A program component that traverses other programs for a living. Compilers have codewalkers in their front ends; so do cross-reference generators and some database front ends. Other utility programs that try to do too much with source...
coefficient of X => n. Hackish speech makes rather heavy use of pseudo-mathematical metaphors. Four particularly important ones involve the terms `coefficient', `factor', `index', and `quotient'. They are often loosely applied to things you cannot re...
coefficient of X2 => there are subtle distinctions among them that convey information about the way the speaker mentally models whatever he or she is describing. `Foo factor' and `foo quotient' tend to describe something for which the issue is one of...
coefficient of X3 => example is {fudge factor}. It's not important how much you're fudging; the term simply acknowledges that some fudging is needed. You might talk of liking a movie for its silliness factor. Quotient tends to imply that the property...
coefficient of X4 => "I would have won except for my luck quotient." This could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor", but using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck overpowering good luck (or someone else's good luck overpoweri...
coefficient of X5 => `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that can be larger or smaller. Thus, you might refer to a paper or person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you would be...
coefficient of X6 => bogosity factor'. `Foo index' suggests that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of friction. The ...
coefficient of X7 => one of personal preference; e.g., some people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a combination of factors and thus say `bogosity index'.
cokebottle => /kohk'bot-l/ n. Any very unusual character, particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the `control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people complained right back ab...
cold boot => n. See boot.
COME FROM => n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go to'; `COME FROM' <label> would cause the referenced label to act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control would quietly and automagically be transferred t...
COME FROM2 => FROM'. `COME FROM' was first proposed in a Datamation article of December 1973 (reprinted in the April 1984 issue of `Communications of the ACM') that parodied the then-raging `structured programming' {holy wars} (see {considered harmfu...
COME FROM3 => the `assigned COME FROM' and the `computed COME FROM' (parodying some nasty control constructs in FORTRAN and some extended BASICs). Of course, multi-tasking (or non-determinism) could be implemented by having more than one `COME FROM' ...
COME FROM4 => label. In some ways the FORTRAN `DO' looks like a `COME FROM' statement. After the terminating statement number/`CONTINUE' is reached, control continues at the statement following the DO. Some generous FORTRANs would allow arbitrary sta...
COME FROM5 => the statement, leading to examples like DO 10 I=1,LIMIT C imagine many lines of code here, leaving the C original DO statement lost in the spaghetti... WRITE(6,10) I,FROB(I) 10 FORMAT(1X,I5,G10.4) in which the trapdoor is just after the...
COME FROM6 => statement labeled 10. (This is particularly surprising because the label doesn't appear to have anything to do with the flow of control at all!) While sufficiently astonishing to the unsuspecting reader, this form of `COME FROM' stateme...
COME FROM7 => all, control will eventually pass to the following statement. The implementation of the general form was left to Univac FORTRAN, ca. 1975. The statement `AT 100' would perform a `COME FROM 100'. It was intended strictly as a debugging a...
COME FROM8 => promised to anyone so deranged as to use it in production code. More horrible things had already been perpetrated in production languages, however; doubters need only contemplate the `ALTER' verb in COBOL. `COME FROM' was supported unde...
COME FROM9 => 15 years later, in C-INTERCAL (see INTERCAL, retrocomputing); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from the shock.
comm mode => /kom mohd/ [ITS from the feature supporting on-line chat; the term may spelled with one or two m's] Syn. for {talk mode}.
command key => [Mac users] n. The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as `flower', `pretzel', `clover', `propeller', `beanie' (an apparent reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie), or splat. The...
command key2 => The proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle peril of iconic interfaces.
comment out => vt. To surround a section of code with comment delimiters or to prefix every line in the section with a comment marker; this prevents it from being compiled or interpreted. Often done when the code is redundant or obsolete, but you wan...
comment out2 => the intent of the active code clearer; also when the code in that section is broken and you want to bypass it in order to debug some other part of the code. Compare {condition out}, usually the preferred technique in languages (such a...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
fool => n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to descri...
fool file, the => [USENET] n. A notional repository of all the most dramatically and abysmally stupid utterances ever. There is a subgenre of {sig block}s that consists of the header "From the fool file" followed by some quote the poster wishes to re...
fool file, the2 => dimwittery; for this to be really effective, the quote has to be so obviously wrong as to be laughable. More than one USENETter has achieved an unwanted notoriety by being quoted in this way.
Foonly => n. 1. The PDP-10 successor that was to have been built by the Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory along with a new operating system. The intention was to leapfrog from the old DEC timesharing system SAIL ...
footprint => n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed program (often in plural, `footprints'). See also toeprint.
for free => adj. Said of a capability of a programming language or hardware equipment that is available by its design without needing cleverness to implement "In APL, we get the matrix operations for free." "And owing to the way revisions are stored ...
for free2 => trees for free." Usually it refers to a serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (compare {big win}), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary feature.
for the rest of us => [from the Mac slogan "The computer for the rest of us"] adj. 1. Used to describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very overpriced pr...
for the rest of us2 => with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not `confuse' a na"ive user. This places an upper bound on how far that user c...
for the rest of us3 => get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor lusers might not be able to handle them. Become...
for the rest of us4 => third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See also {WIMP environment}, Macin...
fora => pl.n. Plural of forum.
foreground => [UNIX] vt. To foreground a task is to bring it to the top of one's stack for immediate processing, and hackers often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground writ...
forked => [UNIX; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj. Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system slowed to incredibly bad speeds because of a process recursively spawning copies of itself (using the UNIX system call `fork(2)') a...
Fortrash => /for'trash/ n. Hackerism for the FORTRAN language, referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.
fortune cookie => [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. Items from this lexicon have often been used as fortune cookies. See {cookie file}.
forum => n. [USENET, GEnie CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums'] Any discussion group accessible through a dial-in BBS, a {mailing list}, or a newsgroup (see {network, the}). A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit postings for all to read ...
fossil => n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example the retention of octal as default base for string escapes in C, in spite o...
four-color glossies => 1. Literature created by marketroids that allegedly containing technical specs but which is in fact as superficial as possible without being totally content-free. "Forget the four-color glossies, give me the tech ref manuals." ...
four-color glossies2 => superficiality even when the material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white. Four-color-glossy manuals are *never* useful for finding a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't contain enoug...
four-color glossies3 => program doesn't produce the expected or desired output.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
green card => n. [after the `IBM System/360 Reference Data' card] This is used for any summary of an assembly language, even if the color is not green. Less frequently used now because of the decrease in the use of assembly language. "I'll go get my ...
green card2 => addressing mode for that instruction." Some green cards are actually booklets. The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to a scene that too...
green card3 => room at Yorktown in 1978. A luser overheard one of the programmers ask another "Do you have a green card?" The other grunted and passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point the luser turned a delicate shade of olive and rapi...
green card4 => return. See also card.
green lightning => [IBM] n. 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being downloaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some genius within IBM suggested it would let the user k...
green lightning2 => That, it certainly does. Later microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics displays were actually *programmed* to produce green lightning! 2. [proposed] Any bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or marketing...
green lightning3 => the 88000 architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green lightning". See also feature.
green machine => n. A computer or peripheral device that has been designed and built to military specifications for field equipment (that is, to withstand mechanical shock, extremes of temperature and humidity, and so forth). Comes from the olive-dra...
Green's Theorem => [TMRC] prov. For any story, in any group of people there will be at least one person who has not heard the story. [The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in calculus. --- ESR]
grep => /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p , where re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it, via {UNIX} `grep(1)'] vt. To rapidly scan a file or file set l...
grind => vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. This usage was associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare; prettyprint was and is the generic term for such operations. 2....
grind crank => n. A mythical accessory to a terminal. A crank on the side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and causes the computer to run faster. Usually one does not refer to a grind crank out loud, but merely makes the approp...
grind crank2 => grind and {wugga wugga}. Historical note At least one real machine actually had a grind crank --- the R1, a research machine built toward the end of the days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959. R1 (also known as `The Rice Ins...
grind crank3 => as `The Rice University Computer' (TRUC)) had a single-step/free-run switch for use when debugging programs. Since single-stepping through a large program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and gear arrangement that...
grind crank4 => button. This allowed one to `crank' through a lot of code, then slow down to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep on cranking.
gritch => /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a glitch). 2. vi. To complain. Often verb-doubled "Gritch gritch". 3. A synonym for glitch (as verb or noun).
grok => /grok/, var. /grohk/ [from the novel `Stranger in a Strange Land', by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally `to drink' and metaphorically `to be one with'] vt. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes i...
gronk => /gronk/ [popularized by Johnny Hart's comic strip "B.C." but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To clear the state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than `to frob'. 2. [TMRC] To cut, sever, smash, or similarly disable. 3....
gronk out => vi. To cease functioning. Of people, to go home and go to sleep. "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."
gronked => adj. 1. Broken. "The teletype scanner was gronked, so we took the system down." 2. Of people, the condition of feeling very tired or (less commonly) sick. "I've been chasing that bug for 17 hours now and I am thoroughly gronked!" Compare b...
grovel => vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress. Often used transitively with `over' or `through'. "The file scavenger has been groveling through the file directories for 10 minutes now." Compare grind and crunch. Emphatic form `g...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
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...
Humor, Hacker5 => this trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favored. 6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism. See {has the X nature}, Discordianism, zen, {ha h...
Humor, Hacker6 => See also filk, retrocomputing, and appendix B. If you have an itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you are (a) correct and (b) responding like a...
Humor, Hacker7 => recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout {{science-fiction fandom}}.
hung => [from `hung up'] adj. Equivalent to wedged, but more common at UNIX/C sites. Not generally used of people. Syn. with {locked up}, wedged; compare hosed. See also hang. A hung state is distinguished from crashed or down, where the program or s...
hungry puppy => n. Syn. slopsucker.
hungus => /huhng'g*s/ [perhaps related to slang `humongous'] adj. Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable. "TCP is a hungus piece of code." "This is a hungus set of modifications."
hyperspace => /hi'per-spays/ n. A memory location that is *far* away from where the program counter should be pointing, often inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. "Another core dump --- looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace someho...
I see no X here. => Hackers (and the interactive computer games they write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or "X is missing." or "Where's the X?". This goes back to the orig...
I see no X here.2 => respond in this wise if you asked it to do something involving an object not present at your location in the game.
i14y => // n. Abbrev. for `interoperability', with the `14' replacing fourteen letters. Used in the X (windows) community. Refers to portability and compatibility of data formats (even binary ones) between different programs or implementations of the...
i18n => // n. Abbrev. for `internationaliz,sation', with the 18 replacing 18 letters. Used in the X (windows) community.
IBM => /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-infinite number of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Machines'. ...
IBM discount => n. A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced (see clone); inside, it is said to spring from a belief that large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause p...
ice => [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels acronym for `Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to literally kill...
ifdef out => /if'def owt/ v. Syn. for {condition out}, specific to C.
ill-behaved => adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated roundoff error or poor convergence properties. 2. Software that bypasses the defined OS interfaces to do things (lik...
IMHO => // [from SF fandom via USENET; acronym for `In My Humble Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." Also seen in var...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Nightmare File System => n. Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the d...
Nightmare File System2 => repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher spl level). Then another machine tries to reach ...
Nightmare File System3 => pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This snowballs v...
Nightmare File System4 => network of machines is frozen --- the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! (ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of UNIX's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system wit...
Nightmare File System5 => 1970s.) See also {broadcast storm}.
NIL => /nil/ [from LISP terminology for `false'] No. Used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the `-P' convention. See T.
NMI => /N-M-I/ n. Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 8088,[1234]86. In contrast with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.
no-op => /noh'op/ alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] n. 1. (also v.) A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). See also JFCL. ...
noddy => /nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] adj. 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}. Noddy code may be ...
NOMEX underwear => /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ [USENET] n. Syn. {asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance meas...
non-optimal solution => n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person speaking looks completely serious. Compare stunning. See al...
nonlinear => adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic and unpredictable fashion. When used to describe the behavior of a machine or program, it suggests that said machine or program is being forced to run far outside of design specific...
nontrivial => adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial"). The preferred emphatic ...
notwork => /not'werk/ n. A network, when it is acting flaky or is down. Compare nyetwork. Said at IBM to have orig. referred to a particular period of flakiness on IBM's VNET corporate network, ca. 1988; but there are independent reports of the term ...
NP- => /N-P/ pref. Extremely. Used to modify adjectives describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem to be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a priori reas...
nuke => vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a given directory or storage volume. "On UNIX, `rm -r /usr' will nuke everything in the usr filesystem." Never used for accidental deletion. Oppose {blow away}. 2. Syn. for dike, applied t...
number-crunching => n. Computations of a numerical nature, esp. those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers. The only thing Fortrash is good for. This term is in widespread informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream slang, but ...
numbers => [scientific computation] n. Output of a computation that may not be significant results but at least indicate that the program is running. May be used to placate management, grant sponsors, etc. `Making numbers' means running a program bec...
NUXI problem => /nuk'see pro'bl*m/ n. This refers to the problem of transferring data between machines with differing byte-order. The string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a different `byte sex' (e.g., when transferring data from a l...
NUXI problem2 => vice-versa). See also middle-endian, swab, and bytesexual.
nybble => /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') [from v. `nibble' by analogy with `bite' => `byte'] n. Four bits; one hex digit; a half-byte. Though `byte' is now techspeak, this useful relative is still jargon. Compare {byte}, crumb, tayste, dynner; see also bit,...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
octal forty => /ok'tl for'tee/ n. Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing a blank." Octal 40 is the {ASCII} space character, 0100000; by an odd coincidence, hex 40 (01000000) is the {EBCDIC} space character. See wall.
off the trolley => adj. Describes the behavior of a program that malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually crash or abort. See glitch, bug, {deep space}.
off-by-one error => n. Exceedingly common error induced in many ways, such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at 1 or vice versa, or by writing `< N' instead of `<= N' or vice-versa. Also applied to giving something to the person next t...
off-by-one error2 => Often confounded with {fencepost error}, which is properly a particular subtype of it.
offline => adv. Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on USENET to suggest that a discussion be taken off a public newsgroup to email.
old fart => n. Tribal elder. A title self-assumed with remarkable frequency by (esp.) USENETters who have been programming for more than about 25 years; often appears in {sig block}s attached to Jargon File contributions of great archeological signif...
old fart2 => the second or third person but one of pride in first person.
Old Testament => n. [C programmers] The first edition of K&R, the sacred text describing {Classic C}.
one-line fix => n. Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to the moment it crashes the system. Usually `cured' by another one-line fix. See also {I didn't change anything!}
one-liner wars => n. A game popular among hackers who code in the language APL (see {write-only language}). The objective is to see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly hairy p...
one-liner wars2 => was practiced among TECO hackers. Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with a one-liner that, given a number N, produces a list of the prime numbers from 1 to N inclusive. It looks like this (2 = 0 +.= T o.| T) / T <...
one-liner wars3 => character, the assignment arrow is a single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.
ooblick => /oo'blik/ [from Dr. Seuss's `Bartholomew and the Oobleck'] n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavi...
open => n. Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' --- used when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. To read aloud the LISP form (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say "Open defun foo, open eks close, open, plus eks one, close close."
open switch => [IBM prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved question, issue, or problem.
operating system => [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The foundation software of a machine, of course; that which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications. The facilities an operating...
operating system2 => design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around its host machines. Hacker folklore has been shaped primarily by the {UNIX}, {ITS}, {TOPS-10}, {TOPS-20}}...
operating system3 => {CP/M}, {MS-DOS}, and {Multics} operating systems (most importantly by ITS and UNIX).
Orange Book => n. The U.S. Government's standards document `Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard 5200.28-STD, December, 1985' which characterize secure computing architectures and defines levels A1 (most secure) through D (least)...
Orange Book2 => can be upgraded to about C1 without excessive pain. See also {{book titles}}.
oriental food => n. Hackers display an intense tropism towards oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan. This phenomenon (which has also been observed in subcultures that overlap heavily...
oriental food2 => science-fiction fandom) has never been satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best local Chinese place and be right at least three times out of f...
oriental food3 => {stir-fried random}, {laser chicken}, {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}. Thai, Indian, Korean, and Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.
orphan => [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by `init(1)'. Compare zombie.
orphaned i-node => /or'f*nd i'nohd/ [UNIX] n. 1. [techspeak] A file that retains storage but no longer appears in the directories of a filesystem. 2. By extension, a pejorative for any person serving no useful function within some organization, esp. ...
orthogonal => [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent; well separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used in a generalization of its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the ...
OS => /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An acronym heavily used in email, occasionally in speech. 2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy. See appendix A.
OS/2 => /O S too/ n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel 286- and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it right the second time, either. Mentioning it is usually good for a cheap laugh among hackers --- the design was so bar...
out-of-band => [from telecommunications and network theory] adj. 1. In software, describes values of a function which are not in its `natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that some kind of exception has occurred. Many C functions, ...
overflow bit => n. 1. [techspeak] On some processors, an attempt to calculate a result too large for a register to hold causes a particular flag called an {overflow bit} to be set. 2. Hackers use the term of human thought too. "Well, the {Ada} descri...
overflow bit2 => but I could hack it OK until they got to the exception handling ... that set my overflow bit." 3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to make a trip to the Room of Porcelain Fixtures "I'd better process an i...
overrun => n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line communications. For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly one character per millisecond, so if your silo can hol...
overrun screw => [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on core} produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array is static; if it is auto, the result may be to {sm...
overrun screw2 => in heisenbugs of the most diabolical subtlety. The term `overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles beyond the end of arrays allocated with `malloc(3)'; this typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the arena, pro...
overrun screw3 => malloc and often a core dump on the next operation to use `stdio(3)' or `malloc(3)' itself. See spam, overrun; see also {memory leak}, {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage}, {fandango on core}, {secondary damage}.*P.O.D. /P-O-D/ Acro...
overrun screw4 => opposed to a code section). Usage pedantic and rare. See also pod.
padded cell => n. Where you put lusers so they can't hurt anything. A program that limits a luser to a carefully restricted subset of the capabilities of the host system (for example, the `rsh(1)' utility on USG UNIX). Note that this is different fro...
padded cell2 => overt and not aimed at enforcing security so much as protecting others (and the luser) from the consequences of the luser's boundless na"ivet'e (see na"ive). Also `padded cell environment'.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
phase of the moon5 => bug literally depended on the phase of the moon! The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but the typesetter `corrected' it. This has sin...
phreaking => [from `phone phreak'] n. 1. The art and science of cracking the phone network (so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls). 2. By extension, security-cracking in any other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communicat...
pico- => [SI a quantifier meaning * 10^-12] pref. Smaller than nano-; used in the same rather loose connotative way as nano- and micro-. This usage is not yet common in the way nano- and micro- are, but should be instantly recognizable to any hacker....
run like a pig => v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of software. Distinct from hog.
pilot error => [Sun from aviation] n. A user's misconfiguration or misuse of a piece of software, producing apparently buglike results (compare UBD). "Joe Luser reported a bug in sendmail that causes it to generate bogus headers." "That's not a bug, ...
ping => [from the TCP/IP acronym `Packet INternet Groper', prob. originally contrived to match the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for the presence and alivenes...
Pink-Shirt Book => `The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC'. The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a differ...
Pink-Shirt Book2 => pink shirt. See also {{book titles}}.
PIP => /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, and OS/8 (derived from a utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8 and RT-11 for just about every other file operati...
pistol => [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to shoot yourself in the foot. "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice pistol!"
pizza box => [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes. Two meg single-platter removable disk packs used to...
pizza box2 => they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza oven. It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
ANSI standard pizza => /an'see stan'd*rd peet'z*/ [CMU] Pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of that flavor. See also {rotary debugger}; compare {tea,...
plain-ASCII => /playn-as'kee/ Syn. flat-ASCII.
plan file => [UNIX] n. On systems that support finger, the `.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user is fingered. This feature was originally intended to be used to keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near...
plan file2 => almost universally to humorous and self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}). See {Hacking X for Y}.
platinum-iridium => adj. Standard, against which all others of the same category are measured. Usage silly. The notion is that one of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram...
playpen => [IBM] n. A room where programmers work. Compare {salt mines}.
playte => /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with nybble and {byte}. Usage rare and extremely silly. See also dynner and crumb.
plingnet => /pling'net/ n. Syn. UUCPNET. Also see {{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for bang (as in {bang path}).
plokta => /plok't*/ [Acronym for `Press Lots Of Keys To Abort'] v. To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the syst...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
plumbing => [UNIX] n. Term used for shell code, so called because of the prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of one program to the input of another. Under UNIX, user utilities can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable c...
PM => /P-M/ 1. v. (from `preventive maintenance') To bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes; see {scratch monkey}. 2. n. Abbrev. for `Presentation Manager', an elephantine OS/2 graphical user interface. See also {provocative maintenance...
pnambic => /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film version of `The Wizard of Oz' in which true nature of the wizard is first discovered "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."] 1. A stage of development of a process or function tha...
pod => [allegedly from acronym POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer). From the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to it. See also P.O.D.
poke => n.,vt. See peek.
poll => v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check with someone "I keep polling him, but he's not answe...
polygon pusher => n. A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of multi-colored polygons). Also `rectangle slinger'.
POM => /P-O-M/ n. Common acronym for {phase of the moon}. Usage usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means flaky.
pop => [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] (also capitalized `POP' /pop/) 1. vt. To remove something from a stack or pdl. If a person says he/she has popped somethi...
POPJ => /pop'J/ [from a PDP-10 return-from-subroutine instruction] n.,v. To return from a digression. By verb doubling, "Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see, where were we?" See RTI.
posing => n. On a MUD, the use of `' or an equivalent command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain physical action that has no effect on the game (it may, however, serve as a social signal or propaganda device that induces other ...
post => v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or newsgroup. Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for example "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known users?"
posting => n. Noun corresp. to v. post (but note that post can be nouned). Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary email message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a small mailing l...
postmaster => n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the same as the admin. It is conventional for each machine to have a `postmaster' address that is aliased to this person.
pound on => vt. Syn. {bang on}.
power cycle => vt. (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle') To power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the intention of clearing some kind of hung or gronked state. Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare {Vulcan nerve pi...
power cycle2 => see the AI Koan in appendix A about Tom Knight and the novice.
PPN => /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A user-ID under {TOPS-10} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL, BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers from the PDP-10 era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on other syst...
precedence lossage => /pre's*-dens los'*j/ [C programmers] n. Coding error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or logical operators by the compiler. Used esp. of certain common coding errors in C due to the nonintuitively low pr...
precedence lossage2 => `<<', and `>>' (for this reason, experienced C programmers deliberately forget the language's baroque precedence hierarchy and parenthesize defensively). Can always be avoided by suitable use of parentheses. LISP fans enjoy poi...
precedence lossage3 => happen in *their* favorite language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere. See {aliasing bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on core}, {overrun screw}.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
You know you've been hacking too long when... => The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves. These include the following * not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your {networ...
You know you've been hacking too long when...2 => postal one. * your SO kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}." * you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal. * your comp...
You know you've been hacking too long when...3 => value than your car. * in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10. * more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in some programming language. * you realize you have never seen ...
You know you've been hacking too long when...4 => early version of this entry said "All but one of these have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite often). Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer." The ringer was balan...
You know you've been hacking too long when...5 => made up out of whole cloth. Although more respondents picked that one out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple independent reports of its actually happening. --- ESR]
Your mileage may vary => cav. [from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1. A ritual warning often found in UNIX freeware distributions. Translates roughly as "Hey, I tried to write this portably, but...
Your mileage may vary2 => system?" 2. A qualifier more generally attached to advice. "I find that sending flowers works well, but your mileage may vary."
Yow! => /yow/ [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] interj. A favored hacker expression of humorous surprise or emphasis. "Yow! Check out what happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display hack!" Compare gurfle.
yoyo mode => n. The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down. Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits. Sun Mi...
yoyo mode2 => SIGPLAN '88. Tourists staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish => /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ n. obs. The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page. The term is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish i...
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish2 => covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang) sauce. Usage primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which could display this character on the screen. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.
zap => 1. n. Spiciness. 2. vt. To make food spicy. 3. vt. To make someone `suffer' by making his food spicy. (Most hackers love spicy food. Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it makes you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.) See zapped...
zapped => adj. Spicy. This term is used to distinguish between food that is hot (in temperature) and food that is *spicy*-hot. For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon Chicken is a kind of chicken salad that is cold but zapped; by contrast, vanilla...
zen => vt. To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of enlightenment. Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally applied to problems of life in general. "How'd you figure out the buffer allocation problem?" "Oh, I zenned it." Cont...
zero => vt. 1. To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words (esp. in the construction `zero out'). 2. To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories, where `zeroing' need not involve actually writing zer...
zero-content => adj. Syn. content-free.
zeroth => /zee'rohth/ adj. First. Among software designers, comes from C's and LISP's 0-based indexing of arrays. Hardware people also tend to start counting at 0 instead of 1; this is natural since, e.g., the 256 states of 8 bits correspond to the b...
zigamorph => /zig'*-morf/ n. Hex FF (11111111) when used as a delimiter or fence character. Usage primarily at IBM shops.
zip => [primarily MS-DOS] vt. To create a compressed archive from a group of files using PKWare's PKZIP or a compatible archiver. Its use is spreading now that portable implementations of the algorithm have been written. Commonly used as follows "I'l...
zipperhead => [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind.
factpacks/old_test_meanings.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Asenath => peril; misfortune
Ashan => smoke
Ashbel => an old fire
Ashdod => effusion; inclination; theft
Asher => happiness
Ashima => crime; offense
Ashkenaz => a fire that spreads
Ashnah => change
Ashriel => same as Asareel
Ashtaroth => Ashtoreth, flocks; sheep; riches
Ashur => who is happy; or walks; or looks
Asia => muddy; boggy
Asiel => the work of God
Askelon => weight; balance; fire of infamy
Asnapper => unhappiness; increase of danger
Asriel => help of God
Assir => prisoner; fettered
Asshurim => liers in want; beholders
Assos => approaching; coming near
Assur => same as Ashur
Assyria => country of Assur or Ashur
factpacks/techdict.fact view on Meta::CPAN
FCC => (Federal Communications Commission) These are the people in the government who decide what's legal and illegal to broadcast, including what frequencies are allowed to be used by whom.
FDDI => (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) This is a fiber optic interface that allows data to travel extreme distances (many miles/kilometers) without signal loss. It is far superior to copper wire for data integrity as well. FDDI is often used to c...
Feature => A feature is something that a piece of hardware or software is designed to do. Many things that appear to be bugs are actually features. Often, a hardware or software developer will have to make a tradeoff in functionality that causes some...
Fiber Optic => A method of transmission alternative to copper. The way it works is by pulsing light down a strand of glass. These pulses represent binary code. So far, that's no better than copper. The advantage is that a single strand of fiber optic...
FIFO Buffer (First In First Out Buffer) => An area of memory that holds information in the order in which it was received until the computer has time to use it.
Firewall => This is a form of Internet security that stands between a private network and the Internet. It is like a wall in that it can prevent unwanted traffic from passing either way. Some firewalls have proxy functions built in. In fact, the dist...
Firewire => An up and coming serial technology that promises to speed data at 200 => 400 Mbps. This standard may eventually replace your serial ports, parallel ports, game ports, USB and maybe even SCSI.
FishNet => This is a type of stocking material that Joel likes to wear under his pants.
Flash BIOS => This BIOS contains a flash ROM chip that can be updated under certain conditions, but is otherwise static.
Flash ROM => A rewriteable ROM that doesn't lose its info when the power turns off.
Flat Screen => A CRT that is made more flat than a standard tube by using more than one electron gun. It is most useful to professionals who rely on the precision of their monitors. It is also better for the standard user because a straight light acr...
Flat Shading => This is the most basic shading technique. The entire triangle is only one color. This causes the image to appear blocky.
FM synthesis => This is a method of creating music using frequencies to represent instruments.
Fortran => This is a high-level programming language, a bit more advanced than BASIC, but not quite as complex as C. This language refuses to die because it is so huge in the scientific research community. It's not a tough language to learn and it's ...
Fractional T1 => This term refers to using a theoretical "piece" of a T1 line, such as 128 Kbps, 256 Kbps or 512 Kbps worth of the 1.5 Mbps T1 line. Many ISPs offer fractional T1 as a lower-cost alternative to a full T1, and a higher-cost alternative...
Frame Relay => A method of communication that can go from the speed of an ISDN to the speed of a T1 in increments. It has a flat rate billing instead of a per time usage. It connects by using the telephone company's network.
Free text search => This type of search allows you to give a fragment of a word and have it found in any part of that word. For example, doing a free text search for "the" could return "Thesis", "Blithe", and "Diphtheria."
FTP => (File Transfer Protocol) This is the method of moving files from system to system using TCP/IP.
Full parity => This refers to the ability to send and receive a signal at the same time. It can effectively double bandwidth, assuming that you can benefit from sending and receiving data at the same time. Most of the time, this doesn't happen, since...
Gate => A gate is a tiny electronic switch. These switches, when linked together, can perform logical functions.
Gateway => The computer or device onto which the first hop needs to go to get out of your network. As you know a TCP/IP route uses many hops to get from here to there.
factpacks/techdict.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Hot-pluggable => Same as hot-swappable, but also connotes a simple plug-in mechanism for easy swapping.
Hot-swappable => This type of mechanism implies that you can remove or add things while the system is running. For example, hard drives and power supplies are often candidates for this term. Normally, they come in special proprietary form factors in ...
HTML => (Hyper Text Markup Language) A standard language made for typesetting, currently up to Version 3.2. It is mainly used for creating documents on the World Wide Web. Included in the language are provisions for including pictures and links to ot...
HTTP => (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) The way the data in an HTML document is transferred. What it really is is what tells the program looking at the data what to use it as. So, a document coming in HTTP is read as an HTML document.
Hub => A central connection point. Standard terminology for a device that connects multiple computers in a network.
I/O => (Input/Output) This abbreviation refers to any operation in a computer where data is transferred in or out of the computer. I/O may seem like a vague concept, but it refers to the basic throughput power of a computer.
I2O => The I2O standard is designed to simplify and speed up I/O operations on servers. It will eliminate the need for different drivers for each OS, and for each SCSI card and network card. The speedup is achieved by using an Intel 960 chip on the s...
IA-32 => (Intel Architecture-32 bit) This is Intel's 32-bit instruction architecture that runs on their 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, and Pentium II chips.
IA-64 => (Intel Architecture-64 bit) Intel's 64-bit instruction architecture that will feature EPIC and run on the Merced processor when it is released.
IDE => (Integrated Device Electronics) IDE is the standard hard drive interface for PCs. You can connect a maximum of two hard drives to an IDE connection or channel. IDE hard drives are cheaper than SCSI drives, but IDE is generally slower than SCSI...
Impression => When a user looks at a page on the World Wide Web, that visit is counted as one impression regardless of how many images are on that page. Most access log analysis tools remove server requests that reference ".gif", or ".jpg" (image tag...
Inkjet Printer => The next generation of dot matrix printers. It uses a head that sprays tiny droplets of ink onto print material. There are three major benefits to this method: 1) it is quieter than standard dot matrix printers, 2) it is able to mak...
Input => Anything entered into a computer or system. This includes keystrokes, mouse movement, and talking into a microphone.
Instruction => The simplest direction that you can give to a processor. Programs are made up of these, but you usually don't go down to such nitty-gritty levels. An example of what a single instruction would do is incrementing a piece of data by one,...
Intermediate Code => This is code that is generated by the first step in a compiler. Rather than translating code directly from one language to another, it first translates it to this more generic and easier to manipulate language and then spits it a...
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) => This is a Swiss organization that decides on international telecommunications standards. Currently, they are working on the 56K standard.
Internet => The global network of computers constantly connected to each other using standardized communications protocols, specifically TCP/IP.
Intranet => Local network of computers using TCP/IP as the standard communications protocol. Usually an Intranet features some sort of HTML content that you can use a browser to look at. Think of it as a mini, private Internet.
IP Address => The specific network address of a computer on a network using TCP/IP as its network protocol.
IRDA => (InfraRed Data Association) These people developed the IRDA port standard that transfers data through the use of infrared light. Of course, you must have two IRDA devices to get any real use out of this technology. Most notebooks today come s...
IRQ => (Interrupt request) This is a gateway for devices to request time from the processor to do their jobs. For instance, every time you hit a key on your keyboard an interrupt is generated on the keyboard IRQ. This is mainly only a concern for PC ...
factpacks/techdict.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Tag RAM => This is a bank of SRAM that only holds addresses. Tag RAM is used to store addresses so that when the processor makes a call for memory, it first checks to see if the data is in the cache by looking for the memory address in the tag RAM. I...
Tape Drive => A device that can store data on a tape. The advantage of storing data on a tape is that a tape can hold enormous amounts of data in a small and inexpensive package. On the down side, a tape cannot store the data indefinitely, and it is ...
TAPI => (see Telephony API) see Telephony API
TCO => (Total Cost of Ownership) This phrase was coined by the creaters of the Network Computer (NC) to describe the benefits of using a system that is more Mainframe and less Client/Server. Their logic states that NCs, although they may cost the sam...
TCP/IP => (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) The TCP/IP suite first saw usage on the original Department of Defense Internet in 1983. Its first implementation was amazingly successful, and it is still THE protocol of the Internet. In...
Technographer => This person types into a computer exactly what a person speaking at a meeting requests of them. The output is displayed on a screen for all to see. The important thing here is that anyone can speak and ask the technographer to type i...
Telephony => This is the science of audio communication through electric devices. It commonly refers to the many pieces of software that will make your $2,000 computer act like a $20 telephone. Of course, you can make this work for you with CTI. With...
Telephony API => (TAPI) This is an API for using telephony functions in Windows. For example, you can include TAPI instructions in your program that can dial numbers, receive calls, and interpret touch-tones.
Telnet => An old protocol for remotely logging in to another computer. It is one of the basic utilities for TCP/IP.
Terabyte => One trillion bytes, or one thousand gigabytes.
Texture Mapping => Pastes saved images, to be used as textures, onto triangle surfaces to improve realism. (Take a picture of a grassy field and code the program to use this picture to fill in your triangles on the floor--you get what looks like gras...
TFT => (Thin Film Transistor) This is a synonym for the Active Matrix display. You'll often see screens referred to as "TFT-Active Matrix," or just "TFT" if they're low on space.
ThickNet => See AUI.
Thin Client => A thin client is similar to a dumb terminal in that it gets all of its information from the network. Some thin clients have their own memory, but lack a hard drive. They're basically stripped down computers that are supposed to lower t...
ThinNet => See 10Base2
Thrash => - To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Also: => Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather than performing useful computation) and are ther...
Throughput => Any measure of speed for data transmission.
Toner => Basically, it's ink in dust form. It is specially formulated to be sticky and to melt at a couple hundred degrees.
Toner Cartridge => When referring to laser printers, this is a cartridge that contains toner and the electrostatic drum.
Topology => This refers to the general structure of a network.
Tower Case => An improvement to the standard desktop case, it is flipped 90 degrees to accommodate more inside and to make it more convenient by allowing the case to be placed on the floor instead of the desk.
factpacks/techdict.fact view on Meta::CPAN
V.Fast => This standard was made between the time of V.32bis and V.34. It is also a 28.8 KB baud speed, but is not as reliable as the approved V.34 standard.
VB => (Visual Basic) This is a software product developed by Microsoft. Its purpose is to bring programming down to a drag-and-drop level to speed up development cycles. In many ways, that goal has been achieved. VB's main competitor is Borland's Del...
Vector => A vector is a set of scalar numbers that refers to a point in space. Say, for example, you are in a two-dimensional space. A vector may be (5,6), which is 5 units across the X axis, and 6 units up the Y axis. See also scalar.
Vector Graphics => As opposed to raster graphics, vector graphics are composed of groups of colored lines. If you've ever seen those old Atari arcade games like Tempest, Battlezone, or Asteroids, that's vector graphics. At one point a company even ma...
Vertical market => This refers to an industry or group of companies that can be marketed to in a similar manner because they have similar needs. Common examples of vertical markets include the government, health care, and insurance.
Vertical Market Application => This is an application written specifically for a particular vertical market, as opposed to more generic multi-purpose applications such as office suites. One example is a program written for the insurance industry that...
Video Card => A device in computers that deals specifically with displaying to a monitor. Without one, you cannot see what's going on in your computer and may have to resort to the ancient method of using a printer as a monitor.
Virtual Memory => A part of your hard drive used to temporarily store what is in RAM. Usually used for little-used items, or when the required RAM is insufficient (since most every computer has more hard drive space than RAM).
Virtual Private Network => (VPN) This is a "virtual" network constructed by connecting computers together over the Internet and encrypting their communications so that other people cannot understand the communications. The benefit is that people can ...
Virus => A program that makes unbidden copies of itself in order to proliferate. Usually plays a role either as graffiti or for malicious intent.
Visitor => When a user arrives on a website, he or she is considered one visitor regardless of how many pages he or she looks at.
Visual C++ => This is a Microsoft product that is basically VB on steroids. It features a similar visual interface with drag-and-drop functionality, but the code is C++, which is more robust than BASIC. It's also much faster when compiled.
VL-bus => (VESA Local bus) This is a 32-bit extension of a 16-bit ISA slot. This architecture predated PCI and allowed users to break the bottleneck that occurred when the ISA bus slowed down graphics speed. It allowed speeds of up to 40 MHz, compare...
VLAN => (virtual LAN) A VLAN is created when a bunch of physically connected ports are grouped together by network hardware that supports VLANs. These VLANs are each treated as completely separate entities and can only be joined together by a router....
VPN => see Virtual Private Network.
VRAM => (Video Random Access Memory) Memory made specifically for video applications (such as a video card). Much faster and more expensive than DRAM.
VRML => (Virtual Reality Markup Language) Virtual Reality Markup Language An enhancement to the HTML format used to make virtual worlds out of Web pages.
WAN => (Wide Area Network) Any network that spans more than one office, although some say it must span more than one building.
WaveTable => A bit of ROM on newer sound cards that stores standard sounds (as wave files) for instruments instead of generating them from FM sounds. This gives a much more realistic sound to music in games and MIDI files.
WFM => (Wired For Management Baseline) This is an Intel hardware specification that is designed to allow for compliance with easier management of desktop PCs in a networked environment. The specification calls for computers to be compatible with a pr...
White Paper => This is a complete description of a particular technology, from overview to the nitty-gritty details. It is produced by the company that created that technology, as opposed to a FAQ, which can be created by anyone.
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