Amethyst
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factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Mayko mXmap => <reply> $who, Map viewer / navigator with GPS ability. URL: http://www.mayko.com
mbi => <reply> $who, Tool for generating and manipulating huge mandelbrot sets (fractals). URL: http://www.uninet.ee/~ragnar/mbi/
MBSE Bulletin Board System (BBS) => <reply> $who, Fidonet-capable ANSI BBS.. URL: http://www.telematique.org/mbse/
mbx2mbox => <reply> $who, Converts Outlook Express .mbx files into standard RFC822 mail files.. URL: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~dwc3q/code/index.html
Mcal => <reply> $who, libmcal powered unix cal replacement. URL: http://mcal.chek.com
mcal-drivers => <reply> $who, Calendar drivers for libmcal. URL: http://mcal.chek.com/
McClone => <reply> $who, MacOS source-compatible library. URL: http://www.gate.net/~mclinux/mcclone.html
mcfeely => <reply> $who, fault-tolerant, asynchronous, ordered remote job execution. URL: http://web.systhug.com/mcfeely/
mchat => <reply> $who, Chat client that uses IP multicasting. URL: http://www.interloper.net/~dan/software/software.html#mchat
mcl => <reply> $who, MUD client for Linux. URL: http://www.andreasen.org/mcl/
mconv => <reply> $who, Internet BBS working as an overlay on top of the UNIX file system. URL: http://www.poboxes.com/andrew.wood/linux/mconv/
mcrypt => <reply> $who, A replacement for the old unix crypt(1). URL: http://hq.hellug.gr/~mcrypt/
MD5 message digest library => <reply> $who, Independent implementation of RFC 1321. URL: ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/packages/md5.tar.gz
mdate => <reply> $who, A freely-available mayan date program. URL: http://ewe2.cvis.com.au/mdate/
MDBMS => <reply> $who, RDBMS with web support. URL: http://www.hinttech.com/mdbms/
mdmpoold => <reply> $who, simulates linux serial devices on a windows box as serial port. URL: http://www.muehldorf.com/mdmpoold/index.html
Me3D => <reply> $who, OpenGL 3D vector-based modeling tool. URL: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/samr7/me3d/
MeatGrinder => <reply> $who, Java based binary newsgroup reader.. URL: http://www.linuxstart.com/~telliott/
MEC/Jackal VODS => <reply> $who, Video on demand system. URL: http://members.tripod.it/jaggomiken/
Media Forte SF16-FMD2 V4L device driver => <reply> $who, A patch for Linux kernel driver for V4L. URL: http://www.clhs.kiev.ua/~andy/
Megahedron => <reply> $who, . URL: http://www.threedee.com/mhedron/mhedron.htm
factpacks/areacodes.fact view on Meta::CPAN
area code 212 => New York City (Manhattan only), New York
area code 213 => Los Angeles, California
area code 214 => Dallas, Texas
area code 215 => Philadelphia and Quakertown, Pennsylvania
area code 216 => Cleveland, Ohio
area code 217 => Springfield and central Illinois
area code 218 => Duluth, Minnesota
area code 219 => Gary, Hammond, Michigan City and South Bend, Indiana
area code 242 => as of 10-1996, Bahamas
area code 250 => as of 10-1996, outside of Vancouver area, British Columbia, CANADA
area code 281 => an overlay on 713 area, Texas
area code 301 => Silver Spring and Frederick, Maryland
area code 302 => all regions, Delaware
area code 303 => Denver, Colorado
area code 304 => all regions, West Virginia
area code 305 => Key West and Miami, Florida
area code 306 => all regions, Saskatchewan, CANADA
area code 307 => all regions, Wyoming
area code 308 => North Platte and Scottsbluff, Nebraska
area code 309 => Bloomington, Normal and Peoria, Illinois
area code 310 => Beverly Hills, California
factpacks/areacodes.fact view on Meta::CPAN
area code 610 => Allentown, Reading and Chester, Pennsylvania
area code 611 => the code used for telephone repair service in many areas
area code 612 => Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota
area code 613 => Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
area code 614 => Columbus, Marietta and Newark, Ohio
area code 615 => Nashville, Tennessee
area code 616 => Battle Creek, Cadillac and Grand Rapids, Michigan
area code 617 => Boston, Massachusetts
area code 618 => Alton, Mount Vernon and Centralia, Illinois
area code 619 => San Diego, California
area code 626 => as of 1997(?), an overlay or split of 818 in California
area code 630 => as of 8-1996, Aurora, Oak Park (west suburbs of Chicago), Illinois
area code 700 => used for Value Added Special Services, per individual carrier
area code 701 => all regions, North Dakota
area code 702 => all regions, Nevada
area code 703 => Arlington and Manassas, Virginia
area code 704 => Charlotte and Salisbury, North Carolina
area code 705 => Central Ontario, Canada
area code 706 => Augusta, Columbus and Rome, Georgia
area code 707 => Eureka, Napa and Santa Rosa, California
area code 708 => as of 8-1996, Calumet City, Harvey (south suburbs of Chicago), Illinois
factpacks/areacodes.fact view on Meta::CPAN
area code 913 => Ottawa and Topeka, Kansas
area code 914 => Monroe, Mount Vernon and Poughkeepsie, New York
area code 915 => El Paso, Texas
area code 916 => Sacramento and South Tahoe, California
area code 917 => New York City (cellular/pager only overlaid on 212/718), New York
area code 918 => Muskogee and Tulsa, Oklahoma
area code 919 => Greenville, Raleigh and Williamston, North Carolina
area code 941 => Avon Park, Fort Myers and Winter Haven, Florida
area code 954 => Fort Lauderdale, Florida
area code 970 => Fort Collins, Grand Junction and Vail, Colorado
area code 972 => an overlay on 214 area, Texas
factpacks/html.fact view on Meta::CPAN
html <OL COMPACT> => The COMPACT attribute instructs the browser to reduce the space occupied by the list.
example <OL COMPACT> => <OL COMPACT> list entries </OL>
html <OL SEQNUM> => The SEQNUM attribute allows the first list item to be number instead of the default 1.
example <OL SEQNUM> => <OL SEQNUM=number> list entries </OL>
html <OL CONTINUE> => The CONTINUE attribute continues the numbering from the previous ordered list.
example <OL CONTINUE> => <OL CONTINUE> list entries </OL>
html <OL START> => The START attribute allows the first list item to be number instead of the default 1.
example <OL START> => <OL START=number> list entries </OL>
html <OL TYPE> => The TYPE attribute governs the way items are numbered.
example <OL TYPE> => <OL TYPE=type> list entries </OL>
html <OVERLAY> => <Overlay> Valid only within a figure (FIG), the overlay element speeds up image rendering by drawing small changes over a base figure.
html <OVERLAY attributes> => The attributes are: SRC, X, Y, HEIGHT, WIDTH, UNITS, and IMAGEMAP
html <OVERLAY SRC> => (SRC="URL") Here "URL" identifies the image source, typically a GIF or JPEG file.
html <OVERLAY X> => (X=number) This specifies the offset to the right within the base image from the top left corner, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <OVERLAY Y> => (Y=number) This specifies the offset to the bottom within the base image from the top left corner, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <OVERLAY HEIGHT> => (HEIGHT=number) This specifies the height of the image, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <OVERLAY WIDTH> => (WIDTH=number) This specifies the width of the image, according to the UNITS attribute.
html <OVERLAY UNITS> => (UNITS=units) Here units is one of pixels, meaning the width and height are measured in pixels, or en, meaning the width and height are measured in en spaces.
html <OVERLAY IMAGEMAP> => (IMAGEMAP="URL") Points to a script that handles clicks and drags.
html <P> => <Paragraph> The paragraph tag starts a new paragraph, equivalent to two BR tags. The </P> tag is optional if the tag is only to insert space between two paragraphs, but vital when attributes (for example, ALIGN="center") are to apply to t...
example <P> => <P> text <P> text </P> <P ALIGN=alignment> text <P NOWRAP> text
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
thinko is /thingkoh/ [by analogy with `typo] n. A momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of consciousness. Syn. {braino}. Compare {mouso}.
This time, for sure! is excl. Ritual affirmation frequently uttered during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection). For the proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruit...
This time, for sure!2 is heard "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" The {canonical} response is, of course, "But that trick *never* works!" See {{Humor, Hacker}}.
thrash is vi. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. 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 the...
thrash2 is changing his mind (esp. about what to work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on any single task) may also be described as thrashing. Compa...
thread is n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of `topic thread, a more or less continuous chain of postings on a single topic.
three-finger salute is n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
thud is n. 1. Yet another meta-syntactic variable (see {foo}). It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of these was `foo, `bar, `thud, `blat. 2. Rare term for the hash character, `# (ASCII 0100011). See {ASCII} for...
thunk is /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides an address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If a procedure is c...
thunk2 is formal parameter, the compiler generates a {thunk} to compute the expression and leave the address of the result in some standard location. 2. Later generalized into an expression, frozen together with its environment, for later e...
thunk3 is in techspeak is called a `closure). The process of unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing. 3. A {stubroutine}, in an overlay programming environment, that loads and jumps to the correct overlay. Compare {trampoline}. 4. Peop...
thunk4 is manner. "It occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by a thunk --- I frequently need to be forced to completion." --- paraphrased from a {plan file}. Historical note There are a couple of onomatopoeic myth...
thunk5 is The most common is that it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator. Yet another holds that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at argument-e...
thunk6 is inventors, it was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought, simplifying the evaluation machi...
thunk7 is thought of; thus it was christened a `thunk, which is "the past tense of `think at two in the morning".
tick is n. 1. A {jiffy} (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of inter...
tick2 is AI simulation is often pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, independent chains of causes is {handwave}d. 3. In the FORTH language, a single quote char...
tick-list features is [Acorn Computers] n. Features in software or hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in desktop TSRs and that sort of thing). The American equivalent would be `checklist features, but this jargon sen...
tickle a bug is vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA cards highlight handling by trying to set bright yellow reverse video."
tiger team is [U.S. military jargon] n. A team whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus test security measures. These people are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defen...
tiger team2 is "Your codebooks have been stolen" (they usually havent been) inside safes, etc. After a successful penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next morning for a `security review and finds the sign, note, etc., ...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
tourist2 is {luser} (this also expresses the ITS cultures penchant for six-letterisms). Compare {twink}, {read-only user}.
tourist information is n. Information in an on-line display that is not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewers gestalt of whats going on with the software or hardware behind it. Whether a given piece of info falls in this category d...
tourist information2 is for at any given time. The `bytes free information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir display is tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information in a UNIX `ps(1) display.
touristic is adj. Having the quality of a {tourist}. Often used as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum. Often spelled `turistic or `turistik, so that phrase might be more properly rendered `lusing turistic scum.
toy is n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. `nice toy One that supports the speakers hacking style adequately. 2. `just a toy A machine that yields insufficient {computron}s for the speakers preferred uses. This is not con...
toy2 is least be fun. It is also strongly conditioned by ones expectations; Cray XMP users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy, and certainly all RISC boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See also {Get a real computer!}.
toy language is n. A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose programming. {Bad Thing}s can result when a toy language is promoted as a ...
toy language2 is (see {bondage-and-discipline language}); the classic example is {{Pascal}}. Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative se...
toy problem is [AI] n. A deliberately oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See also {gedanken}, {toy program}.
toy program is n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a trivial program (compare {noddy}). 2. One for which the effort of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle. See also {noddy}.
trampoline is n. An incredibly {hairy} technique, found in some {HLL} and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do...
trampoline2 is pieces of {live data} are called `trampolines. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesnt bend your brain is not the true tram...
trap is 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program. 2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions tr...
trap2 is to indicate the cause of the trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions." This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt or `exception is more common among {HLL} programmers) and appears to be fading int...
trap3 is assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to computer architects and systems hackers (see {system}, sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I...
trap door is alt. `trapdoor n. 1. Syn. {back door}. 2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function is one which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of. Such functions have important applications in cryptography, specifically ...
trash is vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms including {mung}, {mangle}, and {scribble}.
tree-killer is [Sun] n. 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper. This should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper includes the production of {spiffy} but {content-free} documents. Thus, most {suit}s are tree-killers.
trit is /trit/ [by analogy with `bit] n. One base-3 digit; the amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three equally likely outcomes (see also {bit}). These arise, for example, in the context of a {flag} that should actuall...
trit2 is as yes, no, or unknown. Trits are sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits. A trit may be semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half, although it is linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is, log2(3) bits).
trivial is adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not worth the speakers time. 3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known that anyone not utterly {cretinous} would have thought of them already. 4. Any problem one has already solv...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
write-only language is n. A language with syntax (or semantics) sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size is {write-only code}. A sobriquet applied occasionally to C and often to APL, though {INTERCAL} and {TECO} cer...
write-only memory is n. The obvious antonym to `read-only memory'. Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless chain of approvals required of component specifications, during which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at...
write-only memory2 is a write-only memory and included it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved. This inclusion came to the attention of Signetics {management} only when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing ...
write-only memory3 is edition of the data book and requested the return of the `erroneous' ones. Later, around 1974, Signetics bought a double-page spread in `Electronics' magazine's April issue and used the spec as an April Fools' Day joke...
write-only memory4 is characteristic curves, the 25120 "fully encoded, 9046 x N, Random Access, write-only-memory" data sheet included diagrams of "bit capacity vs. Temp.", "Iff vs. Vff", "Number of pins remaining vs. number of socket insert...
write-only memory5 is required a 6.3 VAC VFF supply, a +10V VCC, and VDD of 0V, +/- 2%.
Wrong Thing is n. A design, action, or decision that is clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized; always emphasized in speech as if capitalized. The opposite of the {Right Thing}; more generally, anything that is not the Right T...
Wrong Thing2 is of the best', the merely good --- although good --- is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. "In C, the default is for module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than just within the module. This is clearly the Wrong T...
wugga wugga is /wuh'g* wuh'g*/ n. Imaginary sound that a computer program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task. Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, {grind} (sense 4).
WYSIWYG is /wiz'ee-wig/ adj. Describes a user interface under which "What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one that uses more-or-less obscure commands which do not result in immediate visual feedback. The term can be mildly derogatory,...
WYSIWYG2 is {user-friendly} interfaces targeted at non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands. On the other hand, EMACS was one of the very first WYSIWYG editors, replacing (actually, at first overlaying) the extremely obscure, ...
WYSIWYG3 is environment}. [Oddly enough, this term has already made it into the OED. --- ESR]*X /X/ n. 1. Used in various speech and writing contexts (also in lowercase) in roughly its algebraic sense of `unknown within a set defined by conte...
WYSIWYG4 is 680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, or 68040, and 80x86 stands for 80186, 80286 80386 or 80486 (note that a UNIX hacker might write these as 680[0-4]0 and 80[1-4]86 or 680?0 and 80?86 respectively; see {glob}). 2. [after ...
WYSIWYG5 is `W'] An over-sized, over-featured, over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated window system developed at MIT and widely used on UNIX systems.
XOFF is /X'of/ n. Syn. {control-s}.
xor is /X'or/, /kzor/ conj. Exclusive or. `A xor B' means `A or B, but not both'. "I want to get cherry pie xor a banana split." This derives from the technical use of the term as a function on truth-values that is true if exactly one of it...
xref is /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for `cross-reference'.
XXX is /X-X-X/ n. A marker that attention is needed. Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged up or need to be. Some hackers liken `XXX' to the notional heavy-porn movie rating.
xyzzy is /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/ [from the ADVENT game] adj. The {canonical} `magic word'. This comes from {ADVENT}, in which the idea is to explore an underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures ...
xyzzy2 is appropriate time, you can move instantly between two otherwise distant points. If, therefore, you encounter some bit of {magic}, you might remark on this quite succinctly by saying simply "Xyzzy!" "Ordinarily you can't look at so...
xyzzy3 is if you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will let you do it anyway." "Xyzzy!" Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an undocumented no-op command on several OSes; in Data General's AOS/VS, for example, it would typically res...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
the X that can be Y => not the true X2 is true Tao." The implication is often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the enlightened. See the trampoline entry for an example, and compare {has the X nature}.
theology => n. 1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to {religious issues}. 2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical interest but is relatively marginal with respect to actual use of a desi...
theory => n. The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that is currently being used to inform a behavior. This is a generalization and abuse of the technical meaning. "Whats the theory on fixing this TECO loss?" "Whats the theory on dinner to...
thinko => /thingkoh/ [by analogy with `typo] n. A momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of consciousness. Syn. braino. Compare mouso.
This time, for sure! => excl. Ritual affirmation frequently uttered during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection). For the proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitat...
This time, for sure!2 => heard "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" The canonical response is, of course, "But that trick *never* works!" See {{Humor, Hacker}}.
thrash => vi. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. 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 therefore s...
thread => n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of `topic thread, a more or less continuous chain of postings on a single topic.
three-finger salute => n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
thud => n. 1. Yet another meta-syntactic variable (see foo). It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of these was `foo, `bar, `thud, `blat. 2. Rare term for the hash character, `# (ASCII 0100011). See ASCII for other synony...
thunk => /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides an address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If a procedure is called wi...
tick => n. 1. A jiffy (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is the ...
tick-list features => [Acorn Computers] n. Features in software or hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in desktop TSRs and that sort of thing). The American equivalent would be `checklist features, but this jargon sense of th...
tickle a bug => vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA cards highlight handling by trying to set bright yellow reverse video."
tiger team => [U.S. military jargon] n. A team whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus test security measures. These people are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense insta...
tiger team2 => "Your codebooks have been stolen" (they usually havent been) inside safes, etc. After a successful penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next morning for a `security review and finds the sign, note, etc., and all he...
tiger team3 => of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement for base commanders and security officers (see the patch entry for an example). A subset of tiger teams are professional crackers, testing the security of military computer installation...
tiger team4 => via networks or supposedly `secure comm channels. Some of their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the greatest hacks of all times. The term has been adopted in commercial computer-security circles in this more speci...
time sink => [poss. by analogy with `heat sink or `current sink] n. A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.
time T => /tim T/ n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understood time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1. "Well meet on campus at time T or at Louies at time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner "We can meet on campus an...
time T2 => Louies itself a bit later." (Louies is a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto that is a favorite with hackers.) Had the number 30 been used instead of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from campus to Louies is 30 minutes;...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
toto => /tohtoh/ n. This is reported to be the default scratch file name among French-speaking programmers --- in other words, a francophone foo.
tourist => [ITS] n. A guest on the system, especially one who generally logs in over a network from a remote location for {comm mode}, email, games, and other trivial purposes. One step below luser. Hackers often spell this turist, perhaps by some so...
tourist information => n. Information in an on-line display that is not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewers gestalt of whats going on with the software or hardware behind it. Whether a given piece of info falls in this category depends p...
tourist information2 => for at any given time. The `bytes free information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir display is tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information in a UNIX `ps(1) display.
touristic => adj. Having the quality of a tourist. Often used as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum. Often spelled `turistic or `turistik, so that phrase might be more properly rendered `lusing turistic scum.
toy => n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. `nice toy One that supports the speakers hacking style adequately. 2. `just a toy A machine that yields insufficient computrons for the speakers preferred uses. This is not condemnatory, as...
toy language => n. A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose programming. {Bad Thing}s can result when a toy language is promoted as a general ...
toy language2 => (see {bondage-and-discipline language}); the classic example is {Pascal}. Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense. See a...
toy problem => [AI] n. A deliberately oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See also gedanken, {toy program}.
toy program => n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a trivial program (compare noddy). 2. One for which the effort of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle. See also noddy.
trampoline => n. An incredibly hairy technique, found in some HLL and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirectio...
trap => 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program. 2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the...
trap door => alt. `trapdoor n. 1. Syn. {back door}. 2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function is one which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of. Such functions have important applications in cryptography, specifically in the con...
trash => vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms including mung, mangle, and scribble.
tree-killer => [Sun] n. 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper. This should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper includes the production of spiffy but content-free documents. Thus, most suits are tree-killers.
trit => /trit/ [by analogy with `bit] n. One base-3 digit; the amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three equally likely outcomes (see also bit). These arise, for example, in the context of a flag that should actually be able to...
trivial => adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not worth the speakers time. 3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known that anyone not utterly cretinous would have thought of them already. 4. Any problem one has already solved (some cla...
troglodyte => [Commodore] n. 1. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle. The term `Gnoll (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination `ITS troglodyte was flung around some...
troglodyte mode => [Rice University] n. Programming with the lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black on white) because youve been up for so many days straight that your eyes hurt (see {raster burn}). Loud music blaring from...
troglodyte mode2 => optional but recommended. See {larval stage}, {hack mode}.
Trojan horse => [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards] n. A program designed to break security or damage a system that is disguised as something else benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, a game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
write-only code => [a play on `read-only memory'] n. Code so arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be modified or even comprehended by anyone but its author, and possibly not even by him/her. A {Bad Thing}.
write-only language => n. A language with syntax (or semantics) sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size is {write-only code}. A sobriquet applied occasionally to C and often to APL, though INTERCAL and TECO certainly deser...
write-only memory => n. The obvious antonym to `read-only memory'. Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless chain of approvals required of component specifications, during which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at Signeti...
write-only memory2 => a write-only memory and included it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved. This inclusion came to the attention of Signetics management only when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing information...
write-only memory3 => edition of the data book and requested the return of the `erroneous' ones. Later, around 1974, Signetics bought a double-page spread in `Electronics' magazine's April issue and used the spec as an April Fools' Day joke. Instead ...
write-only memory4 => characteristic curves, the 25120 "fully encoded, 9046 x N, Random Access, write-only-memory" data sheet included diagrams of "bit capacity vs. Temp.", "Iff vs. Vff", "Number of pins remaining vs. number of socket insertions", an...
write-only memory5 => required a 6.3 VAC VFF supply, a +10V VCC, and VDD of 0V, +/- 2%.
Wrong Thing => n. A design, action, or decision that is clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized; always emphasized in speech as if capitalized. The opposite of the {Right Thing}; more generally, anything that is not the Right Thing. In ...
Wrong Thing2 => of the best', the merely good --- although good --- is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. "In C, the default is for module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than just within the module. This is clearly the Wrong Thing."
wugga wugga => /wuh'g* wuh'g*/ n. Imaginary sound that a computer program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task. Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, grind (sense 4).
WYSIWYG => /wiz'ee-wig/ adj. Describes a user interface under which "What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one that uses more-or-less obscure commands which do not result in immediate visual feedback. The term can be mildly derogatory, as it i...
XOFF => /X'of/ n. Syn. control-s.
xor => /X'or/, /kzor/ conj. Exclusive or. `A xor B' means `A or B, but not both'. "I want to get cherry pie xor a banana split." This derives from the technical use of the term as a function on truth-values that is true if exactly one of its two argu...
xref => /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for `cross-reference'.
XXX => /X-X-X/ n. A marker that attention is needed. Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged up or need to be. Some hackers liken `XXX' to the notional heavy-porn movie rating.
xyzzy => /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/ [from the ADVENT game] adj. The canonical `magic word'. This comes from ADVENT, in which the idea is to explore an underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures you find the...
YA- => [Yet Another] abbrev. In hackish acronyms this almost invariably expands to {Yet Another}, following the precedent set by UNIX `yacc(1)'. See YABA.
YABA => /ya'b*/ [Cambridge] n. Yet Another Bloody Acronym. Whenever some program is being named, someone invariably suggests that it be given a name that is acronymic. The response from those with a trace of originality is to remark ironically that t...
YAUN => /yawn/ [Acronym for `Yet Another UNIX Nerd'] n. Reported from the San Diego Computer Society (predominantly a microcomputer users' group) as a good-natured punning insult aimed at UNIX zealots.
Yellow Book => [proposed] n. The print version of this Jargon File; `The New Hacker's Dictionary', forthcoming from MIT Press, 1991. Includes all the material in the File, plus a Foreword by Guy L. Steele and a Preface by Eric S. Raymond. Most import...
Yellow Book2 => typeset and includes almost all of the infamous Crunchly cartoons by the Great Quux, each attached to an appropriate entry.
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