Amethyst
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Amethyst/Brain/Infobot/Module/Math.pm view on Meta::CPAN
$content =~ s/(plus|and)/+/ig;
# print STDERR "Math: Postmunge: '$content'\n";
$content =~ s/^\s*//g;
$content =~ s/\s*$//g;
$content =~ s/\s+/ /g;
# print STDERR "Math: Final stage: '$content'\n";
# Now for the throw outs:
return undef if $content !~ /\S/; # Empty
return undef if # Not an exp
$content !~ /^[-+\/\*\d*\.\s()^\|\&]+$/;
return undef if $content !~ /\d/; # Boring
return undef if # Trivial
(($content =~ /^\(?\d+\.?\d*\)?$/) && ($base == 10));
return undef if $content =~ /&\s*[^\d]/; # Subroutine call
return undef if $content =~ /&\s*\d+\s*\(/; # Subroutine call
if ($base == 0) {
factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Generic NQS => <reply> $who, The Leading OpenSource Batch Processing System For UNIX. URL: http://www.gnqs.org/
Genes => <reply> $who, Personal genealogy database. URL: http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/~slambo/genes/
GeneWeb => <reply> $who, A combo web interface and genealogy program combined on steroids. URL: http://cristal.inria.fr/~ddr/GeneWeb/
gengetopt => <reply> $who, Easy generate a C `main' function that uses `getopt_long' to parse given options. URL: http://arturo.directmail.org/code/gengetopt/
Genius => <reply> $who, An arbitrary precision integer and multiple precision floatingpoint calculator. URL: http://www.5z.com/jirka/genius.html
GeniusTrader => <reply> $who, A stock market trading software. URL: http://prope.insa-lyon.fr/~rhertzog/geniustrader/
Genpage => <reply> $who, Provides framework for separating content management from layout design. URL: http://www.freddyfrog.com/hacks/genpage/
genscan => <reply> $who, A generic port scanner. URL: http://www.programmerz.org/reid/
gensig => <reply> $who, Random signature/tagline generator. URL: http://www.geeks.com/~robf/gensig/
gentoo => <reply> $who, Two-pane filemanager using GTK+, 100% GUI configurable. URL: http://www.obsession.se/gentoo/
Gentry => <reply> $who, GTK application for data entry into a MySQL database. URL: http://freethrow.bus.utexas.edu/~bfdi533/gentry/
genvarsizes.sh => <reply> $who, Fixed defines (typedefs) for 8/16/32 bit variables in C programs. URL: http://iki.fi/too/sw/genvarsizes.readme
Geo::METAR => <reply> $who, Perl module for processing aviation weather reports.. URL: http://www.wcnet.org/~jzawodn/perl/Geo-METAR/
Geodas/X => <reply> $who, National Geophysical Data Center's GEODAS data management system. URL: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gdas/gx_announce.Html
GeomPrm => <reply> $who, Linear Geometric Library- Solutions to generic linear geometric needs. URL: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gt3388b/oss/
Geomview => <reply> $who, 3D Geometric Visualization Software. URL: http://www.geom.umn.edu/software/geomview/
GeoStats => <reply> $who, IRC Statistical Services. URL: http://www.lite.net/
Get Pop => <reply> $who, Pop mail downloader. URL: http://members.xoom.com/mgornstein/
Get Right => <reply> $who, HTTP resume for failed transfers.. URL: http://www.mpx.com.au/~iwade/
Get Slashdot News => <reply> $who, Grabs the Slashdot headlines. URL: http://www.b00tix.com/
getAlias => <reply> $who, returns email aliases or list of aliases user belongs to.. URL: http://www.kaostech.com/products/html/getAlias.html
factpacks/Linux.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Gift => <reply> $who, Gift is a Java platform which allows developers to create custom editors dedicated to any representation language or formalism. URL: http://www.xrce.xerox.com/ats/gift/download/download.html
CodeGuide => <reply> $who, CodeGuide is an IDE that detects errors in your code as you type, offers powerful code completion features, maintains a structured view of your program, has an integrated visual debugger, supports the latest Java technologi...
Koala Complete MUD Server => <reply> $who, Koala is a complete, IPv6-compliant MUD server.. URL: http://sourceforge.net/project/filelist.php?form_grp=312
JIPSY => <reply> $who, Jipsy is a drop-in replacement for parts of the java.net classes that enables Java applications to seamlessly communicate using IPv4 and IPv6. URL: http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~mpf/jipsy/jipsy-0.1.0.tar.gz
Style-print => <reply> $who, Style-print is a small program that prints files with a lot of styles like underline, bold, double width, superindex, etc. URL: http://www.ctv.es/USERS/pbrufal/style-print-0.1.tar.gz
Updee => <reply> $who, Updee is an uptime daemon designed to run on as many UNIX systems as possible. URL: http://www.bigfoot.com/~iretd/updee-current.tar.gz
gShield => <reply> $who, gShield (formerly Godot's Modified Modular Firewall), is an aggressive, modular, ipchains-based firewall script. URL: http://muse.linuxgeek.org/files/gShield-1.0.tgz
tdof => <reply> $who, tdof is an APE-derived C++ framework for use in developing telephony applications with native drivers which lack a pre-existing SDK. URL: ftp://www.voxilla.org/pub/tdof/
gg => <reply> $who, gg is a graphical guestbook for the Web. URL: http://www.earth.li/projectpurple/files/gg-0.0.2.tar.gz
ODBC Socket Server => <reply> $who, ODBC Socket Server is an open source database access toolkit that exposes Windows NT ODBC data sources via an XML-based TCP/IP interface. URL: http://odbc.linuxbox.com/download.html
Conglomerate => <reply> $who, Conglomerate will be a system for authoring, storing, transforming, and generally working with structured information like XML/SGML (yes, it will do DocBook, or any other DTD you care to throw at it). URL: http://www.con...
WebCalendar => <reply> $who, WebCalendar is a PHP/MySQL application used to maintain a calendar for one or more persons.. URL: http://www.radix.net/~cknudsen/webcalendar/files/WebCalendar-0.9.tar.gz
SDCC-z80 => <reply> $who, SDCC-z80 is a version of the optimising C compiler SDCC targeted to the 8 bit Zilog Z80. URL: http://earthling.net.nz/~michaelh/snapshots/
SPS4Linux => <reply> $who, SPS4Linux is an implementation of the SPS Language. URL: http://www.eilers.net/sps/
XMagick => <reply> $who, XMagick is a library written in C which allows integration of the ImageMagick library with any X application by providing functions which convert between the native X image format (XImage) and the native ImageMagick format (I...
libiconv => <reply> $who, libiconv provides an iconv() implementation for use on systems which don't have one or whose implementation cannot convert from/to Unicode. URL: ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/gnu/libiconv-0.1.tar.gz
libutf8 => <reply> $who, libutf8 provides UTF-8 locale support for use on systems which don't have UTF-8 locales or whose UTF-8 locales are unreasonably slow. URL: ftp://ftp.ilog.fr/pub/Users/haible/utf8/libutf8-0.6.1.tar.gz
as-gps => <reply> $who, as-gps contains a basic support library for accessing the inexpensive ($20) Aisin-Seiki GPS Module previously available at mavin.com. URL: http://www.amphibious.org/gps/as-gps-0.2.tgz
E8Ball => <reply> $who, E8Ball is an epplet that responds to questions you ask it. URL: http://free.house.cx/~adrian/epplets/
gmap => <reply> $who, gmap is a map viewer with emphasis on temporal data. URL: http://academy.cas.cz/~gis/dload.html
keeper => <reply> $who, The keeper library provides a simple-to-use C interface for reading and writing configuration data. URL: http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mszeredi/keeper/keeper.html#dist
factpacks/airport.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Airport LER => The code for the airport in: Leinster, Australia
Airport LEX => The code for the airport in: Lexington, KY, USA
Airport LFT => The code for the airport in: Lafayette, LA, USA
Airport LFW => The code for the airport in: Lome, Togo
Airport LGA => The code for the airport in: New York - La Guardia, NY, USA
Airport LGB => The code for the airport in: Long Beach, CA, USA
Airport LGG => The code for the airport in: Liege, Belgium
Airport LGK => The code for the airport in: Langkawi, Malaysia
Airport LGW => The code for the airport in: London - Gatwick, Great Britan
Airport LHE => The code for the airport in: Lahore, Pakistan
Airport LHR => The code for the airport in: London - Heathrow, Great Britan
Airport LHU => The code for the airport in: Lake Havasu City, AZ, USA
Airport LIF => The code for the airport in: Lifou Loyaute, Pazifik
Airport LIG => The code for the airport in: Limoges, France
Airport LIH => The code for the airport in: Lihue, HI, USA
Airport LIJ => The code for the airport in: Long island, AK, USA
Airport LIL => The code for the airport in: Lille, France
Airport LIM => The code for the airport in: Lima, Peru
Airport LIN => The code for the airport in: Milan - Linate, Italy
Airport L=> => The code for the airport in: Lissabon, Portugal
Airport LIT => The code for the airport in: Little Rock, AR USA
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
background2 is graph-printing problem in background." Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activ...
background3 is processing that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work). Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}. Technically, a task running in backgr...
background4 is was started (and often running at a lower priority); oppose {foreground}. Nowadays this term is primarily associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears to have been first used in this sense on OS/360.
backspace and overstrike is interj. Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Common among APL programmers.
backward combatability is /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ [from `backward compatibility'] n. A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, and layouts are discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols, ...
backward combatability2 is making the transition between major releases. When the change is so drastic that the old formats are not retained in the new version, it is said to be `backward combatable'. See {flag day}.
BAD is /B-A-D/ [IBM acronym, `Broken As Designed'] adj. Said of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See {working as designed}.
Bad Thing is [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody `1066 And All That'] n. Something that can't possibly result in improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle courier...
Bad Thing2 is Thing}. British correspondents confirm that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob. therefore {Right Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad ...
Bad Thing3 is mainstream idiom on the British side of the pond.
bag on the side is n. An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product ...
bag on the side2 is phrase, `to hang a bag on the side [of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...." "They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."
bagbiter is /bag'bit-*r/ n. 1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A ...
bagbiter2 is inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms {loser}, {cretin}, {chomper}. 3. adj. `bagbiting' Having the quality of a bagbiter. "This bagbiting system won't let me compute the f...
bagbiter3 is {losing}, {cretinous}, {bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under {barfulous}) and `chomping' (under {chomp}). 4. `bite the bag' vi. To fail in some manner. "The computer keeps crashing every 5 minutes." "Yes, the disk controller is ...
bagbiter4 is of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current usage they have become almost completely sanitized. A program called Lexiphage on the old MIT AI PDP-10 would draw on a selec...
bagbiter5 is BAG" in ornate letters, and then a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off. This is the first and to date only known example of a program *intended* to be a bagbiter.
bamf is /bamf/ 1. [from old X-Men comics] interj. Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality} (esp. {MUD}) electronic {fora} when a character wishes to make a drama...
bamf2 is magical transformation, used in virtual reality {fora} like sense 1. 3. [from `Don Washington's Survival Guide'] n. Acronym for `Bad-Ass Mother Fucker', used to refer to one of the handful of nastiest monsters on an LPMUD or other ...
banana label is n. The labels often used on the sides of {macrotape} reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current but visibly headed for obsolescence.
banana problem is n. [from the story of the little girl who said "I know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to stop"]. Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare {fencepost error}). One may say `there is a ...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
blat is n. 1. Syn. {blast}, sense 1. 2. See {thud}.
bletch is /blech/ [from Yiddish/German `brechen', to vomit, poss. via comic-strip exclamation `blech'] interj. Term of disgust. Often used in "Ugh, bletch". Compare {barf}.
bletcherous is /blech'*-r*s/ adj. Disgusting in design or function; esthetically unappealing. This word is seldom used of people. "This keyboard is bletcherous!" (Perhaps the keys don't work very well, or are misplaced.) See {losing}, {creti...
bletcherous2 is The term {bletcherous} applies to the esthetics of the thing so described; similarly for {cretinous}. By contrast, something that is `losing' or `bagbiting' may be failing to meet objective criteria. See also {bogus} and {r...
bletcherous3 is meaning than any of the above.
blinkenlights is /blink'*n-litz/ n. Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, esp. a {dinosaur}. Derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms i...
blinkenlights2 is in its entirety as follows ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken ...
blinkenlights3 is bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten. This silliness dates back at least as far as 1959 at Stanford Universit...
blinkenlights4 is early 1960s, when it was reported at London University's ATLAS computing site. There are several variants of it in circulation, some of which actually do end with the word `blinkenlights'. In an amusing example of turnabout...
blinkenlights5 is their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in fractured English, one of which is reproduced here ATTENTION This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment. Fingergrabbi...
blinkenlights6 is computers is allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies. Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked andersw...
blinkenlights7 is astaunished the blinkenlights. See also {geef}.
blit is /blit/ vt. 1. To copy a large array of bits from one part of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display screen. "The storage allocator picks through the tabl...
blit2 is memory, and then blits it all back down again." See {bitblt}, {BLT}, {dd}, {cat}, {blast}, {snarf}. More generally, to perform some operation (such as toggling) on a large array of bits while moving them. 2. All-capitalized as `BL...
blit3 is designed by Rob Pike at Bell Labs, later commercialized as the AT&T 5620. (The folk etymology from `Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal' is incorrect.)
blitter is /blit'r/ n. A special-purpose chip or hardware system built to perform {blit} operations, esp. used for fast implementation of bit-mapped graphics. The Commodore Amiga and a few other micros have these, but in 1991 the trend is awa...
blitter2 is reincarnation}). Syn. {raster blaster}.
blivet is /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] n. 1. An intractable problem. 2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced if it breaks. 3. A tool that ha...
blivet2 is programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of hacks. 4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort. 5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo. This term has other meanings in other technica...
blivet3 is hardware engineers of various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of {frob}). It has also been used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that ...
blivet4 is until one realizes that the parts fit together in an impossible way.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Blue Glue is [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture), an incredibly {losing} and {bletcherous} communications protocol widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better. The official IBM definition is "that which binds b...
Blue Glue2 is loathing}. It may not be irrelevant that {Blue Glue} is the trade name of a 3M product that is commonly used to hold down the carpet squares to the removable panel floors common in {dinosaur pens}. A correspondent at U. Minn....
Blue Glue3 is 80 bottles of the stuff hanging about, so they often refer to any messy work to be done as `using the blue glue'.
blue goo is n. Term for `police' {nanobot}s intended to prevent {gray goo}, denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and promote truth, justice, and the American way, etc. See {{n...
BNF is /B-N-F/ n. 1. [techspeak] Acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', a metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. Widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, s...
BNF2 is from other hackers. 2. In {{science-fiction fandom}}, BNF means `Big-Name Fan' (someone famous or notorious). Years ago a fan started handing out black-on-green BNF buttons at SF conventions; this confused the hacker contingent ter...
boa is [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some tim...
boa2 is cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous --- and it is worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the trademark `Anaconda'.
board is n. 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes used even for USENET newsgroups. 2. An electronic circuit board (compare {card}).
boat anchor is n. 1. Like {doorstop} but more severe; implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless. "That was a working motherboard once. One lightning strike later, instant boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up...
bogo-sort is /boh`goh-sort'/ n. (var. `stupid-sort') The archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as opposed to {bubble sort}, which is merely the generic *bad* algorithm). Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in th...
bogo-sort2 is testing whether they are in order. It serves as a sort of canonical example of awfulness. Looking at a program and seeing a dumb algorithm, one might say "Oh, I see, this program uses bogo-sort." Compare {bogus}, {brute forc...
bogometer is /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n. See {bogosity}. Compare the `wankometer' described in the {wank} entry; see also {bogus}.
bogon is /boh'gon/ [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adams's `Vogons'; see the Bibliography] n. 1. The elementary particle of bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}). For ...
bogon2 is again" means that it is broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed ...
bogon3 is used to refer to any bogus thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got to go to the weekly staff bogon". 5. A person who is bogus or who says bogus things. This was historically the original usage, but has been ov...
bogon4 is also {bogosity}, {bogus}; compare {psyton}.
bogon filter is /boh'gon fil'tr/ n. Any device, software or hardware, that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons. "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets....
bogon flux is /boh'gon fluhks/ n. A measure of a supposed field of {bogosity} emitted by a speaker, measured by a {bogometer}; as a speaker starts to wander into increasing bogosity a listener might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is rising"...
bogosity is /boh-go's*-tee/ n. 1. The degree to which something is {bogus}. At CMU, bogosity is measured with a {bogometer}; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just trigger...
bogosity2 is bogometer" means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upo...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
book titles3 is v.,n. To load and initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are still jargon. The derivative `reboot' implies that...
book titles4 is that the boot is a {bounce} intended to clear some state of {wedgitude}. This is sometimes used of human thought processes, as in the following exchange "You've lost me." "OK, reboot. Here's the theory...." This term is als...
book titles5 is power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software crash). Another variant `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a system, under control of oth...
book titles6 is the {mess-dos} emulator, control-alt-insert will cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the system running." Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility towards or frustration with the...
book titles7 is hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard." Historical note this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from the front panel switches. This...
book titles8 is were expended on making it short in order to minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in), but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), t...
book titles9 is turn was smart enough to read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays th...
book titles10 is and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it.
bottom-up implementation is n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of...
bottom-up implementation2 is to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of ...
bounce is v. 1. [perhaps from the image of a thrown ball bouncing off a wall] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also {bounce message}. 2. [Stanford] To pl...
bounce2 is Power Lab} building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s, there was a volleyball court on the front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 the computer would b...
bounce3 is voice would cry, "Now hear this bounce, bounce!" followed by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of known volleyballers. 3. To engage in sexual intercourse; prob. from the expression `bounci...
bounce4 is psychosexually loaded "Bounce on me too, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare {boink}. 4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily among {VMS} users. 5. [IBM] To {po...
bounce message is [UNIX] n. Notification message returned to sender by a site unable to relay {email} to the intended {{Internet address}} recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see {bounce}). Reasons might include a nonexistent or missp...
bounce message2 is Bounce messages can themselves fail, with occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's apprentice mode}. The term `bounce mail' is also common.
box is n. 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box' where foo is some functional qualifier, like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `UNIX box', `MS-DOS box', etc.) "We preprocess the data on UNIX boxes before handing it up to the...
box2 is qualification but within an SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM front-end processor or FEP /F-E-P/. An FEP is a small computer necessary to enable an IBM {mainframe} to communicate beyond the limits of the {dinosaur p...
box3 is cry that goes up when an SNA network goes down "Looks like the {box} has fallen over." (See {fall over}.) See also {IBM}, {fear and loathing}, {fepped out}, {Blue Glue}.
boxed comments is n. Comments (explanatory notes attached to program instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style something like this Common va...
boxed comments2 is column 2 or add a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves; the `box' is implied. Oppose {winged comments}.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
BQS is /B-Q-S/ adj. Syn. {Berkeley Quality Software}.
brain dump is n. The act of telling someone everything one knows about a particular topic or project. Typically used when someone is going to let a new party maintain a piece of code. Conceptually analogous to an operating system {core dump}...
brain dump2 is before an exit. "You'll have to give me a brain dump on FOOBAR before you start your new job at HackerCorp." See {core dump} (sense 4). At Sun, this is also known as `TOI' (transfer of information).
brain-damaged is 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain Damage' (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Honeywell {{Multics}}] adj. Obviously wrong; {cretinous}; {demented}. There is an implication that th...
brain-damaged2 is brain damage, because he should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to work is due to poor design rather than some accident. "Only six mon...
brain-damaged3 is brain-damaged!" 2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some way so as not to compete with the commercial product it is intended to sell. Syn. {crippleware...
brain-dead is adj. Brain-damaged in the extreme. It tends to imply terminal design failure rather than malfunction or simple stupidity. "This comm program doesn't know how to send a break --- how brain-dead!"
braino is /bray'no/ n. Syn. for {thinko}.
branch to Fishkill is [IBM from the location of one of the corporation's facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See {jump off into never-never land}, {hyperspace}.
brand brand brand is n. Humorous catch-phrase from {BartleMUD}s, in which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here...
brand brand brand2 is kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons. Prob. influenced by the famous Monty Python "Spam" skit.
break is 1. vt. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands." 2. v. (of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged. The place where it stops is a `breakpoint'. 3. [techs...
break2 is of line high) over a serial comm line. 4. [UNIX] vi. To strike whatever key currently causes the tty driver to send SIGINT to the current process. Normally, break (sense 3) or delete does this. 5. `break break' may be said to int...
break3 is verb doubling).
breath-of-life packet is [XEROX PARC] n. An Ethernet packet that contained bootstrap (see {boot}) code, periodically sent out from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any computer on the network that had happened to crash. ...
breath-of-life packet2 is would wait for such a packet after a catastrophic error.
breedle is n. See {feep}.
bring X to its knees is v. To present a machine, operating system, piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or {pathological} that it grinds to a halt. "To bring a MicroVAX to its knees, try twenty users running {vi} --- or four...
brittle is adj. Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to expec...
brittle2 is that is usually totally scrambled by a power failure is said to be brittle. This term is often used to describe the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially develope...
brittle3 is more often than it ought to. Oppose {robust}.
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Core Wars is n. A game between `assembler' programs in a simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's program by overwriting it. Popularized by A. K. Dewdney's column in `Scientific American' magazine, this was actually ...
Core Wars2 is and Dennis Ritchie in the early 1960s (their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on a PDP-1 at Bell Labs). See {core}.
corge is /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation. See {grault}.
cosmic rays is n. Notionally, the cause of {bit rot}. However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to {handwave} away any minor {randomness} that doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric -...
cosmic rays2 is {tube}, where did that come from?" "Cosmic rays, I guess." Compare {sunspots}, {phase of the moon}. The British seem to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also heard, because stray alpha particles passin...
cosmic rays3 is errors (this becomes increasingly more likely as memory sizes and densities increase). Factual note Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not (except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not explain ran...
cosmic rays4 is hypothesis was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe, using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis was that if cosmic r...
cosmic rays5 is a statistically significant difference between the error rates on the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due to alpha particle emissio...
cosmic rays6 is uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it beca...
cosmic rays7 is to withstand these hits.
cough and die is v. Syn. {barf}. Connotes that the program is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."
cowboy is [Sun, from William Gibson's {cyberpunk} SF] n. Synonym for {hacker}. It is reported that at Sun this word is often said with reverence.
CP/M is /C-P-M/ n. [Control Program for Microcomputers] An early microcomputer {OS} written by hacker Gary Kildall for 8080- and Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM ...
CP/M2 is company blew its chance to write the OS for the IBM PC because Kildall decided to spend a day IBM's reps wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his private plane. Many of CP/M's features and conventions stro...
CP/M3 is systems such as {{TOPS-10}}, OS/8, RSTS, and RSX-11. See {{MS-DOS}}, {operating system}.
CPU Wars is /C-P-U worz/ n. A 1979 large-format comic by Chas Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers)....
CPU Wars2 is many references to {ADVENT} and the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!" (uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). It is alleged that the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM com...
CPU Wars3 is J. Watson Research Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See {eat flaming death}.
cracker is n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker} (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense around 1981--82 on USENET was largely a fa...
crank is [from automotive slang] vt. Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 {megaflops}, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorized operations."
crash is 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk drives. "Three {luser}s lost their files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that involves the read/write he...
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crlf is /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR) followed by a line feed (LF). More loosely, whatever it takes to get you from the end of one line of text to the beginning of the next...
crlf2 is {{UNIX}} influence this usage has become less common (UNIX uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').
crock is [from the obvious mainstream scatologism] n. 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. Using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for exa...
crock2 is for a process that dies due to {segfault}). 2. A technique that works acceptably, but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so that y...
crock3 is tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure. See {kluge}, {brittle}. Also in the adjectives `crockish' and `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude'.
cross-post is [USENET] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting the article repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it multiple times (this is very bad form). Gratui...
cross-post2 is line directing responses to a single followup group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause {followup} articles to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one part of the original posting.
crudware is /kruhd'weir/ n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of megabytes of low-quality {freeware} circulated by user's groups and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another* set of disk catalog utilities for {{MS-DOS}}? What cr...
cruft is /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. n. An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a broom only produces more. 2. n. The results of shoddy...
cruft2 is pun on `hand craft'] To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. n. Excess; superfluous junk. Esp. used of redundant or superseded code.
cruft together is vt. (also `cruft up') To throw together something ugly but temporarily workable. Like vt. {kluge up}, but more pejorative. "There isn't any program now to reverse all the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one togeth...
cruft together2 is together}, {hack up}, {kluge up}, {crufty}.
cruftsmanship is /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from {cruft}] The antithesis of craftsmanship.
crufty is /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or `cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The {canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty DEC software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of `crufty...
crufty2 is `crusty' applied to DEC software so old that the `s' characters were tall and skinny, looking more like `f' characters. 2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch, often with encrusted junk. Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut b...
crufty3 is (sometimes spelled `cruftie') n. A small crufty object (see {frob}); often one that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things. "A LISP property list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively, {random} cruft)."
crumb is n. Two binary digits; a {quad}. Larger than a {bit}, smaller than a {nybble}. Considered silly. Syn. {tayste}.
crunch is 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,0...
crunch2 is {number-crunching}." 2. vt. To reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking like a paper documen...
crunch3 is wad.) Since such compression usually takes more computations than simpler methods such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction `file crunch(ing)' to distinguish i...
crunch4 is 3. n. The character `#'. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. vt. To squeeze program source into a minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for ...
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DEC Wars is n. A 1983 {USENET} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some years later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3...
DEC Wars2 is WARS"; the two are often confused.
DEChead is /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}. Not flattering. 2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.
deckle is /dek'l/ [from dec- and {nickle}] n. Two {nickle}s; 10 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM.
deep hack mode is n. See {hack mode}.
deep magic is [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one not generally published and available to hackers at large (compare {black art}); one that could only have been co...
deep magic2 is optimization techniques and many aspects of {OS} design used to be {deep magic}; many techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are. Compare {heavy wizardry}. Esp. found in comments of the form "De...
deep space is n. 1. Describes the notional location of any program that has gone {off the trolley}. Esp. used of programs that just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some output is expected. "Uh oh. I should have gott...
deep space2 is in deep space somewhere." Compare {buzz}, {catatonic}, {hyperspace}. 2. The metaphorical location of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form of {bogosity} that he or she no longer responds coherent...
defenestration is [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" 2. The act of...
defenestration2 is better response time from a full-screen program. This comes from the dictionary meaning of `defenestrate', which is to throw something out a window. 3. The act of discarding something under the assumption that it will im...
defenestration3 is left." "Well, why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?" 4. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface. "It has to run on a VT100." "Curses! I've been defenestrated!"
defined as is adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart sense. "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer." Compare {logical}.
dehose is /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a {hosed} condition.
delint is /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected when {lint}ing.
delta is n. 1. [techspeak] A quantitative change, especially a small or incremental one (this use is general in physics and engineering). "I just doubled the speed of my program!" "What was the delta on program size?" "About 30 percent." (...
delta2 is increased its size by only 30 percent.) 2. [UNIX] A {diff}, especially a {diff} stored under the set of version-control tools called SCCS (Source Code Control System) or RCS (Revision Control System). 3. n. A small quantity, but ...
delta3 is {delta} and {epsilon} stems from the traditional use of these letters in mathematics for very small numerical quantities, particularly in `epsilon-delta' proofs in limit theory (as in the differential calculus). The term {delta} i...
delta4 is mentioned, to mean a quantity that is slightly bigger than {epsilon} but still very small. "The cost isn't epsilon, but it's delta" means that the cost isn't totally negligible, but it is nevertheless very small. Common construct...
delta5 is epsilon of ---' that is, close to and even closer to.
demented is adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a program. The connotation in this case is that the program works as designed, but the design is bad. Said, for example, of a program that generates large numbers of meaningless e...
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Finagle's Law is n. The generalized or `folk' version of {Murphy's Law}, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the U...
Finagle's Law2 is {Hanlon's Razor}). The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this `Belter' culture professed a religion and/or running joke invol...
Finagle's Law3 is his mad prophet Murphy.
fine is [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be {cuspy}. The word `fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison to the higher level implied by {cuspy}.
finger is [WAITS, via BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line, and terminal location (where applicabl...
finger2 is the user. 2. vt. To apply finger to a username. 3. vt. By extension, to check a human's current state by any means. "Foodp?" "T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle." 4. Any picture (composed of ASCII characters) depicti...
finger3 is component of one's plan file to deter the curious fingerer (sense 2), it has entered the arsenal of some {flamer}s.
finger-pointing syndrome is n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp. in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is ...
firebottle is n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass, metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability, high-temperature operation, an...
firebottle2 is mistakenly called a `tube' in the U.S. or a `valve' in England; another hackish term is {glassfet}.
firefighting is n. 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires." 2. T...
firefighting2 is nights at a project, esp. to get it out before deadline. See also {gang bang}, {Mongolian Hordes technique}; however, the term `firefighting' connotes that the effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.
firewall code is n. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since users always want to be able to do everything but never want to suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a fi...
firewall code2 is coding but also of interface presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those corners of a system where they can burn themselves.
firewall machine is n. A dedicated gateway machine with special security precautions on it, used to service outside network connections and dial-in lines. The idea is to protect a cluster of more loosely administered machines hidden behind it...
firewall machine2 is an inexpensive micro-based UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and public network ports on it but just one carefully watched connection back to the rest of the cluster. The special precautions m...
firewall machine3 is even a complete {iron box} keyable to particular incoming IDs or activity patterns. Syn. {flytrap}, {Venus flytrap}.
fireworks mode is n. The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when it is performing a {crash and burn} operation.
firmy is /fer'mee/ Syn. {stiffy} (a 3.5-inch floppy disk).
fish is [Adelaide University, Australia] n. 1. Another metasyntactic variable. See {foo}. Derived originally from the Monty Python skit in the middle of "The Meaning of Life" entitled "Find the Fish". 2. A pun for `microfiche'. A microfich...
FISH queue is [acronym, by analogy with FIFO (First In, First Out)] n. `First In, Still Here'. A joking way of pointing out that processing of a particular sequence of events or requests has stopped dead. Also `FISH mode' and `FISHnet'; the ...
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gang bang is n. The use of large numbers of loosely coupled programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a product in a short time. Though there have been memorable gang bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port menti...
gang bang2 is perpetrated by large companies trying to meet deadlines and produce enormous buggy masses of code entirely lacking in {orthogonal}ity. When market-driven managers make a list of all the features the competition has and assign ...
gang bang3 is miss the importance of maintaining a coherent design. See also {firefighting}, {Mongolian Hordes technique}, {Conway's Law}.
garbage collect is vi. (also `garbage collection', n.) See {GC}.
garply is /gar'plee/ [Stanford] n. Another meta-syntactic variable (see {foo}); once popular among SAIL hackers.
gas is [as in `gas chamber'] 1. interj. A term of disgust and hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some loser just reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2....
gas2 is something ought to be flushed out of mercy. "The system's getting {wedged} every few minutes. Gas!" 3. vt. To {flush} (sense 1). "You should gas that old crufty software." 4. [IBM] n. Dead space in nonsequentially organized file...
gas3 is deleted; the compression operation that removes it is called `degassing' (by analogy, perhaps, with the use of the same term in vacuum technology). 5. [IBM] n. Empty space on a disk that has been clandestinely allocated against futu...
gaseous is adj. Deserving of being {gas}sed. Disseminated by Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had s...
gaseous2 is chamber under Proposition 7 if convicted of first-degree murder (he was eventually convicted of manslaughter).
GC is /G-C/ [from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect'] 1. vt. To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today." When said of files, this is equivalent to {GFR}. 2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to an...
GC2 is garbage collector process. `Garbage collection' is computer-science jargon for a particular class of strategies for dynamically reallocating computer memory. One such strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in memory an...
GC3 is useless data items are then discarded so that the memory they occupy can be recycled and used for another purpose. Implementations of the LISP language usually use garbage collection. In jargon, the full phrase is sometimes heard but...
GC4 is it is shorter. Note that there is an ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by context "I'm going to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to clean out the drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or recycle the desk itself...
GCOS is /jee'kohs/ n. A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). Later kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction...
GCOS2 is computer division by Honeywell, the name was changed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS). Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen Operating System', allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's ...
GCOS3 is superiority of their product. All this might be of zero interest, except for two facts (1) The GCOS people won the political war, and this led in the orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {{Multics}}, and (2) GECOS/GCOS left on...
GCOS4 is systems at Bell Labs were GCOS machines for print spooling and various other services; the field added to `/etc/passwd' to carry GCOS ID information was called the `GECOS field' and survives today as the `pw_gecos' member used for the...
GCOS5 is information. GCOS later played a major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe market, and was itself ditched for UNIX in the late 1980s when Honeywell retired its aging {big iron} designs.
GECOS is /jee'kohs/ n. See {{GCOS}}.
gedanken is /g*-don'kn/ adj. Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested. `Gedanken' is a German word for `thought'. A thought experiment is one you carry out in your head. In physics, the term `gedanken experiment' is ...
gedanken2 is impractical to carry out, but useful to consider because you can reason about it theoretically. (A classic gedanken experiment of relativity theory involves thinking about a man in an elevator accelerating through space.) Gedank...
gedanken3 is but you have to be careful. It's too easy to idealize away some important aspect of the real world in contructing your `apparatus'. Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation. It is said of a project, espe...
gedanken4 is research, that is written up in grand detail (typically as a Ph.D. thesis) without ever being implemented to any great extent. Such a project is usually perpetrated by people who aren't very good hackers or find programming dista...
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hack4 is Constructions on this term abound. They include `happy hacking' (a farewell), `how's hacking?' (a friendly greeting among hackers) and `hack, hack' (a fairly content-free but friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell). Fo...
hack5 is See also {neat hack}, {real hack}.
hack attack is [poss. by analogy with `Big Mac Attack' from ads for the McDonald's fast-food chain; the variant `big hack attack' is reported] n. Nearly synonymous with {hacking run}, though the latter more strongly implies an all-nighter.
hack mode is n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2. More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem that may be achieved when one is hacking (this is why every good hacker is part mystic). Ability to enter such co...
hack mode2 is wizardliness; it is one of the most important skills learned during {larval stage}. Sometimes amplified as `deep hack mode'. Being yanked out of hack mode (see {priority interrupt}) may be experienced as a physical shock, and ...
hack mode3 is little habituating. The intensity of this experience is probably by itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, and explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they can code. See also {cybersp...
hack mode4 is etiquette will appear quite odd to an observer unaware of the high value placed on hack mode. For example, if someone appears at your door, it is perfectly okay to hold up a hand (without turning one's eyes away from the screen)...
hack mode5 is type, and interact with the computer for quite some time before further acknowledging the other's presence (of course, he or she is reciprocally free to leave without a word). The understanding is that you might be in {hack mo...
hack mode6 is your head, and you dare not {swap} that context out until you have reached a good point to pause. See also {juggling eggs}.
hack on is vt. To {hack}; implies that the subject is some pre-existing hunk of code that one is evolving, as opposed to something one might {hack up}.
hack together is vt. To throw something together so it will work. Unlike `kluge together' or {cruft together}, this does not necessarily have negative connotations.
hack up is vt. To {hack}, but generally implies that the result is a hack in sense 1 (a quick hack). Contrast this with {hack on}. To `hack up on' implies a {quick-and-dirty} modification to an existing system. Contrast {hacked up}; compare ...
hack value is n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, ...
hack value2 is See {display hack} for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained. As a great artist once said of jazz "If you hafta ask, you ain't never goin' to find out."
hack-and-slay is v. (also `hack-and-slash') 1. To play a {MUD} or go mudding, especially with the intention of {berserking} for pleasure. 2. To undertake an all-night programming/hacking session, interspersed with stints of mudding as a chang...
hack-and-slay2 is academic network amongst students who worked nights and logged onto Essex University's MUDs during public-access hours (2 A.M. to 7 A.M.). Usually more mudding than work was done in these sessions.
hacked off is [analogous to `pissed off'] adj. Said of system administrators who have become annoyed, upset, or touchy owing to suspicions that their sites have been or are going to be victimized by crackers, or used for inappropriate, technic...
hacked off2 is activities. For example, having unreadable files in your home directory called `worm', `lockpick', or `goroot' would probably be an effective (as well as impressively obvious and stupid) way to get your sysadmin hacked off at y...
hacked up is adj. Sufficiently patched, kluged, and tweaked that the surgical scars are beginning to crowd out normal tissue (compare {critical mass}). Not all programs that are hacked become `hacked up'; if modifications are done with some e...
hacked up2 is maintainability, the software may emerge better for the experience. Contrast {hack up}.
hacker is [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum neces...
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hardcoded is adj. 1. Said of data inserted directly into a program, where it cannot be easily modified, as opposed to data in some {profile}, resource (see {de-rezz} sense 2), or environment variable that a {user} or hacker can easily modify. ...
hardcoded2 is literal instead of a `#define' macro (see {magic number}).
hardwarily is /hard-weir'*-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to hardware. "The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective `hardwary' is *not* traditionally used, though it has recently been reported from the U.K. See {softwarily}.
hardwired is adj. 1. In software, syn. for {hardcoded}. 2. By extension, anything that is not modifiable, especially in the sense of customizable to one's particular needs or tastes.
has the X nature is [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"] adj. Common hacker construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis. "Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen help ...
has the X nature2 is nature!" See also {the X that can be Y is not the true X}.
hash bucket is n. A notional receptacle into which more than one thing accessed by the same key or short code might be dropped. When you look up a name in the phone book (for example), you typically hash it by extracting its first letter; the ...
hash bucket2 is letter sections. This is used as techspeak with respect to code that uses actual hash functions; in jargon, it is used for human associative memory as well. Thus, two things `in the same hash bucket' may be confused with each...
hash bucket3 is length, you get too many common grammar words in the first couple of hash buckets." Compare {hash collision}.
hash collision is [from the technical usage] n. (var. `hash clash') When used of people, signifies a confusion in associative memory or imagination, especially a persistent one (see {thinko}). True story One of us [ESR] was once on the phone ...
hash collision2 is When asked what he expected Berkeley to be like, the friend replied "Well, I have this mental picture of naked women throwing Molotov cocktails, but I think that's just a collision in my hash tables." Compare {hash bucke...
hat is n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`^', ASCII 1011110) character. See {ASCII} for other synonyms.
HCF is /H-C-F/ n. Mnemonic for `Halt and Catch Fire', any of several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on several well-known architectures going as far back...
HCF2 is was the first for which the HCF opcode became widely known. This instruction caused the processor to {toggle} a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it could; in some configurations this can actually cause lines to burn up.
heads down is [Sun] adj. Concentrating, usually so heavily and for so long that everything outside the focus area is missed. See also {hack mode} and {larval stage}, although it is not confined to fledgling hackers.
heartbeat is n. 1. The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the collision-detection circuit is still connected. 2. A periodic synchronization signal used by software or hardware, such as a b...
heartbeat2 is `natural' oscillation frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division down to the machine's clock rate. 4. A signal emitted at regular intervals by software to demonstrate that it is still alive. Sometimes h...
heartbeat3 is stops hearing a heartbeat. See also {breath-of-life packet}.
heavy metal is [Cambridge] n. Syn. {big iron}.
heavy wizardry is n. Code or designs that trade on a particularly intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system or language or complex application interface. Distinguished from {deep magic}, which trades more on arcane *th...
heavy wizardry2 is drivers is heavy wizardry; so is interfacing to {X} (sense 2) without a toolkit. Esp. found in comments similar to "Heavy wizardry begins here ...". Compare {voodoo programming}.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
LISP3 is LISP 1.5. The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the throne with {C}. See {languages of choice}. All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return values; this, together with the high memory...
LISP4 is Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing". One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example that most newer languages...
LISP5 is unnecessary {crock}s. When the {Right Thing} has already been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer languages.
literature, the is n. Computer-science journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the speaker believes is {trivial}. Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose ...
little-endian is adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel ...
little-endian2 is and networking hardware are little-endian. See {big-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than bytes; most often these are bits within a byte.
live data is n. 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For example, some smart terminals have command...
live data2 is program keys; this can be used to write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a security-breaking {virus} that is triggered the next time a hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some well...
live data3 is send arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed. 2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function {hook}s (executable code). 3. An object, such as a {trampoline}, that is constructed on the fly by ...
live data4 is code. 4. Actual real-world data, as opposed to `test data'. For example, "I think I have the record deletion module finished." "Have you tried it out on live data?" It usually carries the connotation that live data is more frag...
live data5 is things will happen. So a possible alternate response to the above claim might be "Well, make sure it works perfectly before we throw live data at it." The implication here is that record deletion is something pretty significant...
live data6 is running amok on live data would cause great harm and probably require restoring from backups.
Live Free Or Die! is imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A slogan associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered undergro...
Live Free Or Die!2 is industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from the {fascist} design philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on commercial operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early UNIX developers, used to giv...
Live Free Or Die!3 is under a large UNIX, all in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued collector's items.
livelock is /liv'lok/ n. A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue. Differs from {deadl...
livelock2 is waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.
liveware is /liv'weir/ n. 1. Synonym for {wetware}. Less common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my salad..."
lobotomy is n. 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of remov...
lobotomy2 is order to replace or upgrade it. Some very cheap {clone} systems are sold in `lobotomized' form --- everything but the brain.
locked and loaded is [from military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] adj. Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use --- that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironicall...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
loser is n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even winners can lose occasionally.) Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows not. Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total l...
loser2 is loser', which would be a contradiction in terms). See {luser}.
losing is adj. Said of anything that is or causes a {lose} or {lossage}.
loss is n. Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in which something is losing. Emphatic forms include `moby loss', and `total loss', `complete loss'. Common interjections are "What a loss!" and "What a moby loss!" Note that `mob...
loss2 is not used; applied to an abstract noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to a person it implies substance and has positive connotations. Compare {lossage}.
lossage is /los'*j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction. This is a mass or collective noun. "What a loss!" and "What lossage!" are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latt...
lossage2 is speaker is currently a victim. Thus (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss, but bugs in an important tool (like a compiler) are serious lossage.
lost in the noise is adj. Syn. {lost in the underflow}. This term is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system. Though popular among hackers, it is not confined t...
lost in the noise2 is astronomers, and statisticians all use it.
lost in the underflow is adj. Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to `floating underflow', a condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic p...
lost in the underflow2 is than its limit of magnitude. It is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alte...
lost in the underflow3 is effect gets lost in the underflow." See also {overflow bit}.
lots of MIPS but no I/O is adj. Used to describe a person who is technically brilliant but can't seem to communicate with human beings effectively. Technically it describes a machine that has lots of processing power but is bottlenecked on in...
lots of MIPS but no I/O2 is RS/6000, is a notorious recent example).
low-bandwidth is [from communication theory] adj. Used to indicate a talk that, although not {content-free}, was not terribly informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you expect for an audience of {suit}s!" Compare {zero-con...
LPT is /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ [MIT, via DEC] n. Line printer, of course. Rare under UNIX, commoner in hackers with MS-DOS or CP/M background. The printer device is called `LPT' on those systems that, like ITS, were strongly infl...
lunatic fringe is [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of software.
lurker is n. One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively "Oh, I'm just l...
lurker2 is hypothetical audience for the group's {flamage}-emitting regulars.
luser is /loo'zr/ n. A {user}; esp. one who is also a {loser}. ({luser} and {loser} are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT. Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the...
luser2 is status information, including how many people were already using the computer; it might print "14 users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a grea...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Nightmare File System3 is 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 sn...
Nightmare File System4 is 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 sy...
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...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
science-fiction fandom2 is Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom; see {defenestration}, {great-wall}, {cyberpunk}, {h}, {ha ha only serious}, {IMHO}, {mundane}, {neep-neep}, {Real Soon Now}. Additionally, the jargon terms {cowboy}, {cy...
science-fiction fandom3 is {virus}, {wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm} originated in SF stories.
scram switch is [from the nuclear power industry] n. An emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general, this is *not* something you {frob} lightly; these often ini...
scram switch2 is and are installed in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across himself while {Easter egging}.
scratch is 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary-use purposes; one that can be {scribble}d on without loss. Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory', ...
scratch2 is tape', `scratch volume'. See {scratch monkey}. 2. [primarily IBM] vt. To delete (as in a file).
scratch monkey is n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during a...
scratch monkey2 is precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto ca. 1986. Mabel was not (...
scratch monkey3 is university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when DEC {PM}ed the PD...
scratch monkey4 is {provocative maintainance}). It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible ...
scratch monkey5 is all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society. The moral is clear When in doubt, always...
screw is [MIT] n. A {lose}, usually in software. Especially used for user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. This use has become quite widespread outside MIT.
screwage is /skroo'*j/ n. Like {lossage} but connotes that the failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple inadequacy or a mere bug.
scribble is n. To modify a data structure in a random and unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node table." "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines ...
scribble2 is {trash}; compare {mung}, which conveys a bit more intention, and {mangle}, which is more violent and final.
scrog is /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of Id". Equivalent to {scribble} or {mangle}.
scrool is /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get back in synch with the conversation. It was...
scrool2 is because an early version of the roundtable software had a bug where it would dump all 8K of scrool on a user's terminal.
scrozzle is /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data. "The damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"
SCSI is [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and intelligent devices. Typically annotated in literature with `sexy' (/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/sku...
SCSI2 is being the overwhelmingly predominant form, much to the dismay of the designers and their marketing people. One can usually assume that a person who pronounces it /S-C-S-I/ is clueless.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
social science number2 is considerably worse. {Management} loves them. See also {numbers}, {math-out}, {pretty pictures}.
soft boot is n. See {boot}.
softcopy is /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy. See {bits}, {machinable}.
software bloat is n. The results of {second-system effect} or {creeping featuritis}. Commonly cited examples include `ls(1)', {X}, {BSD}, {Missed'em-five}, and {OS/2}.
software rot is n. Term used to describe the tendency of software that has not been used in a while to {lose}; such failure may be semi-humorously ascribed to {bit rot}. More commonly, `software rot' strikes when a program's assumptions becom...
software rot2 is insufficiently {robust}, this may cause it to fail in mysterious ways. For example, owing to endemic shortsightedness in the design of COBOL programs, most will succumb to software rot when their 2-digit year counters {wrap ...
software rot3 is Actually, related lossages often afflict centenarians who have to deal with computer software designed by unimaginative clods. One such incident became the focus of a minor public flap in 1990, when a gentleman born in 1889 a...
software rot4 is Raleigh, North Carolina. The new system refused to issue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the ages 101 and 1 cannot be distinguished. Historical note Software rot in an even funnier sense than the mythical one ...
software rot5 is (e.g., the R1; see {grind crank}). If a program that depended on a peculiar instruction hadn't been run in quite a while, the user might discover that the opcodes no longer did the same things they once did. ("Hey, so-and-...
software rot6 is We can {snarf} this opcode, right? No one uses it.") Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIT hacker found a simple way to double the speed of the unconditional jump instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched ...
software rot7 is fragile timing software in a music-playing program, throwing its output out of tune. This was fixed by adding a defensive initialization routine to compare the speed of a timing loop with the real-time clock; in other words, ...
software rot8 is day, and corrected appropriately. Compare {bit rot}.
softwarily is /soft-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to software. "The system is softwarily unreliable." The adjective `softwary' is *not* used. See {hardwarily}.
softy is [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.
some random X is adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the implication that Xs are interchangeable. "I think some random cracker tripped over the guest timeout last night." See also {J. Random}.
sorcerer's apprentice mode is [from the film "Fantasia"] n. A bug in a protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message causes multiple messages to be sent, each of which, when received, triggers the same bug. Used esp. of s...
sorcerer's apprentice mode2 is loops in {email} software. Compare {broadcast storm}, {network meltdown}.
SOS is n.,obs. /S-O-S/ 1. An infamously {losing} text editor. Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a {quick-and-dirty} `stopgap editor' to be used until a better one was written. Unfo...
SOS2 is discarded when new ones (in particular, {TECO}) came along. SOS is a descendant (`Son of Stopgap') of that editor, and many PDP-10 users gained the dubious pleasure of its acquaintance. Since then other programs similar in style to...
SOS3 is editor BILOS /bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the alternate expansion `Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap' has been proposed). 2. /sos/ n. To decrease; inverse of {AOS}, from the PDP-10 instruction set.
source of all good bits is n. A person from whom (or a place from which) useful information may be obtained. If you need to know about a program, a {guru} might be the source of all good bits. The title is often applied to a particularly comp...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
twonkie is /twonkee/ n. The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang) the male equivalent of `chick); a useless `feature added to look sexy and placate a {marketroid} (compare {Saturday-night sp...
twonkie2 is Twonky", title menace of a classic SF short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore), first published in the September 1942 `Astounding Science Fiction and subsequently much anthologized.*UBD /U-B-D/ [abbreviation f...
twonkie3 is to close out trouble reports obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare {pilot error}; oppose {PBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.
UN*X is n. Used to refer to the UNIX operating system (a trademark of AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly {(TM)} typography. Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating systems. Ironically, lawyers now s...
UN*X2 is TM-postfix has no legal force, but the asterisk usage is entrenched anyhow. It has been suggested that there may be a psychological connection to practice in certain religions (especially Judaism) in which the name of the deity is ne...
UN*X3 is `G--d' is used. See also {glob}.
undefined external reference is excl. [UNIX] A message from UNIX's linker. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references in an argument or discussion.
under the hood is prep. [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious from the appearance, but the speaker is about ...
under the hood2 is now look under the hood to see how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much simpler than the appearance would indicate "Under the hood, we are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in "Under...
undocumented feature is n. See {feature}.
uninteresting is adj. 1. Said of a problem that, although {nontrivial}, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design...
uninteresting2 is problems as intolerable wastes of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. *Real* hackers (see {toolsmith}) generalize uninteresting problems enough to make them interesting and solve them --- thus solving the ori...
uninteresting3 is {SMOP}; compare {toy problem}, oppose {interesting}.
UNIX is /yoo'niks/ [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on Multics"] n. (also `Unix') An interactive time-sharing system originally invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could play games on ...
UNIX2 is inventor of C, is considered a co-author of the system. The turning point in UNIX's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during 1972--1974, making it the first source-portable OS. UNIX subsequently underwent...
UNIX3 is many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and developer-friendly environment. In 1991, UNIX is the most widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world. Many people consider this the most important ...
UNIX4 is opposition (but see {UNIX weenie} and {UNIX conspiracy} for an opposing point of view). See {Version 7}, {BSD}, {USG UNIX}.
UNIX brain damage is n. Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-UNIX system so that it will interoperate with UNIX systems. The hack may qualify as `UNIX brain damage' if the program conforms to...
UNIX brain damage2 is question does not. UNIX brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of UNIX systems...
UNIX brain damage3 is is a {kluge} in a mail server to recognize bare line feed (the UNIX newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a harden...
UNIX conspiracy is [ITS] n. According to a conspiracy theory long popular among {{ITS}} and {{TOPS-20}} fans, UNIX's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
UNIX conspiracy4 is directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this `UNIX virus' theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "UNIX is snake oil" was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began activ...
UNIX conspiracy5 is workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
UNIX weenie is [ITS] n. 1. A derogatory play on `UNIX wizard', common among hackers who use UNIX by necessity but would prefer alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question may consider mastery of UNIX arcana to be a w...
UNIX weenie2 is is the ability to tolerate (and the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is alleged to infest many UNIX programs. "This shell script tries to parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must...
UNIX weenie3 is 2. A derogatory term for anyone who engages in uncritical praise of UNIX. Often appearing in the context "stupid UNIX weenie". See {Weenix}, {UNIX conspiracy}. See also {weenie}.
unixism is n. A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory UNIX systems. Common {unixism}s include gratuitous use of `for...
unixism2 is undocumented but well-known features of UNIX libraries such as `stdio(3)' are supported elsewhere; reliance on {obscure} side-effects of system calls (use of `sleep(2)' with a 0 argument to clue the scheduler that you're willing ...
unixism3 is assumption that freshly allocated memory is zeroed; and the assumption that fragmentation problems won't arise from never `free()'ing memory. Compare {vaxocentrism}; see also {New Jersey}.
unswizzle is v. See {swizzle}.
unwind the stack is vi. 1. [techspeak] During the execution of a procedural language, one is said to `unwind the stack' from a called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame and any number of frames above it, popping back up...
unwind the stack2 is this is done with `longjmp'/`setjmp', in LISP with `throw/catch'. See also {smash the stack}. 2. People can unwind the stack as well, by quickly dealing with a bunch of problems "Oh heck, let's do lunch. Just a second ...
unwind-protect is [MIT from the name of a LISP operator] n. A task you must remember to perform before you leave a place or finish a project. "I have an unwind-protect to call my advisor."
up is adj. 1. Working, in order. "The down escalator is up." Oppose {down}. 2. `bring up' vt. To create a working version and start it. "They brought up a down system." 3. `come up' vi. To become ready for production use.
upload is /uhp'lohd/ v. 1. [techspeak] To transfer programs or data over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral `client' system to a larger or central `host' one. A transfer in the other direction is, of course, called a {...
upload2 is ground-to-space comm under that entry). 2. [speculatively] To move the essential patterns and algorithms that make up one's mind from one's brain into a computer. Only those who are convinced that such patterns and algorithms captu...
upload3 is prospect with gusto.
upthread is adv. Earlier in the discussion (see {thread}), i.e., `above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..." See also {followup}.
urchin is n. See {munchkin}.
USENET is /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ [from `Users' Network'] n. A distributed {bboard} (bulletin board) system supported mainly by UNIX machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel a...
USENET2 is become international in scope and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility in existence. As of early 1991, it hosts well over 700 {newsgroup}s and an average of 16 megabytes (the equivalent of several thousan...
USENET3 is discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day.
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
waldo is /wol'doh/ [From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"] 1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb. When these were developed for the nuclear industry in the mid-1940s they were named after the invention des...
waldo2 is wrote in 1942. Now known by the more generic term `telefactoring', this technology is of intense interest to NASA for tasks like space station maintenance. 2. At Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham and students), this is used i...
waldo3 is and general nonsense word. See {foo}, {bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.
walk is n.,vt. Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or linked-list data structure in {core}. See also {codewalker}, {silly walk}, {clobber}.
walk off the end of is vt. To run past the end of an array, list, or medium after stepping through it --- a good way to land in trouble. Often the result of an {off-by-one error}. Compare {clobber}, {roach}, {smash the stack}.
walking drives is n. An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky {washing machine}s. Those old {dinosaur} parts carried terrific angular momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or ...
walking drives2 is with the floor could cause them to `walk' across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a couple of millimeters at a time. There is a legend about a drive that walked over to the only door to the computer room and jamme...
walking drives3 is wall in order to get at it! Walking could also be induced by certain patterns of drive access (a fast seek across the whole width of the disk, followed by a slow seek in the other direction). Some bands of old-time hacke...
walking drives4 is patterns that would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive races.
wall is [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone "Wall??" 2. A request for further explication. Compare {octal forty}. It is said that "Wall?" really came from `like talking to a blank wall'. It w...
wall2 is you had carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you blankly, clearly having understood nothing that was explained. You would then throw out a "Hello, wall?" to elicit some sort of response from the questioner. Late...
wall3 is themselves.
wall follower is n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily p...
wall follower2 is the winning robot in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and running till it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was ...
wall follower3 is simply-connected mazes --- and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to `learn' each maze by building an internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term *is* pejorative and implies an un...
wall follower4 is See also {code grinder}, {droid}.
wall time is n. (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world' time (what the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea of time. 2. The real running time of a program, as opposed to the number of {clocks} required to execute i...
wall time2 is differ, as no one program gets all the {clocks}, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support one may get more processor clocks than real-time clocks).
wallpaper is n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallp...
wallpaper2 is used to cover windows.) Now rare, esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the UNIX world doesn't have an equivalent term, so perhaps {wallpaper} will take hold there. The t...
wallpaper3 is commands to begin and end transcript files were `WALBEG' and `WALEND', with default file `WALL PAPER' (the space was a path delimiter). 2. The background pattern used on graphical workstations (this is techspeak under the `Win...
factpacks/jargon-split.fact view on Meta::CPAN
(TM)2 is algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See also {UN*X}.
-oid is [from `android'] suff. 1. This suffix is used as in mainstream English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily use it with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words...
-oid2 is mainstream English. For example, "He's a nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't make the grade; a `modemoid' might be a 300-baud box (Real Modems run at 9600); a `computeroid' might be any {bitty box}. The ...
-oid3 is {chiclet keyboard}, but would have to be written; spoken, it would confuse the listener as to the speaker's city of origin. 2. There is a more specific sense of `oid' as an indicator for `resembling an android' which in the past ha...
-oid4 is hackers. It too has recently (in 1991) started to go mainstream (most notably in the term `trendoid' for victims of terminal hipness). This is probably traceable to the popularization of the term {droid} in "Star Wars" and its seque...
-oid5 is in science fiction for at least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have probably been making `-oid' jargon for almost that long [though GLS and I can personally confirm only that they were already common in the mid-197...
-ware is [from `software'] suff. Commonly used to form jargon terms for classes of software. For examples, see {careware}, {crippleware}, {crudware}, {freeware}, {fritterware}, {guiltware}, {liveware}, {meatware}, {payware}, {psychedelicwar...
/dev/null is /dev-nuhl/ [from the UNIX null device, used as a data sink] n. A notional `black hole' in any information space being discussed, used, or referred to. A controversial posting, for example, might end "Kudos to rasputin@kremlin.org...
120 reset is /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ [from 120 volts, U.S. wall voltage] n. To cycle power on a machine in order to reset or unjam it. Compare {Big Red Switch}, {power cycle}.
2 is infix. In translation software written by hackers, infix 2 often represents the syllable *to* with the connotation `translate to' as in dvi2ps (DVI to PostScript), int2string (integer to string), and texi2roff (Texinfo to [nt]roff).
@-party is /at'par`tee/ [from the @-sign in an Internet address] n. (alt. `@-sign party' /at'sin par`tee/) A semi-closed party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp. the annual Worldcon); one must have a {network address} to...
@-party2 is someone who does. One of the most reliable opportunities for hackers to meet face to face with people who might otherwise be represented by mere phosphor dots on their screens. Compare {boink}.
@Begin is // See {\begin}.
\begin is // [from the LaTeX command] With \end, used humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. For example \begin{flame} Predicate logic is the only good programming language. Anyone who woul...
\begin2 is all computers should be tredecimal instead of binary. \end{flame} The Scribe users at CMU and elsewhere used to use @Begin/@End in an identical way (LaTeX was built to resemble Scribe). On USENET, this construct would more ...
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backbone site2 => University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of Texas. Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.
backgammon => See bignum, moby, and pseudoprime.
background => n.,adj.,vt. To do a task `in background' is to do it whenever foreground matters are not claiming your undivided attention, and `to background' something means to relegate it to a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a list of nod...
backspace and overstrike => interj. Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Common among APL programmers.
backward combatability => /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ [from `backward compatibility'] n. A property of hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols, formats, and layouts are discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols, formats...
backward combatability2 => making the transition between major releases. When the change is so drastic that the old formats are not retained in the new version, it is said to be `backward combatable'. See {flag day}.
BAD => /B-A-D/ [IBM acronym, `Broken As Designed'] adj. Said of a program that is bogus because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See {working as designed}.
Bad Thing => [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody `1066 And All That'] n. Something that can't possibly result in improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would ...
Bad Thing2 => Thing}. British correspondents confirm that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob. therefore {Right Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad Things. Th...
Bad Thing3 => mainstream idiom on the British side of the pond.
bag on the side => n. An extension to an established hack that is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,...
bag on the side2 => phrase, `to hang a bag on the side [of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...." "They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."
bagbiter => /bag'bit-*r/ n. 1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who...
bamf => /bamf/ 1. [from old X-Men comics] interj. Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality} (esp. MUD) electronic fora when a character wishes to make a dramatic entrance...
banana label => n. The labels often used on the sides of macrotape reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current but visibly headed for obsolescence.
banana problem => n. [from the story of the little girl who said "I know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to stop"]. Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare {fencepost error}). One may say `there is a banana pr...
banana problem2 => defined or incorrect termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing to featuritis (see also {creeping elegance}, {creeping featuritis}). See item 176 under HAKMEM, which describes a banana...
banana problem3 => implementation.bandwidth n. 1. Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning as the volume of information per unit time that a computer, person, or transmission medium can handle. "Those are amazing graphics, but I m...
banana problem4 => bandwidth, I guess." Compare low-bandwidth. 2. Attention span. 3. On USENET, a measure of network capacity that is often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others are a waste of bandwidth.
bang => 1. n. Common spoken name for `!' (ASCII 0100001), especially when used in pronouncing a {bang path} in spoken hackish. In {elder days} this was considered a CMUish usage, with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring excl or shriek; but the spread...
bang on => vt. To stress-test a piece of hardware or software "I banged on the new version of the simulator all day yesterday and it didn't crash once. I guess it is ready to release." The term {pound on} is synonymous.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
black art => n. A collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular application or systems area (compare {black magic}). VLSI design and compiler code optimization were (in their beginnings) c...
black art2 => art; as theory developed they became {deep magic}, and once standard textbooks had been written, became merely {heavy wizardry}. The huge proliferation of formal and informal channels for spreading around new computer-related technologi...
black art3 => made both the term `black art' and what it describes less common than formerly. See also {voodoo programming}.
black hole => n. When a piece of email or netnews disappears mysteriously between its origin and destination sites (that is, without returning a {bounce message}) it is commonly said to have `fallen into a black hole'. "I think there's a black hole a...
black hole2 => site foovax has been dropping a lot of stuff on the floor lately (see {drop on the floor}). The implied metaphor of email as interstellar travel is interesting in itself. Compare {bit bucket}.
black magic => n. A technique that works, though nobody really understands why. More obscure than {voodoo programming}, which may be done by cookbook. Compare also {black art}, {deep magic}, and {magic number} (sense 2).
blast => 1. vt.,n. Synonym for BLT, used esp. for large data sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of snarf. Usage uncommon. The variant `blat' has been reported. 2. vt. [HP/Apollo] Synonymous with nuke (sense 3). Sometimes the message `Unable ...
blat => n. 1. Syn. blast, sense 1. 2. See thud.
bletch => /blech/ [from Yiddish/German `brechen', to vomit, poss. via comic-strip exclamation `blech'] interj. Term of disgust. Often used in "Ugh, bletch". Compare barf.
bletcherous => /blech'*-r*s/ adj. Disgusting in design or function; esthetically unappealing. This word is seldom used of people. "This keyboard is bletcherous!" (Perhaps the keys don't work very well, or are misplaced.) See losing, cretinous, bagbit...
blinkenlights => /blink'*n-litz/ n. Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, esp. a dinosaur. Derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the English-...
blit => /blit/ vt. 1. To copy a large array of bits from one part of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display screen. "The storage allocator picks through the table and co...
blitter => /blit'r/ n. A special-purpose chip or hardware system built to perform blit operations, esp. used for fast implementation of bit-mapped graphics. The Commodore Amiga and a few other micros have these, but in 1991 the trend is away from the...
blivet => /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] n. 1. An intractable problem. 2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced if it breaks. 3. A tool that has been ha...
block => [from process scheduling terminology in OS theory] 1. vi. To delay or sit idle while waiting for something. "We're blocking until everyone gets here." Compare busy-wait. 2. `block on' vt. To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is blocked ...
block transfer computations => n. From the television series "Dr. Who", in which it referred to computations so fiendishly subtle and complex that they could not be performed by machines. Used to refer to any task that should be expressible as an alg...
blow an EPROM => /bloh *n ee'prom/ v. (alt. `blast an EPROM', `burn an EPROM') To program a read-only memory, e.g. for use with an embedded system. This term arises because the programming process for the Programmable Read-Only Memories (PROMs) that ...
blow an EPROM2 => Programmable Read-Only Memories (EPROMs) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on the chip. Thus, one was said to `blow' (or `blast') a PROM, and the terminology carried over even though the write process on EPROMs is...
blow away => vt. To remove (files and directories) from permanent storage, generally by accident. "He reformatted the wrong partition and blew away last night's netnews." Oppose nuke.
blow out => vi. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious as {crash and burn}. See {blow past}, {blow up}.
blow past => vt. To {blow out} despite a safeguard. "The server blew past the 5K reserve buffer."
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Blue Book3 => and red books). 3. Any of the 1988 standards issued by the CCITT's ninth plenary assembly. Until now, they have changed color each review cycle (1984 was {Red Book}, 1992 would be {Green Book}); however, it is rumored that this conventi...
Blue Book4 => 1992. These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards. See also {{book titles}}.
Blue Glue => [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture), an incredibly losing and bletcherous communications protocol widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better. The official IBM definition is "that which binds blue boxes to...
Blue Glue2 => loathing}. It may not be irrelevant that {Blue Glue} is the trade name of a 3M product that is commonly used to hold down the carpet squares to the removable panel floors common in {dinosaur pens}. A correspondent at U. Minn. reports th...
Blue Glue3 => 80 bottles of the stuff hanging about, so they often refer to any messy work to be done as `using the blue glue'.
blue goo => n. Term for `police' nanobots intended to prevent {gray goo}, denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and promote truth, justice, and the American way, etc. See {nanotechnology...
BNF => /B-N-F/ n. 1. [techspeak] Acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', a metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programming languages, command sets, and the like. Widely used for language descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, so that i...
boa => [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is...
board => n. 1. In-context synonym for bboard; sometimes used even for USENET newsgroups. 2. An electronic circuit board (compare card).
boat anchor => n. 1. Like doorstop but more severe; implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless. "That was a working motherboard once. One lightning strike later, instant boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up space.
bogo-sort => /boh`goh-sort'/ n. (var. `stupid-sort') The archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as opposed to {bubble sort}, which is merely the generic *bad* algorithm). Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in the air, pi...
bogometer => /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n. See bogosity. Compare the `wankometer' described in the wank entry; see also bogus.
bogon => /boh'gon/ [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adams's `Vogons'; see the Bibliography] n. 1. The elementary particle of bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}). For instance...
bogon filter => /boh'gon fil'tr/ n. Any device, software or hardware, that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons. "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets." See a...
bogon flux => /boh'gon fluhks/ n. A measure of a supposed field of bogosity emitted by a speaker, measured by a bogometer; as a speaker starts to wander into increasing bogosity a listener might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is rising". See {quan...
bogosity => /boh-go's*-tee/ n. 1. The degree to which something is bogus. At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More ex...
bogotify => /boh-go't*-fi/ vt. To make or become bogus. A program that has been changed so many times as to become completely disorganized has become bogotified. If you tighten a nut too hard and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has become bog...
bogue out => /bohg owt/ vi. To become bogus, suddenly and unexpectedly. "His talk was relatively sane until somebody asked him a trick question; then he bogued out and did nothing but flame afterwards." See also bogosity, bogus.
bogus => adj. 1. Non-functional. "Your patches are bogus." 2. Useless. "OPCON is a bogus program." 3. False. "Your arguments are bogus." 4. Incorrect. "That algorithm is bogus." 5. Unbelievable. "You claim to have solved the halting problem for Turin...
Bohr bug => /bohr buhg/ [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable bug; one that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined set of conditions. Antonym of heisenbug; see also mandelbug.
boink => /boynk/ [USENET ascribed there to the TV series "Cheers" and "Moonlighting"] 1. To have sex with; compare bounce, sense 3. (This is mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant `bonk' is more common. 2. After the original Peter Kor...
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book titles3 => v.,n. To load and initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are still jargon. The derivative `reboot' implies that the machi...
book titles4 => that the boot is a bounce intended to clear some state of wedgitude. This is sometimes used of human thought processes, as in the following exchange "You've lost me." "OK, reboot. Here's the theory...." This term is also found in the ...
book titles5 => power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software crash). Another variant `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a system, under control of other softwa...
book titles6 => the mess-dos emulator, control-alt-insert will cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the system running." Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility towards or frustration with the machine be...
book titles7 => hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard." Historical note this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from the front panel switches. This program...
book titles8 => were expended on making it short in order to minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in), but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which...
book titles9 => turn was smart enough to read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstr...
book titles10 => and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it.
bottom-up implementation => n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action ...
bottom-up implementation2 => to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitiv...
bounce => v. 1. [perhaps from the image of a thrown ball bouncing off a wall] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also {bounce message}. 2. [Stanford] To play volle...
bounce message => [UNIX] n. Notification message returned to sender by a site unable to relay email to the intended {{Internet address}} recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see bounce). Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled usern...
bounce message2 => Bounce messages can themselves fail, with occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's apprentice mode}. The term `bounce mail' is also common.
box => n. 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box' where foo is some functional qualifier, like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `UNIX box', `MS-DOS box', etc.) "We preprocess the data on UNIX boxes before handing it up to the mainfra...
boxed comments => n. Comments (explanatory notes attached to program instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style something like this Common variants of...
boxed comments2 => column 2 or add a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves; the `box' is implied. Oppose {winged comments}.
boxen => /bok'sn/ [by analogy with VAXen] pl.n. Fanciful plural of box often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen', used to describe commodity {UNIX} hardware. The connotation is that any two UNIX boxen are interchangeable.
boxology => /bok-sol'*-jee/ n. Syn. {ASCII art}. This term implies a more restricted domain, that of box-and-arrow drawings. "His report has a lot of boxology in it." Compare macrology.
bozotic => /boh-zoh'tik/ or /boh-zo'tik/ [from the name of a TV clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] adj. Resembling or having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously wrong, unintentionally humorous. Compare wonky, demented. Not...
BQS => /B-Q-S/ adj. Syn. {Berkeley Quality Software}.
brain dump => n. The act of telling someone everything one knows about a particular topic or project. Typically used when someone is going to let a new party maintain a piece of code. Conceptually analogous to an operating system {core dump} in that ...
brain dump2 => before an exit. "You'll have to give me a brain dump on FOOBAR before you start your new job at HackerCorp." See {core dump} (sense 4). At Sun, this is also known as `TOI' (transfer of information).
brain-damaged => 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain Damage' (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Honeywell {Multics}] adj. Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented. There is an implication that the person respo...
brain-dead => adj. Brain-damaged in the extreme. It tends to imply terminal design failure rather than malfunction or simple stupidity. "This comm program doesn't know how to send a break --- how brain-dead!"
braino => /bray'no/ n. Syn. for thinko.
branch to Fishkill => [IBM from the location of one of the corporation's facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See {jump off into never-never land}, hyperspace.
brand brand brand => n. Humorous catch-phrase from BartleMUDs, in which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying...
brand brand brand2 => kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons. Prob. influenced by the famous Monty Python "Spam" skit.
break => 1. vt. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your latest patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands." 2. v. (of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged. The place where it stops is a `breakpoint'. 3. [techspeak] vi. To...
breath-of-life packet => [XEROX PARC] n. An Ethernet packet that contained bootstrap (see boot) code, periodically sent out from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any computer on the network that had happened to crash. The machin...
breath-of-life packet2 => would wait for such a packet after a catastrophic error.
breedle => n. See feep.
bring X to its knees => v. To present a machine, operating system, piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or pathological that it grinds to a halt. "To bring a MicroVAX to its knees, try twenty users running vi --- or four running EMA...
brittle => adj. Said of software that is functional but easily broken by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any minor tweak to the software itself. Also, any system that responds inappropriately and disastrously to expected exte...
broadcast storm => n. An incorrect packet broadcast on a network that causes most hosts to respond all at once, typically with wrong answers that start the process over again. See {network meltdown}.
broken => adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs). 2. Behaving strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting extreme depression.
broken arrow => [IBM] n. The error code displayed on line 25 of a 3270 terminal (or a PC emulating a 3270) for various kinds of protocol violations and "unexpected" error conditions (including connection to a down computer). On a PC, simulated with `...
broken arrow2 => characters overstruck. In true luser fashion, the original documentation of these codes (visible on every 3270 terminal, and necessary for debugging network problems) was confined to an IBM customer engineering manual. Note to apprec...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Core Wars => n. A game between `assembler' programs in a simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's program by overwriting it. Popularized by A. K. Dewdney's column in `Scientific American' magazine, this was actually devised b...
Core Wars2 => and Dennis Ritchie in the early 1960s (their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on a PDP-1 at Bell Labs). See core.
corge => /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by the GOSMACS documentation. See grault.
cosmic rays => n. Notionally, the cause of {bit rot}. However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to handwave away any minor randomness that doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric --- I just got...
cosmic rays2 => tube, where did that come from?" "Cosmic rays, I guess." Compare sunspots, {phase of the moon}. The British seem to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also heard, because stray alpha particles passing through a me...
cosmic rays3 => errors (this becomes increasingly more likely as memory sizes and densities increase). Factual note Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not (except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not explain random bit dr...
cosmic rays4 => hypothesis was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe, using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis was that if cosmic rays were cau...
cosmic rays5 => a statistically significant difference between the error rates on the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due to alpha particle emissions from tho...
cosmic rays6 => uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvio...
cosmic rays7 => to withstand these hits.
cough and die => v. Syn. barf. Connotes that the program is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."
cowboy => [Sun, from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF] n. Synonym for hacker. It is reported that at Sun this word is often said with reverence.
CP/M => /C-P-M/ n. [Control Program for Microcomputers] An early microcomputer OS written by hacker Gary Kildall for 8080- and Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 198...
CPU Wars => /C-P-U worz/ n. A 1979 large-format comic by Chas Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers). This r...
CPU Wars2 => many references to ADVENT and the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!" (uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). It is alleged that the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM company station...
CPU Wars3 => J. Watson Research Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See {eat flaming death}.
cracker => n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of hacker (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense around 1981--82 on USENET was largely a failure.
crank => [from automotive slang] vt. Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 megaflops, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorized operations."
crash => 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the system (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk drives. "Three lusers lost their files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that involves the read/write heads dropping o...
crash and burn => vi.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and many subsequent imitators. Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are ...
crash and burn2 => The construction `crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer used exclusively for alpha or beta testing, or reproducing bugs (i.e., not for development). The implication is that it wouldn't be such a disaster if that machin...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
cretin => /kret'n/ or /kree'tn/ n. Congenital loser; an obnoxious person; someone who can't do anything right. It has been observed that many American hackers tend to favor the British pronunciation /kre'tn/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is th...
cretinous => /kret'n-*s/ or /kreet'n-*s/ adj. Wrong; stupid; non-functional; very poorly designed. Also used pejoratively of people. See {dread high-bit disease} for an example. Approximate synonyms bletcherous, `bagbiting' (see bagbiter), losing, br...
crippleware => n. 1. Software that has some important functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a working version. 2. [Cambridge] Guiltware that exhorts you to donate to some charity (compare careware). 3. Hardwar...
critical mass => n. In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction. Of a software product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one bug introduces one plus epsilon bugs. When software ach...
critical mass2 => be discarded and rewritten.
crlf => /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR) followed by a line feed (LF). More loosely, whatever it takes to get you from the end of one line of text to the beginning of the next line. S...
crock => [from the obvious mainstream scatologism] n. 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. Using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, U...
cross-post => [USENET] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting the article repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it multiple times (this is very bad form). Gratuitous cros...
crudware => /kruhd'weir/ n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of megabytes of low-quality freeware circulated by user's groups and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet *another* set of disk catalog utilities for {MS-DOS}? What crudware!"
cruft => /kruhft/ [back-formation from crufty] 1. n. An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a broom only produces more. 2. n. The results of shoddy constructi...
cruft together => vt. (also `cruft up') To throw together something ugly but temporarily workable. Like vt. {kluge up}, but more pejorative. "There isn't any program now to reverse all the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one together in abo...
cruft together2 => together}, {hack up}, {kluge up}, crufty.
cruftsmanship => /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from cruft] The antithesis of craftsmanship.
crufty => /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or `cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The canonical example is "This is standard old crufty DEC software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of `crufty' holds tha...
crumb => n. Two binary digits; a quad. Larger than a bit, smaller than a nybble. Considered silly. Syn. tayste.
crunch => 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000. "...
cruncha cruncha cruncha => /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj. An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a serious grovel. Also describes a notional sound made by groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, grind (sense 3).
cryppie => /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer. One who hacks or implements cryptographic software or hardware.
CTSS => /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing operating systems, ancestral to {Multics}, {UNIX}, and {ITS}. The name {ITS} (Incompatible Time-sharing System) was a hack on CT...
CTY => /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [MIT] The terminal physically associated with a computer's system {console}. The term is a contraction of `Console tty', that is, `Console TeleTYpe'. This {ITS}- and {TOPS-10}-associated term has become less common, as m...
cube => n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the manuals in my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Death Star3 => incorrectly done AT&T logo in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light --- a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.
DEC Wars => n. A 1983 USENET posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some years later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-lon...
DEC Wars2 => WARS"; the two are often confused.
DEChead => /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}. Not flattering. 2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.
deckle => /dek'l/ [from dec- and nickle] n. Two nickles; 10 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM.
deep hack mode => n. See {hack mode}.
deep magic => [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one not generally published and available to hackers at large (compare {black art}); one that could only have been composed ...
deep magic2 => optimization techniques and many aspects of OS design used to be {deep magic}; many techniques in cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are. Compare {heavy wizardry}. Esp. found in comments of the form "Deep magic beg...
deep space => n. 1. Describes the notional location of any program that has gone {off the trolley}. Esp. used of programs that just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some output is expected. "Uh oh. I should have gotten a promp...
deep space2 => in deep space somewhere." Compare buzz, catatonic, hyperspace. 2. The metaphorical location of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form of bogosity that he or she no longer responds coherently to normal commu...
defenestration => [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" 2. The act of exiting a...
defined as => adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart sense. "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer." Compare logical.
dehose => /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a hosed condition.
delint => /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected when linting.
delta => n. 1. [techspeak] A quantitative change, especially a small or incremental one (this use is general in physics and engineering). "I just doubled the speed of my program!" "What was the delta on program size?" "About 30 percent." (He doubled ...
demented => adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a program. The connotation in this case is that the program works as designed, but the design is bad. Said, for example, of a program that generates large numbers of meaningless error mess...
demigod => n. A hacker with years of experience, a national reputation, and a major role in the development of at least one design, tool, or game used by or known to more than half of the hacker community. To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person ...
demo => /de'moh/ [short for `demonstration'] 1. v. To demonstrate a product or prototype. A far more effective way of inducing bugs to manifest than any number of test runs, especially when important people are watching. 2. n. The act of demoing.
demo mode => [Sun] n. 1. The state of being {heads down} in order to finish code in time for a demo, usually due yesterday. 2. A mode in which video games sit there by themselves running through a portion of the game, also known as `attract mode'. So...
demo mode2 => they use as a screen saver, or may go through a demo mode on startup (for example, the Microsoft Windows opening screen --- which lets you impress your neighbors without actually having to put up with {Microsloth Windows}).
demon => n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program that is not invoked explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. See daemon. The distinction is that demons are usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually pro...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
filk => /filk/ [from SF fandom, where a typo for `folk' was adopted as a new word] n.,v. A `filk' is a popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read and/or to be sung late at night at SF con...
film at 11 => [MIT in parody of TV newscasters] Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering. "{ITS} crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."
filter => [orig. {UNIX}, now also in {MS-DOS}] n. A program that processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to be used as a st...
Finagle's Law => n. The generalized or `folk' version of {Murphy's Law}, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe te...
Finagle's Law2 => {Hanlon's Razor}). The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this `Belter' culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the w...
Finagle's Law3 => his mad prophet Murphy.
fine => [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be cuspy. The word `fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison to the higher level implied by cuspy.
finger => [WAITS, via BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line, and terminal location (where applicable). May ...
finger-pointing syndrome => n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp. in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger...
firebottle => n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass, metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability, high-temperature operation, and high p...
firefighting => n. 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires." 2. The act of t...
firewall code => n. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since users always want to be able to do everything but never want to suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a firewall ...
firewall code2 => coding but also of interface presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those corners of a system where they can burn themselves.
firewall machine => n. A dedicated gateway machine with special security precautions on it, used to service outside network connections and dial-in lines. The idea is to protect a cluster of more loosely administered machines hidden behind it from cr...
firewall machine2 => an inexpensive micro-based UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and public network ports on it but just one carefully watched connection back to the rest of the cluster. The special precautions may include...
firewall machine3 => even a complete {iron box} keyable to particular incoming IDs or activity patterns. Syn. flytrap, {Venus flytrap}.
fireworks mode => n. The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when it is performing a {crash and burn} operation.
firmy => /fer'mee/ Syn. stiffy (a 3.5-inch floppy disk).
fish => [Adelaide University, Australia] n. 1. Another metasyntactic variable. See foo. Derived originally from the Monty Python skit in the middle of "The Meaning of Life" entitled "Find the Fish". 2. A pun for `microfiche'. A microfiche file cabine...
FISH queue => [acronym, by analogy with FIFO (First In, First Out)] n. `First In, Still Here'. A joking way of pointing out that processing of a particular sequence of events or requests has stopped dead. Also `FISH mode' and `FISHnet'; the latter ma...
FISH queue2 => running really slowly or exhibiting extreme flakiness.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
fuzzball => [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a particular suite of homebrewed software written by Dave Mills and assorted co-conspirators, used in the early 1980s for Internet protocol testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFne...
gabriel => /gay'bree-*l/ [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL LISP hacker and volleyball fanatic] n. An unnecessary (in the opinion of the opponent) stalling tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or combing one's hair repeatedly, asking the time, etc. Also used to ...
gag => vi. Equivalent to choke, but connotes more disgust. "Hey, this is FORTRAN code. No wonder the C compiler gagged." See also barf.
gang bang => n. The use of large numbers of loosely coupled programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a product in a short time. Though there have been memorable gang bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in ...
gang bang2 => perpetrated by large companies trying to meet deadlines and produce enormous buggy masses of code entirely lacking in orthogonality. When market-driven managers make a list of all the features the competition has and assign one programm...
gang bang3 => miss the importance of maintaining a coherent design. See also firefighting, {Mongolian Hordes technique}, {Conway's Law}.
garbage collect => vi. (also `garbage collection', n.) See GC.
garply => /gar'plee/ [Stanford] n. Another meta-syntactic variable (see foo); once popular among SAIL hackers.
gas => [as in `gas chamber'] 1. interj. A term of disgust and hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some loser just reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2. interj. A...
gaseous => adj. Deserving of being gassed. Disseminated by Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had supported P...
GC => /G-C/ [from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect'] 1. vt. To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today." When said of files, this is equivalent to GFR. 2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use. 3. ...
GCOS => /jee'kohs/ n. A quick-and-dirty clone of System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). Later kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction processing....
GECOS => /jee'kohs/ n. See {GCOS}.
gedanken => /g*-don'kn/ adj. Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested. `Gedanken' is a German word for `thought'. A thought experiment is one you carry out in your head. In physics, the term `gedanken experiment' is used to re...
geef => v. [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken'] vt. Syn. mung. See also blinkenlights.
geek out => vi. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer equipment. Especially used when you need to do something highly technical and don't have time to explain "Pardon me while ...
gen => /jen/ n.,v. Short for generate, used frequently in both spoken and written contexts.
gender mender => n. A cable connector shell with either two male or two female connectors on it, used to correct the mismatches that result when some loser didn't understand the RS232C specification and the distinction between DTE and DCE. Used esp. ...
gender mender2 => original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format. Also called `gender bender', `gender blender', `sex changer', and even `homosexual adapter'; however, there appears to be some confusion as to whether a `male homosexual adapter' has p...
gender mender3 => on both sides (connects two males).
General Public Virus => n. Pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or apps incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same counter-commercial te...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
ha ha only serious3 => ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in {larval stage}. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See al...
hack => 1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well. 2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed. 3. vt. To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack t...
hack attack => [poss. by analogy with `Big Mac Attack' from ads for the McDonald's fast-food chain; the variant `big hack attack' is reported] n. Nearly synonymous with {hacking run}, though the latter more strongly implies an all-nighter.
hack mode => n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2. More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem that may be achieved when one is hacking (this is why every good hacker is part mystic). Ability to enter such concentrati...
hack mode2 => wizardliness; it is one of the most important skills learned during {larval stage}. Sometimes amplified as `deep hack mode'. Being yanked out of hack mode (see {priority interrupt}) may be experienced as a physical shock, and the sensat...
hack mode3 => little habituating. The intensity of this experience is probably by itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, and explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they can code. See also cyberspace (sense...
hack mode4 => etiquette will appear quite odd to an observer unaware of the high value placed on hack mode. For example, if someone appears at your door, it is perfectly okay to hold up a hand (without turning one's eyes away from the screen) to avoi...
hack mode5 => type, and interact with the computer for quite some time before further acknowledging the other's presence (of course, he or she is reciprocally free to leave without a word). The understanding is that you might be in {hack mode} with a...
hack mode6 => your head, and you dare not swap that context out until you have reached a good point to pause. See also {juggling eggs}.
hack on => vt. To hack; implies that the subject is some pre-existing hunk of code that one is evolving, as opposed to something one might {hack up}.
hack together => vt. To throw something together so it will work. Unlike `kluge together' or {cruft together}, this does not necessarily have negative connotations.
hack up => vt. To hack, but generally implies that the result is a hack in sense 1 (a quick hack). Contrast this with {hack on}. To `hack up on' implies a quick-and-dirty modification to an existing system. Contrast {hacked up}; compare {kluge up}, {...
hack value => n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which we...
hack value2 => See {display hack} for one method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained. As a great artist once said of jazz "If you hafta ask, you ain't never goin' to find out."
hack-and-slay => v. (also `hack-and-slash') 1. To play a MUD or go mudding, especially with the intention of berserking for pleasure. 2. To undertake an all-night programming/hacking session, interspersed with stints of mudding as a change of pace. T...
hacked off => [analogous to `pissed off'] adj. Said of system administrators who have become annoyed, upset, or touchy owing to suspicions that their sites have been or are going to be victimized by crackers, or used for inappropriate, technically il...
hacked off2 => activities. For example, having unreadable files in your home directory called `worm', `lockpick', or `goroot' would probably be an effective (as well as impressively obvious and stupid) way to get your sysadmin hacked off at you.
hacked up => adj. Sufficiently patched, kluged, and tweaked that the surgical scars are beginning to crowd out normal tissue (compare {critical mass}). Not all programs that are hacked become `hacked up'; if modifications are done with some eye to co...
hacked up2 => maintainability, the software may emerge better for the experience. Contrast {hack up}.
hacker => [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2...
hacking run => [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run'] n. A hack session extended long outside normal working times, especially one longer than 12 hours. May cause you to `change phase the hard way' (see phase).
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
hard boot => n. See boot.
hardcoded => adj. 1. Said of data inserted directly into a program, where it cannot be easily modified, as opposed to data in some profile, resource (see de-rezz sense 2), or environment variable that a user or hacker can easily modify. 2. In C, this...
hardwarily => /hard-weir'*-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to hardware. "The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective `hardwary' is *not* traditionally used, though it has recently been reported from the U.K. See softwarily.
hardwired => adj. 1. In software, syn. for hardcoded. 2. By extension, anything that is not modifiable, especially in the sense of customizable to one's particular needs or tastes.
has the X nature => [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"] adj. Common hacker construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis. "Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded...
has the X nature2 => nature!" See also {the X that can be Y is not the true X}.
hash bucket => n. A notional receptacle into which more than one thing accessed by the same key or short code might be dropped. When you look up a name in the phone book (for example), you typically hash it by extracting its first letter; the hash bu...
hash bucket2 => letter sections. This is used as techspeak with respect to code that uses actual hash functions; in jargon, it is used for human associative memory as well. Thus, two things `in the same hash bucket' may be confused with each other. "...
hash bucket3 => length, you get too many common grammar words in the first couple of hash buckets." Compare {hash collision}.
hash collision => [from the technical usage] n. (var. `hash clash') When used of people, signifies a confusion in associative memory or imagination, especially a persistent one (see thinko). True story One of us [ESR] was once on the phone with a fri...
hash collision2 => When asked what he expected Berkeley to be like, the friend replied "Well, I have this mental picture of naked women throwing Molotov cocktails, but I think that's just a collision in my hash tables." Compare {hash bucket}.
hat => n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`^', ASCII 1011110) character. See ASCII for other synonyms.
HCF => /H-C-F/ n. Mnemonic for `Halt and Catch Fire', any of several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on several well-known architectures going as far back as the...
heads down => [Sun] adj. Concentrating, usually so heavily and for so long that everything outside the focus area is missed. See also {hack mode} and {larval stage}, although it is not confined to fledgling hackers.
heartbeat => n. 1. The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the collision-detection circuit is still connected. 2. A periodic synchronization signal used by software or hardware, such as a bus clock...
heavy metal => [Cambridge] n. Syn. {big iron}.
heavy wizardry => n. Code or designs that trade on a particularly intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system or language or complex application interface. Distinguished from {deep magic}, which trades more on arcane *theoretica...
heavy wizardry2 => drivers is heavy wizardry; so is interfacing to X (sense 2) without a toolkit. Esp. found in comments similar to "Heavy wizardry begins here ...". Compare {voodoo programming}.
heavyweight => adj. High-overhead; baroque; code-intensive; featureful, but costly. Esp. used of communication protocols, language designs, and any sort of implementation in which maximum generality and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at th...
heisenbug => /hi'zen-buhg/ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in quantum physics] n. A bug that disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. Antonym of {Bohr bug}; see also mandelbug. In C, nine out of ten heisenb...
Helen Keller mode => n. State of a hardware or software system that is deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e., accepting no input and generating no output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion into {deep space}. (Unfair to the real Helen Kell...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
lion food3 => office and ate a manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"Lions Book n. `Source Code and Commentary on UNIX level 6', by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained (1) the entire source listing of the UNIX Version 6 kernel, and (2)...
lion food4 => discussing the algorithms. These were circulated internally at the University of New South Wales beginning 1976--77, and were for years after the *only* detailed kernel documentation available to anyone outside Bell Labs. Because Wester...
lion food5 => secret status on the kernel, the Lions book was never formally published and was only supposed to be distributed to affiliates of source licensees. In spite of this, it soon spread by samizdat to a good many of the early UNIX hackers.
LISP => [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from `Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] n. The name of AI's mother tongue, a language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the...
literature, the => n. Computer-science journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the speaker believes is trivial. Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose Knuth, which...
little-endian => adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel micropro...
live data => n. 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break security. For example, some smart terminals have commands that al...
live data2 => program keys; this can be used to write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a security-breaking virus that is triggered the next time a hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some well-known bugs ...
live data3 => send arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed. 2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function hooks (executable code). 3. An object, such as a trampoline, that is constructed on the fly by a program and ...
live data4 => code. 4. Actual real-world data, as opposed to `test data'. For example, "I think I have the record deletion module finished." "Have you tried it out on live data?" It usually carries the connotation that live data is more fragile and m...
live data5 => things will happen. So a possible alternate response to the above claim might be "Well, make sure it works perfectly before we throw live data at it." The implication here is that record deletion is something pretty significant, and a h...
live data6 => running amok on live data would cause great harm and probably require restoring from backups.
Live Free Or Die! => imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A slogan associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilt...
Live Free Or Die!2 => industry. The "free" referred specifically to freedom from the fascist design philosophies and crufty misfeatures common on commercial operating systems. Armando Stettner, one of the early UNIX developers, used to give out fake ...
Live Free Or Die!3 => under a large UNIX, all in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued collector's items.
livelock => /liv'lok/ n. A situation in which some critical stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but before it can clear its queue. Differs from deadlock in th...
liveware => /liv'weir/ n. 1. Synonym for wetware. Less common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my salad..."
lobotomy => n. 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of removing the p...
locked and loaded => [from military slang for an M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] adj. Said of a removable disk volume properly prepared for use --- that is, locked into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, becau...
locked and loaded2 => the power is up, this description is never used of {Winchester} drives (which are named after a rifle).
locked up => adj. Syn. for hung, wedged.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
lose => [MIT] vi. 1. To fail. A program loses when it encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the expected manner. 2. To be exceptionally unesthetic or crocky. 3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to ignorant)...
lose 2 => 4. n. Refers to something that is losing, especially in the phrases "That's a lose!" and "What a lose!"
lose lose => interj. A reply to or comment on an undesirable situation. "I accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose, lose."
loser => n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even winners can lose occasionally.) Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows not. Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total loser', and ...
losing => adj. Said of anything that is or causes a lose or lossage.
loss => n. Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in which something is losing. Emphatic forms include `moby loss', and `total loss', `complete loss'. Common interjections are "What a loss!" and "What a moby loss!" Note that `moby loss' is ...
lossage => /los'*j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction. This is a mass or collective noun. "What a loss!" and "What lossage!" are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter implies ...
lost in the noise => adj. Syn. {lost in the underflow}. This term is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system. Though popular among hackers, it is not confined to hackerd...
lost in the noise2 => astronomers, and statisticians all use it.
lost in the underflow => adj. Too small to be worth considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or measurement. This is a reference to `floating underflow', a condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic processor...
lost in the underflow2 => than its limit of magnitude. It is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers). "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the p...
lost in the underflow3 => effect gets lost in the underflow." See also {overflow bit}.
lots of MIPS but no I/O => adj. Used to describe a person who is technically brilliant but can't seem to communicate with human beings effectively. Technically it describes a machine that has lots of processing power but is bottlenecked on input-outp...
lots of MIPS but no I/O2 => RS/6000, is a notorious recent example).
low-bandwidth => [from communication theory] adj. Used to indicate a talk that, although not content-free, was not terribly informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you expect for an audience of suits!" Compare zero-content, bandwidt...
LPT => /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ [MIT, via DEC] n. Line printer, of course. Rare under UNIX, commoner in hackers with MS-DOS or CP/M background. The printer device is called `LPT' on those systems that, like ITS, were strongly influenced by ea...
lunatic fringe => [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of software.
lurker => n. One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively "Oh, I'm just lurking."...
luser => /loo'zr/ n. A user; esp. one who is also a loser. (luser and loser are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT. Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's atten...
macdink => /mak'dink/ [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to encourage such behavior] vt. To make many incremental and unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Often the subject of the macdinking would be better off without them. "When...
machinable => adj. Machine-readable. Having the softcopy nature.
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
nickle => /ni'kl/ [from `nickel', common name for the U.S. 5-cent coin] n. A nybble + 1; 5 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. See also deckle.
night mode => n. See phase (of people).
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...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
science-fiction fandom => n. Another voluntary subculture having a very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or are involved in fandom-connected activities such as th...
science-fiction fandom2 => Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom; see defenestration, great-wall, cyberpunk, h, {ha ha only serious}, IMHO, mundane, neep-neep, {Real Soon Now}. Additionally, the jargon terms cowboy, cyberspace, de-rezz, {go flat...
science-fiction fandom3 => virus, wetware, wirehead, and worm originated in SF stories.
scram switch => [from the nuclear power industry] n. An emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general, this is *not* something you frob lightly; these often initiate expens...
scram switch2 => and are installed in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across himself while {Easter egging}.
scratch => 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or temporary-use purposes; one that can be scribbled on without loss. Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory', `scratch re...
scratch monkey => n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky...
scratch monkey2 => precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed. This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto ca. 1986. Mabel was not (so the leg...
scratch monkey3 => university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when DEC PMed the PDP-11 contr...
scratch monkey4 => {provocative maintainance}). It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible and aske...
scratch monkey5 => all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society. The moral is clear When in doubt, always mount a...
screw => [MIT] n. A lose, usually in software. Especially used for user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. This use has become quite widespread outside MIT.
screwage => /skroo'*j/ n. Like lossage but connotes that the failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple inadequacy or a mere bug.
scribble => n. To modify a data structure in a random and unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node table." "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines scribbled...
scrog => /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of Id". Equivalent to scribble or mangle.
scrool => /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get back in synch with the conversation. It was origin...
scrozzle => /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data. "The damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"
SCSI => [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and intelligent devices. Typically annotated in literature with `sexy' (/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/skuh'zee/) ...
search-and-destroy mode => n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen match pattern can cause infinite damage.
second-system effect => n. (sometimes, more euphoniously, `second-system syndrome') When one is designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an elep...
second-system effect2 => The term was first used by Fred Brooks in his classic `The Mythical Man-Month Essays on Software Engineering' (Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN 0-201-00650-2). It described the jump from a set of nice, simple operating systems on t...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
social science number2 => considerably worse. Management loves them. See also numbers, math-out, {pretty pictures}.
soft boot => n. See boot.
softcopy => /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy. See bits, machinable.
software bloat => n. The results of {second-system effect} or {creeping featuritis}. Commonly cited examples include `ls(1)', X, BSD, Missed'em-five, and OS/2.
software rot => n. Term used to describe the tendency of software that has not been used in a while to lose; such failure may be semi-humorously ascribed to {bit rot}. More commonly, `software rot' strikes when a program's assumptions become out of d...
software rot2 => insufficiently robust, this may cause it to fail in mysterious ways. For example, owing to endemic shortsightedness in the design of COBOL programs, most will succumb to software rot when their 2-digit year counters {wrap around} at ...
software rot3 => Actually, related lossages often afflict centenarians who have to deal with computer software designed by unimaginative clods. One such incident became the focus of a minor public flap in 1990, when a gentleman born in 1889 applied f...
software rot4 => Raleigh, North Carolina. The new system refused to issue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the ages 101 and 1 cannot be distinguished. Historical note Software rot in an even funnier sense than the mythical one was a real...
software rot5 => (e.g., the R1; see {grind crank}). If a program that depended on a peculiar instruction hadn't been run in quite a while, the user might discover that the opcodes no longer did the same things they once did. ("Hey, so-and-so needs an...
software rot6 => We can snarf this opcode, right? No one uses it.") Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIT hacker found a simple way to double the speed of the unconditional jump instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched the hardware...
software rot7 => fragile timing software in a music-playing program, throwing its output out of tune. This was fixed by adding a defensive initialization routine to compare the speed of a timing loop with the real-time clock; in other words, it figur...
software rot8 => day, and corrected appropriately. Compare {bit rot}.
softwarily => /soft-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to software. "The system is softwarily unreliable." The adjective `softwary' is *not* used. See hardwarily.
softy => [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.
some random X => adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the implication that Xs are interchangeable. "I think some random cracker tripped over the guest timeout last night." See also {J. Random}.
sorcerer's apprentice mode => [from the film "Fantasia"] n. A bug in a protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message causes multiple messages to be sent, each of which, when received, triggers the same bug. Used esp. of such beha...
sorcerer's apprentice mode2 => loops in email software. Compare {broadcast storm}, {network meltdown}.
SOS => n.,obs. /S-O-S/ 1. An infamously losing text editor. Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a quick-and-dirty `stopgap editor' to be used until a better one was written. Unfortunately, t...
source of all good bits => n. A person from whom (or a place from which) useful information may be obtained. If you need to know about a program, a guru might be the source of all good bits. The title is often applied to a particularly competent secr...
space-cadet keyboard => n. The Knight keyboard, a now-legendary device used on MIT LISP machines, which inspired several still-current jargon terms and influenced the design of EMACS. It was inspired by the Stanford keyboard and equipped with no fewe...
space-cadet keyboard2 => keys for {bucky bits} (`control', `meta', `hyper', and `super') and three like regular shift keys, called `shift', `top', and `front'. Many keys had three symbols on them a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter o...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
twiddle => n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, `~). Also called `squiggle, `sqiggle (sic --- pronounced /skigl/), and `twaddle, but twiddle is the most common term. 2. A small and insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes one bug and generates several...
twink => /twink/ [UCSC] n. Equivalent to {read-only user}. Also reported on the USENET group soc.motss; may derive from gay slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs.
two pi => quant. The number of years it takes to finish ones thesis. Occurs in stories in the following form "He started on his thesis; 2 pi years later..."
two-to-the-N => quant. An amount much larger than N but smaller than infinity. "I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can go out for lunch" means you probably wont show up.
twonkie => /twonkee/ n. The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang) the male equivalent of `chick); a useless `feature added to look sexy and placate a marketroid (compare {Saturday-night special}). Th...
UN*X => n. Used to refer to the UNIX operating system (a trademark of AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly (TM) typography. Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating systems. Ironically, lawyers now say (1990) th...
undefined external reference => excl. [UNIX] A message from UNIX's linker. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references in an argument or discussion.
under the hood => prep. [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enabl...
under the hood2 => now look under the hood to see how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much simpler than the appearance would indicate "Under the hood, we are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in "Under the hood,...
undocumented feature => n. See feature.
uninteresting => adj. 1. Said of a problem that, although nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and code....
UNIX => /yoo'niks/ [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on Multics"] n. (also `Unix') An interactive time-sharing system originally invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his sca...
UNIX brain damage => n. Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-UNIX system so that it will interoperate with UNIX systems. The hack may qualify as `UNIX brain damage' if the program conforms to publishe...
UNIX brain damage2 => question does not. UNIX brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of UNIX systems out the...
UNIX brain damage3 => is a kluge in a mail server to recognize bare line feed (the UNIX newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened jock wee...
UNIX conspiracy => [ITS] n. According to a conspiracy theory long popular among {ITS} and {TOPS-20} fans, UNIX's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them depen...
UNIX conspiracy2 => evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing...
UNIX conspiracy3 => was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the {back door} entry. In this view, UNIX was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see virus) --- but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people ...
UNIX conspiracy4 => directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this `UNIX virus' theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "UNIX is snake oil" was uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promot...
UNIX conspiracy5 => workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
UNIX weenie => [ITS] n. 1. A derogatory play on `UNIX wizard', common among hackers who use UNIX by necessity but would prefer alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question may consider mastery of UNIX arcana to be a wizardly ...
UNIX weenie2 => is the ability to tolerate (and the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is alleged to infest many UNIX programs. "This shell script tries to parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must have bee...
UNIX weenie3 => 2. A derogatory term for anyone who engages in uncritical praise of UNIX. Often appearing in the context "stupid UNIX weenie". See Weenix, {UNIX conspiracy}. See also weenie.
unixism => n. A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory UNIX systems. Common unixisms include gratuitous use of `fork(2)'; th...
unswizzle => v. See swizzle.
unwind the stack => vi. 1. [techspeak] During the execution of a procedural language, one is said to `unwind the stack' from a called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame and any number of frames above it, popping back up to the...
unwind the stack2 => this is done with `longjmp'/`setjmp', in LISP with `throw/catch'. See also {smash the stack}. 2. People can unwind the stack as well, by quickly dealing with a bunch of problems "Oh heck, let's do lunch. Just a second while I unw...
unwind-protect => [MIT from the name of a LISP operator] n. A task you must remember to perform before you leave a place or finish a project. "I have an unwind-protect to call my advisor."
up => adj. 1. Working, in order. "The down escalator is up." Oppose down. 2. `bring up' vt. To create a working version and start it. "They brought up a down system." 3. `come up' vi. To become ready for production use.
upload => /uhp'lohd/ v. 1. [techspeak] To transfer programs or data over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral `client' system to a larger or central `host' one. A transfer in the other direction is, of course, called a download ...
upthread => adv. Earlier in the discussion (see thread), i.e., `above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..." See also followup.
urchin => n. See munchkin.
USENET => /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ [from `Users' Network'] n. A distributed bboard (bulletin board) system supported mainly by UNIX machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke Uni...
user => n. 1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using it as a means rather than an end. Someone who pays to use a computer. See {real user}. 2. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks silly questions. [GLS observe...
user-friendly => adj. Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and knowledgeable to get any work done. See menuit...
user-obsequious => adj. Emphatic form of user-friendly. Connotes a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded that it is nearly unusable. "Design a system any fool can use and only a fool will want to use it." See {WIMP environment...
USG UNIX => /U-S-G yoo'niks/ n. Refers to AT&T UNIX commercial versions after {Version 7}, especially System III and System V releases 1, 2, and 3. So called because during most of the life-span of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the `U...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
vulture capitalist2 => Fudd's immortal line "You wascawwy wabbit!"] n. 1. A legendary early hack reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978. The program would make two copies of itself every time it was run, eventually crashing the sys...
vulture capitalist3 => includes infinite self-replication but is not a virus or worm. See also {cookie monster}.
WAITS => /wayts/ n. The mutant cousin of {TOPS-10} used on a handful of systems at {SAIL} up to 1990. There was never an `official' expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glosse...
waldo => /wol'doh/ [From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"] 1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb. When these were developed for the nuclear industry in the mid-1940s they were named after the invention described b...
walk => n.,vt. Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or linked-list data structure in core. See also codewalker, {silly walk}, clobber.
walk off the end of => vt. To run past the end of an array, list, or medium after stepping through it --- a good way to land in trouble. Often the result of an {off-by-one error}. Compare clobber, roach, {smash the stack}.
walking drives => n. An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky {washing machine}s. Those old dinosaur parts carried terrific angular momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or worn beari...
walking drives2 => with the floor could cause them to `walk' across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a couple of millimeters at a time. There is a legend about a drive that walked over to the only door to the computer room and jammed it shu...
walking drives3 => wall in order to get at it! Walking could also be induced by certain patterns of drive access (a fast seek across the whole width of the disk, followed by a slow seek in the other direction). Some bands of old-time hackers figured ...
walking drives4 => patterns that would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive races.
wall => [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone "Wall??" 2. A request for further explication. Compare {octal forty}. It is said that "Wall?" really came from `like talking to a blank wall'. It was initially ...
wall follower => n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily pejorativ...
wall follower2 => the winning robot in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and running till it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was mathemati...
wall follower3 => simply-connected mazes --- and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to `learn' each maze by building an internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term *is* pejorative and implies an uncreative,...
wall follower4 => See also {code grinder}, droid.
wall time => n. (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world' time (what the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea of time. 2. The real running time of a program, as opposed to the number of clocks required to execute it (on a ti...
wall time2 => differ, as no one program gets all the clocks, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support one may get more processor clocks than real-time clocks).
wallpaper => n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as...
wango => /wang'goh/ n. Random bit-level grovelling going on in a system during some unspecified operation. Often used in combination with mumble. For example "You start with the `.o' file, run it through this postprocessor that does mumble-wango --- ...
wank => /wangk/ [Columbia University prob. by mutation from Commonwealth slang v. `wank', to masturbate] n.,v. Used much as hack is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever technique or person or the result of such cleverness. May describe (negatively)...
wannabee => /won'*-bee/ (also, more plausibly, spelled `wannabe') [from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol; prob. originally from biker slang] n. A would-be hacker. The connotations of this term dif...
factpacks/jargon.fact view on Meta::CPAN
zorch => /zorch/ 1. [TMRC] v. To attack with an inverse heat sink. 2. [TMRC] v. To travel, with v approaching c [that is, with velocity approaching lightspeed --- ESR]. 3. [MIT] v. To propel something very quickly. "The new comm software is very fast...
Zork => /zork/ n. The second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming; see ADVENT. Originally written on MIT-DM during the late 1970s, later distributed with BSD UNIX and commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by Infocom.
zorkmid => /zork'mid/ n. The canonical unit of currency in hacker-written games. This originated in zork but has spread to nethack and is referred to in several other games.= [^A-Za-z] (see regexp) =
'Snooze => /snooz/ [FidoNet] n. Fidonews, the weekly official on-line newsletter of FidoNet. As the editorial policy of Fidonews is "anything that arrives, we print", there are often large articles completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend ...
(TM) => // [USENET] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes used ironically as a form of protest against the...
-oid => [from `android'] suff. 1. This suffix is used as in mainstream English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily use it with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wo...
-ware => [from `software'] suff. Commonly used to form jargon terms for classes of software. For examples, see careware, crippleware, crudware, freeware, fritterware, guiltware, liveware, meatware, payware, psychedelicware, shareware, shelfware, vapo...
/dev/null => /dev-nuhl/ [from the UNIX null device, used as a data sink] n. A notional `black hole' in any information space being discussed, used, or referred to. A controversial posting, for example, might end "Kudos to rasputin@kremlin.org, flames...
120 reset => /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ [from 120 volts, U.S. wall voltage] n. To cycle power on a machine in order to reset or unjam it. Compare {Big Red Switch}, {power cycle}.
2 => infix. In translation software written by hackers, infix 2 often represents the syllable *to* with the connotation `translate to' as in dvi2ps (DVI to PostScript), int2string (integer to string), and texi2roff (Texinfo to [nt]roff).
@-party => /at'par`tee/ [from the @-sign in an Internet address] n. (alt. `@-sign party' /at'sin par`tee/) A semi-closed party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp. the annual Worldcon); one must have a {network address} to get in,...
@Begin => // See \begin.
\begin => // [from the LaTeX command] With \end, used humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. For example \beginflame Predicate logic is the only good programming language. Anyone who would use anything else i...
factpacks/old_test_meanings.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Harbonah => his destruction; his sword
Hareph => winter; reproach
Harhas => anger; heat of confidence
Harhaiah => heat, or anger, of the Lord
Harhur => made warm
Harim => destroyed; dedicated to God
Harnepher => the anger of a bull; increasing heat
Harod => astonishment; fear
Harosheth => a forest; agriculture; workmanship; deafness; silence
Harsha => workmanship; a wood
Harum => high; throwing down
Harumaph => destruction
Haruphite => slender; sharp
Haruz => careful
Hasadiah => the mercy of the Lord
Hashabiah => the estimation of the Lord
Hashabnah => Hashabniah, the silence of the Lord
Hashem => named; a putting to
Hashub => esteemed; numbered
Hashubah => estimation; thought
Hashum => silence; their hasting
factpacks/old_test_meanings.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Janum => sleeping
Japhet => enlarged; fair; persuading
Japhia => enlightening; appearing
Japhlet => Japhleti, delivered; banished
Japho => fairness; comeliness
Jarah => a wood; honeycomb; watching closely
Jareb => a revenger
Jared => a ruling; commanding; coming down
Jaresiah => the bed of the Lord; the Lord hath taken away; poverty
Jarib => fighting; chiding; multiplying; avenging
Jarmuth => fearing, or seeing, or throwing down, death
Jarvah => breathing, or making, a sweet smell
Jashem => Jashen, ancient; sleeping
Jasher => righteous; upright
Jashobeam => the people sitting; or captivity of the people
Jashub => a returning; a controversy; a dwelling place
Jasiel => the strength of God
Jason => he that cures
Jathniel => gift of God
Jattir => a remnant; excellent
Javan => deceiver; one who makes sad
factpacks/old_test_meanings.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Jekabzeel => the congregation of God
Jekamean => the people shall arise
Jekamiah => establishing , or revenging , of the Lord
Jekuthiel => hope , or congregation , of the Lord
Jemima => handsome as the day
Jemuel => God's day; son of God
Jephunneh => he that beholds
Jerah => the moon; month; smelling sweet
Jerahmeel => the mercy , or the beloved , of God
Jered => ruling; coming down
Jeremai => my height; throwing forth waters
Jeremiah => exaltation of the Lord
Jeremoth => eminences; one that fears death
Jeriah => fear , or throwing down , of the Lord
Jerebai => fighting; chiding; multiplying
Jericho => his moon; his month; his sweet smell
Jeriel => fear , or vision of God
Jerijah => same as Jeriah
Jerimoth => he that fears or rejects death
Jerioth => kettles; breaking asunder
Jeroboam => he that opposes the people
Jeroham => high; merciful; beloved
Jerubbaal => he that defends Baal , let Baal defend his cause
Jerubbesheth => let the idol of confusion defend itself
factpacks/old_test_meanings.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Punites => beholding; my face
Punon => precious stone; that beholds
Pur => Purim, lot
Putiel => God is my fatness
Puteoli => sulphureous wells
Quartus => fourth
Raamah => greatness; thunder; some sort of evil
Raamiah => thunder , or evil , from the Lord
Rabbah => great; powerful; contentious
Rabbi => Rabboni , my master
Rabmag => who overthrows or destroys a multitude
Rab-saris => chief of the eunuchs
Rab-shakeh => cup-bearer of the prince
Raca => worthless; good-for-nothing
Rachab => same as Rahab
Rachal => to whisper; an embalmer
Rachel => sheep
Raddai => ruling; coming down
Ragau => friend; shepherd
Raguel => shepherd , or friend of God
Rahab => proud; quarrelsome (applied to Egypt)
factpacks/weather.fact view on Meta::CPAN
Alderney => EGJA located in United Kingdom. 49-43N 002-12W. Also see Channel Island
Channel Island => EGJA located in United Kingdom 49-43N. Also see Alderney
Guernsey => EGJB located in United Kingdom. 49-26N 002-36W.
Jersey => EGJJ located in United Kingdom. 49-13N 002-12W.
Shoreham => EGKA located in United Kingdom. 50-50N 000-17W.
Biggin Hill => EGKB located in United Kingdom. 51-19N 000-02E.
London => EGKK located in United Kingdom. 51-09N 000-11W. Also see Gatwick
Gatwick => EGKK located in United Kingdom 51-09N. Also see London
London City => EGLC located in United Kingdom. 51-30N 000-30W.
Farnborough => EGLF located in United Kingdom. 51-17N 000-46W.
London => EGLL located in United Kingdom. 51-29N 000-27W. Also see Heathrow
Heathrow => EGLL located in United Kingdom 51-29N. Also see London
Southend-On-Sea => EGMC located in United Kingdom. 51-34N 000-42E.
Lydd => EGMD located in United Kingdom. 50-57N 000-56E.
Carlisle => EGNC located in United Kingdom. 54-56N 002-57W.
Blackpool => EGNH located in United Kingdom. 53-46N 003-02W.
Humberside => EGNJ located in United Kingdom. 53-35N 000-21W.
Walney Island => EGNL located in United Kingdom. 54-07N 003-15W.
Leeds And Bradford => EGNM located in United Kingdom. 53-52N 001-39W.
Hawarden => EGNR located in United Kingdom. 53-10N 002-59W.
Isle Of Man => EGNS located in United Kingdom. 54-05N 004-38W. Also see Ronaldsway
Ronaldsway => EGNS located in United Kingdom 54-05N. Also see Isle Of Man
factpacks/weather2.fact view on Meta::CPAN
EGHH => Bournemouth (Bournemouth)
EGHI => Southampton / Weather Centre (Southampton)
EGJA => Alderney / Channel Island (Alderney)
EGJB => Guernsey (Guernsey)
EGJJ => Jersey (Jersey)
EGKA => Shoreham (Shoreham)
EGKB => Biggin Hill (Biggin Hill)
EGKK => London / Gatwick (London)
EGLC => London City (London City)
EGLF => Farnborough (Farnborough)
EGLL => London / Heathrow (London)
EGMC => Southend-On-Sea (Southend-On-Sea)
EGMD => Lydd (Lydd)
EGNC => Carlisle (Carlisle)
EGNH => Blackpool (Blackpool)
EGNJ => Humberside (Humberside)
EGNL => Walney Island (Walney Island)
EGNM => Leeds And Bradford (Leeds And Bradford)
EGNR => Hawarden (Hawarden)
EGNS => Isle Of Man / Ronaldsway (Isle Of Man)
EGNT => Newcastle (Newcastle)
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