[Usenet] ASCII rendition of the ™ 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 recent spate of software and algorithm patents and look and feel lawsuits. See also
diff --git a/html/0/at-party.html b/html/0/at-party.html
index 9c2263a4..202e9a2e 100644
--- a/html/0/at-party.html
+++ b/html/0/at-party.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from the @-sign in an Internet address] (alt.: ‘@-sign
party’ /atsi:n par`tee/) A
semi-closed party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp.
the annual World Science Fiction Convention or “Worldcon”);
diff --git a/html/0/code-404-compliant.html b/html/0/code-404-compliant.html
index b68793d7..5e02cafb 100644
--- a/html/0/code-404-compliant.html
+++ b/html/0/code-404-compliant.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The status of a website which has been completely removed, usually
by the administrators of the hosting site as a result of net abuse by the
website operators. The term is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the standard
“301 compliant” Murkowski Bill disclaimer used by spammers.
diff --git a/html/0/code-404.html b/html/0/code-404.html
index 08c31e02..132730cc 100644
--- a/html/0/code-404.html
+++ b/html/0/code-404.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from the HTTP error “file not found on server”]
Extended to humans to convey that the subject has no idea or no clue --
sapience not found. May be used reflexively; “Uh, I'm 404ing”
means “I'm drawing a blank”.
[from the Unix null device, used as a data sink] 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 to /dev/null”. See
diff --git a/html/0/infix-2.html b/html/0/infix-2.html
index 705ba6fa..ad73a60c 100644
--- a/html/0/infix-2.html
+++ b/html/0/infix-2.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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). Several versions of a joke
diff --git a/html/0/me.html b/html/0/me.html
index 778fb7a7..d2aece0f 100644
--- a/html/0/me.html
+++ b/html/0/me.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IRC; common] Under most IRC, /me is the “pose”
command; if you are logged on as Foonly and type “/me laughs”,
others watching the channel will see “* Joe Foonly
laughs”. This usage has been carried over to mail and news, where
diff --git a/html/0/numeral-zero.html b/html/0/numeral-zero.html
index a3e45ab3..9d0feb16 100644
--- a/html/0/numeral-zero.html
+++ b/html/0/numeral-zero.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter ‘O’ (the 15th
letter of the English alphabet). In their unmodified forms they look a lot
alike, and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct have
compounded the confusion. If your zero is center-dotted and letter-O is
diff --git a/html/0/one-TBS.html b/html/0/one-TBS.html
index 22c361fa..69daedf3 100644
--- a/html/0/one-TBS.html
+++ b/html/0/one-TBS.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
1. Abnormal termination (of software); crash;
lossage. Derives from an error message on the IBM
360; used jokingly by hackers but seriously mainly by code
grinders. Usually capitalized, but may appear as
diff --git a/html/A/ACK.html b/html/A/ACK.html
index db81698f..36fe3f35 100644
--- a/html/A/ACK.html
+++ b/html/A/ACK.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common; from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110] Acknowledge. Used
to register one's presence (compare mainstream Yo!).
An appropriate response to ping or
ENQ.
2. [from the comic strip Bloom County] An
diff --git a/html/A/ADVENT.html b/html/A/ADVENT.html
index 4dee1c73..ac5ff3be 100644
--- a/html/A/ADVENT.html
+++ b/html/A/ADVENT.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The prototypical computer adventure game, first designed by Will
Crowther on the PDP-10 in the mid-1970s as an
attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a
puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods at Stanford in 1976. (Woods had been one
diff --git a/html/A/AFAIK.html b/html/A/AFAIK.html
index 49bb1796..1f99da61 100644
--- a/html/A/AFAIK.html
+++ b/html/A/AFAIK.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet; common] Abbrev. for “As Far As I Know”. There
is a variant AFAICT “As Far As I Can Tell”; where AFAIK
suggests that the writer knows his knowledge is limited, AFAICT suggests
that he feels his knowledge is as complete as anybody else's but that the
diff --git a/html/A/AFJ.html b/html/A/AFJ.html
index 0efe09ca..cb3114f4 100644
--- a/html/A/AFJ.html
+++ b/html/A/AFJ.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Written-only abbreviation for “April Fool's Joke”.
Elaborate April Fool's hoaxes are a long-established tradition on Usenet
and Internet; see kremvax for an example. In fact,
April Fool's Day is the only seasonal holiday
diff --git a/html/A/AFK.html b/html/A/AFK.html
index b5b6df4c..0497eb2c 100644
--- a/html/A/AFK.html
+++ b/html/A/AFK.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[MUD] Abbrev. for “Away From Keyboard”. Used to notify
others that you will be momentarily unavailable online. eg. “Let's
not go kill that frost giant yet, I need to go AFK to make a phone
call”. Often MUDs will have a command to politely inform others of
diff --git a/html/A/AI-complete.html b/html/A/AI-complete.html
index 971a9bec..c4a7a94f 100644
--- a/html/A/AI-complete.html
+++ b/html/A/AI-complete.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[MIT, Stanford: by analogy with NP-complete (see NP-)]
Used to describe problems or subproblems in AI, to indicate that the
solution presupposes a solution to the ‘strong AI problem’
(that is, the synthesis of a human-level intelligence). A problem that is
diff --git a/html/A/AI.html b/html/A/AI.html
index 6451de37..02c62276 100644
--- a/html/A/AI.html
+++ b/html/A/AI.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[CMU] Pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Coined allegedly because most
pizzas ordered by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990
were of that flavor. See also rotary debugger;
compare ISO standard cup of tea.
diff --git a/html/A/ANSI-standard.html b/html/A/ANSI-standard.html
index 798e2ad4..2bd06ec4 100644
--- a/html/A/ANSI-standard.html
+++ b/html/A/ANSI-standard.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-ANSI standard
The ANSI standard usage of ANSI
standard refers to any practice which is typical or broadly
done. It's most appropriately applied to things that everyone does that
are not quite regulation. For example: ANSI standard shaking of a laser
diff --git a/html/A/AOL-.html b/html/A/AOL-.html
index 4c7c6f64..2d7a3fcd 100644
--- a/html/A/AOL-.html
+++ b/html/A/AOL-.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet] Common synonym for “Me, too!” alluding to the
legendary propensity of America Online users to utter contentless
“Me, too!” postings. The number of exclamation points
following varies from zero to five or so. The pseudo-HTML
<AOL>Me, too!</AOL>
is also frequently seen. See also
diff --git a/html/A/ARMM.html b/html/A/ARMM.html
index b4e6df0a..35efe88a 100644
--- a/html/A/ARMM.html
+++ b/html/A/ARMM.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[acronym, ‘Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation’] A
Usenet cancelbot created by Dick Depew of Munroe
Falls, Ohio. ARMM was intended to automatically cancel posts from
anonymous-posting sites. Unfortunately, the robot's recognizer for
diff --git a/html/A/ASCII-art.html b/html/A/ASCII-art.html
index 3249b1bd..f3d09402 100644
--- a/html/A/ASCII-art.html
+++ b/html/A/ASCII-art.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII character set
(mainly |, -, /,
\, and +). Also known as character graphics or ASCII graphics; see also
boxology. Here is a serious example:
[originally an acronym (American Standard Code for Information
Interchange) but now merely conventional] The predominant character set
encoding of present-day computers. The standard version uses 7 bits for
each character, whereas most earlier codes (including early drafts of ASCII
diff --git a/html/A/ASCIIbetical-order.html b/html/A/ASCIIbetical-order.html
index 02c0203c..38cb2c25 100644
--- a/html/A/ASCIIbetical-order.html
+++ b/html/A/ASCIIbetical-order.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Used to indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather
than alphabetical order. This lexicon is sorted in something close to
ASCIIbetical order, but with case ignored and entries beginning with
non-alphabetic characters moved to the beginning.
Abbreviation, “Acceptable Use Policy”. The policy of a
given ISP which sets out what the ISP considers to be (un)acceptable uses
of its Internet resources.
[from Greek akme highest point of
perfection or achievement] The canonical supplier of bizarre, elaborate,
and non-functional gadgetry — where Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson
(two cartoonists who specialized in elaborate contraptions) shop. The name
diff --git a/html/A/Alderson-loop.html b/html/A/Alderson-loop.html
index 188ef82a..093841b8 100644
--- a/html/A/Alderson-loop.html
+++ b/html/A/Alderson-loop.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Intel] A special version of an infinite loop
where there is an exit condition available, but inaccessible in the current
implementation of the code. Typically this is created while debugging user
interface code. An example would be when there is a menu stating,
diff --git a/html/A/Alice-and-Bob.html b/html/A/Alice-and-Bob.html
index ccb860f3..63053530 100644
--- a/html/A/Alice-and-Bob.html
+++ b/html/A/Alice-and-Bob.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The archetypal individuals used as examples in discussions of
cryptographic protocols. Originally, theorists would say something like:
“A communicates with someone who claims to be B, So to be sure, A
tests that B knows a secret number K. So A sends to B a random number X. B
diff --git a/html/A/All-hardware-sucks--all-software-sucks-.html b/html/A/All-hardware-sucks--all-software-sucks-.html
index 4ffe64e0..92a74e19 100644
--- a/html/A/All-hardware-sucks--all-software-sucks-.html
+++ b/html/A/All-hardware-sucks--all-software-sucks-.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-All hardware sucks, all software sucks.
[from scary devil monastery] A general
recognition of the fallibility of any computer system, ritually intoned as
an attempt to quell incipient holy wars. It is a
common response to any sort of bigot. When
diff --git a/html/A/Aluminum-Book.html b/html/A/Aluminum-Book.html
index 2eb3ef5d..da627640 100644
--- a/html/A/Aluminum-Book.html
+++ b/html/A/Aluminum-Book.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[MIT] Common LISP: The Language, by Guy L.
Steele Jr. (Digital Press, first edition 1984, second edition 1990). Note
that due to a technical screwup some printings of the second edition are
actually of a color the author describes succinctly as “yucky
diff --git a/html/A/Amiga-Persecution-Complex.html b/html/A/Amiga-Persecution-Complex.html
index cd18d13a..ccdef79e 100644
--- a/html/A/Amiga-Persecution-Complex.html
+++ b/html/A/Amiga-Persecution-Complex.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-Amiga Persecution Complex
The disorder suffered by a particularly egregious variety of
bigot, those who believe that the marginality of
their preferred machine is the result of some kind of industry-wide
conspiracy (for without a conspiracy of some kind, the eminent superiority
diff --git a/html/A/Amiga.html b/html/A/Amiga.html
index 9ae182ca..7b25cf97 100644
--- a/html/A/Amiga.html
+++ b/html/A/Amiga.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A series of personal computer models originally sold by Commodore,
based on 680x0 processors, custom support chips and an operating system
that combined some of the best features of Macintosh and Unix with
compatibility with neither.
The Amiga was released just as the personal computing world
diff --git a/html/A/Angband.html b/html/A/Angband.html
index e64ec2dd..f0a39592 100644
--- a/html/A/Angband.html
+++ b/html/A/Angband.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Like nethack, moria,
and rogue, one of the large freely distributed
Dungeons-and-Dragons-like simulation games, available for a wide range of
machines and operating systems. The name is from Tolkien's Pits of Angband
diff --git a/html/A/Archimedes.html b/html/A/Archimedes.html
index 94c41c9a..9b093be2 100644
--- a/html/A/Archimedes.html
+++ b/html/A/Archimedes.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The world's first RISC microcomputer, available only in the British
Commonwealth and europe. Built in 1987 in Great Britain by Acorn Computers,
it was legendary for its use of the ARM-2 microprocessor as a CPU. Many a
novice hacker in the Commonwealth first learnt his or her skills on the
diff --git a/html/A/Aunt-Tillie.html b/html/A/Aunt-Tillie.html
index de476441..dc851edb 100644
--- a/html/A/Aunt-Tillie.html
+++ b/html/A/Aunt-Tillie.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[linux-kernel mailing list] The archetypal non-technical user, one's
elderly and scatterbrained maiden aunt. Invoked in discussions of
usability for people who are not hackers and geeks; one sees references to
the “Aunt Tillie test”.
1. Archaic term for a register. On-line use of it as a synonym for
register is a fairly reliable
indication that the user has been around for quite a while and/or that the
architecture under discussion is quite old. The term in full is almost
diff --git a/html/A/ad-hockery.html b/html/A/ad-hockery.html
index 16924d1a..a4ba24b4 100644
--- a/html/A/ad-hockery.html
+++ b/html/A/ad-hockery.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Gratuitous assumptions made inside certain programs, esp. expert
systems, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are
in fact entirely arbitrary. For example, fuzzy-matching of input tokens
that might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as
diff --git a/html/A/address-harvester.html b/html/A/address-harvester.html
index 44045d2f..cbcdb64b 100644
--- a/html/A/address-harvester.html
+++ b/html/A/address-harvester.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A robot that searches web pages and/or filters netnews traffic
looking for valid email addresses. Some address harvesters are benign,
used only for compiling address directories. Most, unfortunately, are run
by miscreants compiling address lists to spam.
diff --git a/html/A/adger.html b/html/A/adger.html
index 7fee06f8..324bdb87 100644
--- a/html/A/adger.html
+++ b/html/A/adger.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[UCLA mutant of nadger, poss. also from the
middle name of an infamous tenured graduate student]
To make a bonehead move with consequences that could have been foreseen
with even slight mental effort. E.g., “He started removing files and
diff --git a/html/A/admin.html b/html/A/admin.html
index 975fc199..19061074 100644
--- a/html/A/admin.html
+++ b/html/A/admin.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-admin
Short for ‘administrator’; very commonly used in speech
or on-line to refer to the systems person in charge on a computer. Common
constructions on this include sysadmin and site
admin (emphasizing the administrator's role as a site contact
diff --git a/html/A/adware.html b/html/A/adware.html
index c84dd08a..fa92dd04 100644
--- a/html/A/adware.html
+++ b/html/A/adware.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
“Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a
twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine
airplane.” By analogy, in both software and electronics, the rule
that simplicity increases robustness. It is correspondingly argued that
diff --git a/html/A/aliasing-bug.html b/html/A/aliasing-bug.html
index 0fa7ed27..768b64f7 100644
--- a/html/A/aliasing-bug.html
+++ b/html/A/aliasing-bug.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A class of subtle programming errors that can arise in code that
does dynamic allocation, esp. via
malloc(3)
or equivalent. If several pointers address (are aliases for) a given hunk of storage, it may
diff --git a/html/A/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.html b/html/A/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.html
index dc555518..6cfc619a 100644
--- a/html/A/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.html
+++ b/html/A/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A declaration of victory or superiority. The phrase stems from a
1991 adaptation of Toaplan's “Zero Wing” shoot-'em-up arcade
game for the Sega Genesis game console. A brief introduction was added to
the opening screen, and it has what many consider to be the worst
diff --git a/html/A/alpha-geek.html b/html/A/alpha-geek.html
index 785faa54..17b8e90b 100644
--- a/html/A/alpha-geek.html
+++ b/html/A/alpha-geek.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from animal ethologists' alpha
male] The most technically accomplished or skillful person in
some implied context. “Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek
here.”
1. n. The alt shift key on an
IBM PC or clone keyboard; see
bucky bits, sense 2
(though typical PC usage does not simply set the 0200 bit).
2. n. The option key on a
diff --git a/html/A/ambimouseterous.html b/html/A/ambimouseterous.html
index 556a53bf..6da062e5 100644
--- a/html/A/ambimouseterous.html
+++ b/html/A/ambimouseterous.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand
(‘&’, ASCII 0100110) character. See
ASCII for other synonyms.
diff --git a/html/A/and-there-was-much-rejoicing.html b/html/A/and-there-was-much-rejoicing.html
index 9e38d45b..817f18b3 100644
--- a/html/A/and-there-was-much-rejoicing.html
+++ b/html/A/and-there-was-much-rejoicing.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-and there was much rejoicing
Acknowledgement of a notable accomplishment. Something long-awaited,
widely desired, possibly unexpected but secretly wished-for, with a suggestion
that something about the problem (and perhaps the steps necessary to make it
diff --git a/html/A/angle-brackets.html b/html/A/angle-brackets.html
index 37f3aac4..0602695d 100644
--- a/html/A/angle-brackets.html
+++ b/html/A/angle-brackets.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Either of the characters < (ASCII 0111100) and
> (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or greater-than
signs). Typographers in the Real World use angle
brackets which are either taller and slimmer (the ISO lang 〈 and rang
diff --git a/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.html b/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.html
index 7e0d9b10..0d6519a1 100644
--- a/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.html
+++ b/html/A/angry-fruit-salad.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A bad visual-interface design that uses too many colors. (This term
derives, of course, from the bizarre day-glo colors found in canned fruit
salad.) Too often one sees similar effects from interface designers using
color window systems such as X; there is a tendency
diff --git a/html/A/annoybot.html b/html/A/annoybot.html
index b58835a7..88ca42d8 100644
--- a/html/A/annoybot.html
+++ b/html/A/annoybot.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
A type of shareware that frequently disrupts
normal program operation to display requests for payment to the author in
return for the ability to disable the request messages. (Also called
nagware) The requests generally
diff --git a/html/A/anti-idiotarianism.html b/html/A/anti-idiotarianism.html
index fcd807c7..8688ea6d 100644
--- a/html/A/anti-idiotarianism.html
+++ b/html/A/anti-idiotarianism.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[very common] Opposition to idiots of all political stripes. First
coined in the blog named
Little Green
Footballs as part of a post expressing disgust with inane responses
diff --git a/html/A/app.html b/html/A/app.html
index c2ae256c..c1b3371d 100644
--- a/html/A/app.html
+++ b/html/A/app.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Short for ‘application program’, as opposed to a systems
program. Apps are what systems vendors are forever chasing developers to
create for their environments so they can sell more boxes. Hackers tend
not to think of the things they themselves run as apps; thus, in hacker
diff --git a/html/A/arena.html b/html/A/arena.html
index ee2ea357..68caa9f9 100644
--- a/html/A/arena.html
+++ b/html/A/arena.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common; Unix] The area of memory attached to a process by
brk(2)
and
sbrk(2)
diff --git a/html/A/arg.html b/html/A/arg.html
index e9aed097..079dccfd 100644
--- a/html/A/arg.html
+++ b/html/A/arg.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Abbreviation for ‘argument’ (to a function), used so
often as to have become a new word (like ‘piano’ from
‘pianoforte’). “The sine function takes 1 arg, but the
arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args.” Compare
diff --git a/html/A/armor-plated.html b/html/A/armor-plated.html
index a5f05d1c..139494d6 100644
--- a/html/A/armor-plated.html
+++ b/html/A/armor-plated.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
Once, long ago at MIT, there was a flamer so
consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made, and
distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been nominated for the
asbestos cork award. (Any reader in
diff --git a/html/A/asbestos-longjohns.html b/html/A/asbestos-longjohns.html
index 6fb91eb0..455e20e0 100644
--- a/html/A/asbestos-longjohns.html
+++ b/html/A/asbestos-longjohns.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Notional garments donned by Usenet posters
just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit
flamage. This is the most common of the
asbestos coinages. Also asbestos underwear, asbestos overcoat, etc.
[common] Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect one from
flames; also in other highly
flame-suggestive usages. See, for example,
asbestos longjohns and
diff --git a/html/A/astroturfing.html b/html/A/astroturfing.html
index baf30656..91e40c37 100644
--- a/html/A/astroturfing.html
+++ b/html/A/astroturfing.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular
movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant
‘concerned citizens’, paid opinion pieces, and the formation of
grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group
diff --git a/html/A/atomic.html b/html/A/atomic.html
index 5005c016..d9f8441a 100644
--- a/html/A/atomic.html
+++ b/html/A/atomic.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Indivisible; cannot be split up. For example, an instruction may
be said to do several things ‘atomically’, i.e., all the things
are done immediately, and there is no chance of the instruction being
half-completed or of another being interspersed. Used esp. to convey that
diff --git a/html/A/attoparsec.html b/html/A/attoparsec.html
index 8d07d6c5..58df6f28 100644
--- a/html/A/attoparsec.html
+++ b/html/A/attoparsec.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
About an inch. atto- is the standard
SI prefix for multiplication by
10-18. A
parsec (parallax-second) is 3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus
diff --git a/html/A/autobogotiphobia.html b/html/A/autobogotiphobia.html
index 2c423129..7ecf1e66 100644
--- a/html/A/autobogotiphobia.html
+++ b/html/A/autobogotiphobia.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
To set up or modify a source-code
distribution so that it configures and builds using
the GNU project's autoconf/automake/libtools suite. Among open-source
hackers, a mere running binary of a program is not considered a full
diff --git a/html/A/automagically.html b/html/A/automagically.html
index 1f77670d..13277662 100644
--- a/html/A/automagically.html
+++ b/html/A/automagically.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically because
it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the
speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See
magic. “The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C,
diff --git a/html/A/avatar.html b/html/A/avatar.html
index 2ba57ed9..790753fb 100644
--- a/html/A/avatar.html
+++ b/html/A/avatar.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-avatar
1. Among people working on virtual reality and
cyberspace interfaces, an avatar is an icon or representation of a user
in a shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on
MUDs.
1. n. [Unix techspeak] An
interpreted language for massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter
Weinberger, and Brian Kernighan (the name derives from their initials). It
is characterized by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable
diff --git a/html/B-frame.html b/html/B-frame.html
index 3b0bcd5d..b13577c0 100644
--- a/html/B-frame.html
+++ b/html/B-frame.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
The most famous pseudo, and the prototypical
newbie. Articles from B1FF feature all uppercase
letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos, ‘cute’
misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ KL DOOD AN
diff --git a/html/B/B5.html b/html/B/B5.html
index 458db1fb..532e4b6f 100644
--- a/html/B/B5.html
+++ b/html/B/B5.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
[IBM: acronym, “Broken As Designed”] Said of a program
that is bogus because of bad design and misfeatures
rather than because of bugginess. See working as
designed.
A programming language, originally designed for Dartmouth's
experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s, which for many years
was the leading cause of brain damage in proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra
observed in Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal
diff --git a/html/B/BBS.html b/html/B/BBS.html
index a822cb9f..02b37e3b 100644
--- a/html/B/BBS.html
+++ b/html/B/BBS.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-BBS
[common; abbreviation, “Bulletin Board System”] An
electronic bulletin board system; that is, a message database where people
can log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped (typically) into
topic groups. The term was especially applied to
diff --git a/html/B/BCPL.html b/html/B/BCPL.html
index bb32d7fe..c4a59109 100644
--- a/html/B/BCPL.html
+++ b/html/B/BCPL.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[abbreviation, “Basic Combined Programming Language”) A
programming language developed by Martin Richards in Cambridge in 1967. It
is remarkable for its rich syntax, small size of compiler (it can be run in
16k) and extreme portability. It reached break-even point at a very early
diff --git a/html/B/BDFL.html b/html/B/BDFL.html
index 89b17b1b..6392de2d 100644
--- a/html/B/BDFL.html
+++ b/html/B/BDFL.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Python; common] Benevolent Dictator For Life.
Guido, considered in his role as the project leader
of Python. People who are feeling temporarily
cheesed off by one of his decisions sometimes leave off the B. The mental
diff --git a/html/B/BFI.html b/html/B/BFI.html
index 48a47452..7b065dc1 100644
--- a/html/B/BFI.html
+++ b/html/B/BFI.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
See brute force and ignorance. Also
encountered in the variants BFMI,
“brute force and massive ignorance” and
BFBI “brute force and bloody
diff --git a/html/B/BI.html b/html/B/BI.html
index 461b866c..a6d8e974 100644
--- a/html/B/BI.html
+++ b/html/B/BI.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-BI
1. n. [acronym: Binary Large
OBject] Used by database people to refer to any random large block of bits
that needs to be stored in a database, such as a picture or sound file.
The essential point about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be
diff --git a/html/B/BLT.html b/html/B/BLT.html
index 4787b0e3..359c0fc8 100644
--- a/html/B/BLT.html
+++ b/html/B/BLT.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Synonym for blit. This is the original form
of blit and the ancestor of
bitblt. It referred to any large bit-field copy or
move operation (one resource-intensive memory-shuffling operation done on
diff --git a/html/B/BNF.html b/html/B/BNF.html
index eb9811e9..a5a22f6d 100644
--- a/html/B/BNF.html
+++ b/html/B/BNF.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [techspeak] Acronym for Backus Normal
Form (later retronymed to Backus-Naur
Form because BNF was not in fact a normal form), a metasyntactic
notation used to specify the syntax of programming languages, command sets,
diff --git a/html/B/BOF.html b/html/B/BOF.html
index 08104849..745e3f84 100644
--- a/html/B/BOF.html
+++ b/html/B/BOF.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] Abbreviation for the phrase “Birds Of a
Feather” (flocking together), an informal discussion group and/or
bull session scheduled on a conference program. It is not clear where or
when this term originated, but it is now associated with the USENIX
diff --git a/html/B/BOFH.html b/html/B/BOFH.html
index 480b0699..e35dee50 100644
--- a/html/B/BOFH.html
+++ b/html/B/BOFH.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Acronym, Bastard Operator From Hell. A system
administrator with absolutely no tolerance for
lusers. “You say you need more filespace?
<massive-global-delete> Seems to me you have plenty left...”
diff --git a/html/B/BRS.html b/html/B/BRS.html
index d469762c..bfeb439f 100644
--- a/html/B/BRS.html
+++ b/html/B/BRS.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[abbreviation for ‘Berkeley Software Distribution’] a
family of Unix versions for the
DECVAX and
PDP-11 developed by Bill Joy and others at
diff --git a/html/B/BSOD.html b/html/B/BSOD.html
index 228b0c96..1e6ee5d3 100644
--- a/html/B/BSOD.html
+++ b/html/B/BSOD.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] Big Ugly ASCII Font —
a special form of ASCII art. Various programs exist
for rendering text strings into block, bloob, and pseudo-script fonts in
cells between four and six character cells on a side; this is smaller than
diff --git a/html/B/BUAG.html b/html/B/BUAG.html
index 1405bcc5..18f263b5 100644
--- a/html/B/BUAG.html
+++ b/html/B/BUAG.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] Big Ugly ASCII Graphic.
Pejorative term for ugly ASCII art, especially as
found in sig blocks. For some reason, mutations of
the head of Bart Simpson are particularly common in the least imaginative
diff --git a/html/B/BWQ.html b/html/B/BWQ.html
index 4975f31d..9dc7134d 100644
--- a/html/B/BWQ.html
+++ b/html/B/BWQ.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
[very common; always pronounced as if capitalized. Orig. fr. the
1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody of British history 1066 And All
That, but well-established among hackers in the U.S. as well.]
Something that can't possibly result in improvement of the subject. This
diff --git a/html/B/Bad-and-Wrong.html b/html/B/Bad-and-Wrong.html
index 816b5211..6a8f0161 100644
--- a/html/B/Bad-and-Wrong.html
+++ b/html/B/Bad-and-Wrong.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Durham, UK] Said of something that is both badly designed and
wrongly executed. This common term is the prototype of, and is used by
contrast with, three less common terms — Bad and Right (a kludge,
something ugly but functional); Good and Wrong (an overblown GUI or other
diff --git a/html/B/Batman-factor.html b/html/B/Batman-factor.html
index 949dfe87..ac013cf3 100644
--- a/html/B/Batman-factor.html
+++ b/html/B/Batman-factor.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. An integer number representing the number of items hanging from a
batbelt. In most settings, a Batman factor of more
than 3 is not acceptable without odd stares and whispering. This encourages
the hacker in question to choose items for the batbelt carefully to avoid
diff --git a/html/B/Befunge.html b/html/B/Befunge.html
index 61c968cb..e556858c 100644
--- a/html/B/Befunge.html
+++ b/html/B/Befunge.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A worthy companion to INTERCAL; a computer
language family which escapes the quotidian limitation of linear control
flow and embraces program counters flying through multiple dimensions with
exotic topologies. The Befunge home page is at http://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/befunge/.
(often abbreviated “BQS”) Term used in a pejorative
sense to refer to software that was apparently created by rather spaced-out
hackers late at night to solve some unique problem. It usually has
nonexistent, incomplete, or incorrect documentation, has been tested on at
diff --git a/html/B/Berzerkeley.html b/html/B/Berzerkeley.html
index c638d29f..c02b29f4 100644
--- a/html/B/Berzerkeley.html
+++ b/html/B/Berzerkeley.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as
PostScript, NeXT, NeWS,
VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above
the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalization. Too many
diff --git a/html/B/Big-Red-Switch.html b/html/B/Big-Red-Switch.html
index d4afdb0d..bbac389a 100644
--- a/html/B/Big-Red-Switch.html
+++ b/html/B/Big-Red-Switch.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IBM] The power switch on a computer, esp. the ‘Emergency
Pull’ switch on an IBM mainframe or the power
switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. “This !@%$%
bitty box is hung again; time to hit the Big Red
diff --git a/html/B/Big-Room.html b/html/B/Big-Room.html
index 80fb895e..84349e03 100644
--- a/html/B/Big-Room.html
+++ b/html/B/Big-Room.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-Big Room
(Also Big Blue Room) The
extremely large room with the blue ceiling and intensely bright light
(during the day) or black ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during
the night) found outside all computer installations. “He can't come
diff --git a/html/B/Black-Screen-of-Death.html b/html/B/Black-Screen-of-Death.html
index 325d021e..ee4cdc87 100644
--- a/html/B/Black-Screen-of-Death.html
+++ b/html/B/Black-Screen-of-Death.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-Black Screen of Death
[prob.: related to the Floating Head of Death in a famous
Far Side cartoon.] A failure mode of
Microsloth Windows. On an attempt to launch a DOS
box, a networked Windows system not uncommonly blanks the screen and locks
diff --git a/html/B/Bloggs-Family.html b/html/B/Bloggs-Family.html
index 626b2981..fa99f27b 100644
--- a/html/B/Bloggs-Family.html
+++ b/html/B/Bloggs-Family.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
An imaginary family consisting of Fred and Mary Bloggs and their
children. Used as a standard example in knowledge representation to show
the difference between extensional and intensional objects. For example,
every occurrence of “Fred Bloggs” is the same unique person,
diff --git a/html/B/Blue-Glue.html b/html/B/Blue-Glue.html
index e61c4724..194e907e 100644
--- a/html/B/Blue-Glue.html
+++ b/html/B/Blue-Glue.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IBM; obs.] IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture), an incredibly
losing and bletcherous
communications protocol once widely favored at commercial shops that didn't
know any better (like other proprietary networking protocols, it became
diff --git a/html/B/Blue-Screen-of-Death.html b/html/B/Blue-Screen-of-Death.html
index b7767b03..e0bd34da 100644
--- a/html/B/Blue-Screen-of-Death.html
+++ b/html/B/Blue-Screen-of-Death.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] This term is closely related to the older
Black Screen of Death but much more common (many non-hackers have
picked it up). Due to the extreme fragility and bugginess of Microsoft
Windows, misbehaving applications can readily crash the OS (and the OS
diff --git a/html/B/BogoMIPS.html b/html/B/BogoMIPS.html
index 29743c1e..352de7ec 100644
--- a/html/B/BogoMIPS.html
+++ b/html/B/BogoMIPS.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from quantum physics] A repeatable bug; one
that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined set of
conditions. Antonym of heisenbug; see also
mandelbug,
diff --git a/html/B/Borg.html b/html/B/Borg.html
index 39233e1b..747d0734 100644
--- a/html/B/Borg.html
+++ b/html/B/Borg.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
In Star Trek: The Next Generation the Borg is
a species of cyborg that ruthlessly seeks to incorporate all sentient life
into itself; their slogan is “You will be assimilated. Resistance is
futile.” In hacker parlance, the Borg is usually
diff --git a/html/B/Breidbart-Index.html b/html/B/Breidbart-Index.html
index 2bc80b7d..dbb368b0 100644
--- a/html/B/Breidbart-Index.html
+++ b/html/B/Breidbart-Index.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A measurement of the severity of spam invented by long-time hacker
Seth Breidbart, used for programming cancelbots. The Breidbart Index takes
into account the fact that excessive multi-posting
EMP is worse than excessive cross-posting
diff --git a/html/B/BrokenWindows.html b/html/B/BrokenWindows.html
index 24a93b3c..b6899025 100644
--- a/html/B/BrokenWindows.html
+++ b/html/B/BrokenWindows.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
“Adding manpower to a late software project makes it
later” — a result of the fact that the expected advantage from
splitting development work among N
programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional
diff --git a/html/B/Bzzzt-Wrong.html b/html/B/Bzzzt-Wrong.html
index 41151547..1be09bbb 100644
--- a/html/B/Bzzzt-Wrong.html
+++ b/html/B/Bzzzt-Wrong.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common; Usenet/Internet; punctuation varies] From a Robin Williams
routine in the movie Dead Poets Society spoofing
radio or TV quiz programs, such as Truth or
Consequences, where an incorrect answer earns one a blast from
diff --git a/html/B/back-door.html b/html/B/back-door.html
index 0a7c9cf3..855dac74 100644
--- a/html/B/back-door.html
+++ b/html/B/back-door.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] A hole in the security of a system deliberately left in
place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for such holes is not
always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out of the box
with privileged accounts intended for use by field service technicians or
diff --git a/html/B/backbone-cabal.html b/html/B/backbone-cabal.html
index c01111ce..7fa49e4f 100644
--- a/html/B/backbone-cabal.html
+++ b/html/B/backbone-cabal.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A group of large-site administrators who pushed through the
Great Renaming and reined in the chaos of
Usenet during most of the 1980s. During most of its
lifetime, the Cabal (as it was sometimes capitalized) steadfastly denied
diff --git a/html/B/backbone-site.html b/html/B/backbone-site.html
index 31f9f954..c7342d51 100644
--- a/html/B/backbone-site.html
+++ b/html/B/backbone-site.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Formerly, a key Usenet and email site, one that processes a large
amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home site of any of
the regional coordinators for the Usenet maps. Notable backbone sites as
of early 1993, when this sense of the term was beginning to pass out of
diff --git a/html/B/backgammon.html b/html/B/backgammon.html
index f510f28f..b6ba5a77 100644
--- a/html/B/backgammon.html
+++ b/html/B/backgammon.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
[common] To do a task in
background is to do it whenever
foreground matters are not claiming your undivided
attention, and to background
diff --git a/html/B/backreference.html b/html/B/backreference.html
index a0a4259c..ff7fe1a4 100644
--- a/html/B/backreference.html
+++ b/html/B/backreference.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. In a regular expression or pattern match, the text which was
matched within grouping parentheses
2. The part of the pattern which refers back to the matched
text.
3. By extension, anything which refers back to something which has
been seen or discussed before. “When you said ‘she’ just
diff --git a/html/B/backronym.html b/html/B/backronym.html
index 663d2020..b11fea67 100644
--- a/html/B/backronym.html
+++ b/html/B/backronym.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-backronym
[portmanteau of back + acronym] A word interpreted as an acronym
that was not originally so intended. This is a special case of what
linguists call back formation.
Examples are given under recursive acronym (Cygnus),
diff --git a/html/B/backward-combatability.html b/html/B/backward-combatability.html
index 786f3ed2..fe046c56 100644
--- a/html/B/backward-combatability.html
+++ b/html/B/backward-combatability.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
backward combatability: /bakw@rd k@mbat'@bil'@tee/, n.
[CMU, Tektronix: from backward
compatibility] A property of hardware or software revisions in
which previous protocols, formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded
in favor of ‘new and improved’ protocols, formats, and layouts,
diff --git a/html/B/bag-on-the-side.html b/html/B/bag-on-the-side.html
index 217350b9..62adb56c 100644
--- a/html/B/bag-on-the-side.html
+++ b/html/B/bag-on-the-side.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[prob. originally related to a colostomy bag] 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,
diff --git a/html/B/bagbiter.html b/html/B/bagbiter.html
index fcb75b39..fa2b4aa7 100644
--- a/html/B/bagbiter.html
+++ b/html/B/bagbiter.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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 has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or
diff --git a/html/B/bagbiting.html b/html/B/bagbiting.html
index b3f34f2b..783206b7 100644
--- a/html/B/bagbiting.html
+++ b/html/B/bagbiting.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[MIT; now rare] Having the quality of a
bagbiter. “This bagbiting system won't let me
compute the factorial of a negative number.” Compare
losing, cretinous,
diff --git a/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html b/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html
index 16051650..e444bd64 100644
--- a/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html
+++ b/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Georgia Tech] A “baggy pantsing” is used to reprimand
hackers who incautiously leave their terminals unlocked. The affected user
will come back to find a post from them on internal newsgroups discussing
exactly how baggy their pants are, an accepted stand-in for
diff --git a/html/B/balloonian-variable.html b/html/B/balloonian-variable.html
index 95ba639b..21460f62 100644
--- a/html/B/balloonian-variable.html
+++ b/html/B/balloonian-variable.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Commodore users; perh. a deliberate phonetic mangling of boolean variable?] Any variable that doesn't
actually hold or control state, but must nevertheless be declared, checked,
or set. A typical balloonian variable started out as a flag attached to
some environment feature that either became obsolete or was planned but
diff --git a/html/B/bamf.html b/html/B/bamf.html
index 30df9d9a..0a5c9c3e 100644
--- a/html/B/bamf.html
+++ b/html/B/bamf.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [from X-Men comics; originally “bampf”] 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
diff --git a/html/B/banana-problem.html b/html/B/banana-problem.html
index 971263e3..07bb9ebb 100644
--- a/html/B/banana-problem.html
+++ b/html/B/banana-problem.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[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 problem of an algorithm with
diff --git a/html/B/bandwidth.html b/html/B/bandwidth.html
index 8d3adc38..e0354185 100644
--- a/html/B/bandwidth.html
+++ b/html/B/bandwidth.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] 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 missed some of the detail — not enough bandwidth, I
diff --git a/html/B/bang-on.html b/html/B/bang-on.html
index d3627a0a..0062bc70 100644
--- a/html/B/bang-on.html
+++ b/html/B/bang-on.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bang on
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 for release.” The term
pound on is synonymous.
[now historical] An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address
specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the
addressee, so called because each hop is signified
by a bang sign. Thus, for example, the path
diff --git a/html/B/bang.html b/html/B/bang.html
index 76fb75db..115a963a 100644
--- a/html/B/bang.html
+++ b/html/B/bang.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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
diff --git a/html/B/banner-ad.html b/html/B/banner-ad.html
index eb6a8aef..eb7b9a5e 100644
--- a/html/B/banner-ad.html
+++ b/html/B/banner-ad.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[warez d00dz] An FTP site storing pirated files where one must first
click on several banners and/or subscribe to various ‘free’
services, usually generating some form of revenues for the site owner, to
be able to access the site. More often than not, the username/password
diff --git a/html/B/banner.html b/html/B/banner.html
index d156e499..aa761b72 100644
--- a/html/B/banner.html
+++ b/html/B/banner.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. A top-centered graphic on a web page. Esp. used in
banner ad.
2. On interactive software, a first screen containing a logo and/or
author credits and/or a copyright notice. Similar to splash
screen.
3. The title page added to printouts by most print spoolers (see
diff --git a/html/B/bar.html b/html/B/bar.html
index 501487e1..eca360b3 100644
--- a/html/B/bar.html
+++ b/html/B/bar.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [very common] The second
metasyntactic variable,
after foo and before
baz. “Suppose we have two functions: FOO and
diff --git a/html/B/bare-metal.html b/html/B/bare-metal.html
index b41cefa9..fb09e006 100644
--- a/html/B/bare-metal.html
+++ b/html/B/bare-metal.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bare metal
1. [common] New computer hardware, unadorned with such snares and
delusions as an operating system, an
HLL, or even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase
programming on the bare metal, which
diff --git a/html/B/barf.html b/html/B/barf.html
index 181ef5e1..529a89cc 100644
--- a/html/B/barf.html
+++ b/html/B/barf.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. interj. Term of disgust.
This is the closest hackish equivalent of the Valspeak “gag me with a
spoon”. (Like, euwww!) See bletch.
2. vi. To say
“Barf!” or emit some similar expression of disgust. “I
diff --git a/html/B/barfmail.html b/html/B/barfmail.html
index cb3a0919..19feed78 100644
--- a/html/B/barfmail.html
+++ b/html/B/barfmail.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-barfmail
Multiple bounce messages accumulating to the
level of serious annoyance, or worse. The sort of thing that happens when
an inter-network mail gateway goes down or wonky.
Variation of barf used around the Stanford
area. An exclamation, expressing disgust. On seeing some particularly bad
code one might exclaim, “Barfulation! Who wrote this,
Quux?”
[uncommon; prob. from the nuclear military] An unexpectedly large
quantity of something: a unit of measurement. “Why is /var/adm
taking up so much space?” “The logs have grown to several
barns.” The source of this is clear: when physicists were first
diff --git a/html/B/barney.html b/html/B/barney.html
index 5514d823..2caaa643 100644
--- a/html/B/barney.html
+++ b/html/B/barney.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
In Commonwealth hackish, barney is to fred (sense
#1) as bar is to foo. That
is, people who commonly use fred as
their first metasyntactic variable will often use barney second. The reference is, of course, to
diff --git a/html/B/baroque.html b/html/B/baroque.html
index 6d1a16d9..ca4b5bd3 100644
--- a/html/B/baroque.html
+++ b/html/B/baroque.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on excessive.
Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has many of the
connotations of elephantine or
monstrosity but is less extreme and not pejorative
diff --git a/html/B/batbelt.html b/html/B/batbelt.html
index a8c73773..ca3eeb85 100644
--- a/html/B/batbelt.html
+++ b/html/B/batbelt.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Many hackers routinely hang numerous devices such as pagers,
cell-phones, personal organizers, leatherman multitools, pocket knives,
flashlights, walkie-talkies, even miniature computers from their
belts. When many of these devices are worn at once, the hacker's belt
diff --git a/html/B/batch.html b/html/B/batch.html
index ecbc9237..00ebec73 100644
--- a/html/B/batch.html
+++ b/html/B/batch.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat more loosely than the
traditional technical definitions justify; in particular, switches on a
normally interactive program that prepare it to receive non-interactive
command input are often referred to as batch
diff --git a/html/B/bathtub-curve.html b/html/B/bathtub-curve.html
index 4b1fa3d2..994253fc 100644
--- a/html/B/bathtub-curve.html
+++ b/html/B/bathtub-curve.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bathtub curve
Common term for the curve (resembling an end-to-end section of one
of those claw-footed antique bathtubs) that describes the expected failure
rate of electronics with time: initially high, dropping to near 0 for most
of the system's lifetime, then rising again as it ‘tires out’.
diff --git a/html/B/baud.html b/html/B/baud.html
index 7e857140..a6d17c3f 100644
--- a/html/B/baud.html
+++ b/html/B/baud.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[simplified from its technical meaning] n. Bits per second. Hence kilobaud or Kbaud,
thousands of bits per second. The technical meaning is level transitions per second; this coincides
with bps only for two-level modulation with no framing or stop bits. Most
hackers are aware of these nuances but blithely ignore them.
Historical note: baud was
diff --git a/html/B/baz.html b/html/B/baz.html
index bc7d8b4b..5a3406cb 100644
--- a/html/B/baz.html
+++ b/html/B/baz.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used of
BBS systems running on personal micros, less
frequently of a Usenet newsgroup (in fact, use of
this term for a newsgroup generally marks one either as a
diff --git a/html/B/beam.html b/html/B/beam.html
index 7337c980..9a040d8c 100644
--- a/html/B/beam.html
+++ b/html/B/beam.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. To transfer softcopy of a file
electronically; most often in combining forms such as beam me a copy or beam that over to his site.
2. Palm Pilot users very commonly use this term for the act of
exchanging bits via the infrared links on their machines (this term seems
diff --git a/html/B/beanie-key.html b/html/B/beanie-key.html
index 4ee9ece4..3036e60b 100644
--- a/html/B/beanie-key.html
+++ b/html/B/beanie-key.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
[common] Features added to a program or system to make it more
flavorful from a hacker's point of view, without
necessarily adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished
from chrome, which is intended to attract users.
diff --git a/html/B/bells-whistles-and-gongs.html b/html/B/bells-whistles-and-gongs.html
index 752c2c75..a0016900 100644
--- a/html/B/bells-whistles-and-gongs.html
+++ b/html/B/bells-whistles-and-gongs.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[techspeak] An inaccurate measure of computer performance.
“In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn
lies, and benchmarks.” Well-known ones include Whetstone, Dhrystone,
Rhealstone (see h), the Gabriel LISP benchmarks, the
diff --git a/html/B/beta.html b/html/B/beta.html
index 5662f55a..795e70f8 100644
--- a/html/B/beta.html
+++ b/html/B/beta.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with
“in”: in beta. In the
Real World, hardware or software systems often go
through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta
diff --git a/html/B/bible.html b/html/B/bible.html
index 513a875d..37fc4b7e 100644
--- a/html/B/bible.html
+++ b/html/B/bible.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[now rare] To notify someone of incoming mail. From the BSD utility
biff(1),
which was in turn named after a friendly dog who used to chase frisbees in
the halls at UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that
diff --git a/html/B/big-endian.html b/html/B/big-endian.html
index d15cf701..6eb7962e 100644
--- a/html/B/big-endian.html
+++ b/html/B/big-endian.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common; From Swift's Gulliver's Travels via
the famous paper On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace
by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137,
dated April 1, 1980]
1. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given
diff --git a/html/B/big-iron.html b/html/B/big-iron.html
index 8b5c6223..18381346 100644
--- a/html/B/big-iron.html
+++ b/html/B/big-iron.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used generally of
number-crunching supercomputers, but
can include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes. Term of
approval; compare heavy metal, oppose
diff --git a/html/B/big-win.html b/html/B/big-win.html
index cad5e772..45b6ef93 100644
--- a/html/B/big-win.html
+++ b/html/B/big-win.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
2. [MIT] Serendipity. “Yes, those two physicists discovered
high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had been
prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule. Small
mistake; big win!” See win big.
1. [techspeak] A multiple-precision computer representation for very
large integers.
2. More generally, any very large number. “Have you ever
looked at the United States Budget? There's bignums for you!”
3. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on the dice especially a
diff --git a/html/B/bigot.html b/html/B/bigot.html
index f1fa805f..c14f0efd 100644
--- a/html/B/bigot.html
+++ b/html/B/bigot.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] A person who is religiously attached to a particular
computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see
religious issues). Usually found with a specifier;
thus, Cray bigot, ITS bigot, APL
diff --git a/html/B/bikeshedding.html b/html/B/bikeshedding.html
index 44831bd0..a6eb3dd8 100644
--- a/html/B/bikeshedding.html
+++ b/html/B/bikeshedding.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bikeshedding
[originally BSD, now common] Technical disputes over minor, marginal
issues conducted while more serious ones are being overlooked. The
implied image is of people arguing over what color to paint the bicycle
shed while the house is not finished.
diff --git a/html/B/binary-four.html b/html/B/binary-four.html
index bbc5fbf1..9b0b35f1 100644
--- a/html/B/binary-four.html
+++ b/html/B/binary-four.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-binary four
[Usenet] The finger, in the sense of digitus
impudicus. This comes from an analogy between binary and
the hand, i.e. 1=00001=thumb, 2=00010=index finger, 3=00011=index and
thumb, 4=00100. Considered silly. Prob. from humorous derivative of
diff --git a/html/B/bit-bang.html b/html/B/bit-bang.html
index 403cfb84..ade7e241 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-bang.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-bang.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Transmission of data on a serial line, when accomplished by rapidly
tweaking a single output bit, in software, at the appropriate times. The
technique is a simple loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for
each byte. Input is more interesting. And full duplex (doing input and
diff --git a/html/B/bit-bashing.html b/html/B/bit-bashing.html
index 3f325404..6bac0b08 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-bashing.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-bashing.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
(alt.: bit diddling or
bit twiddling) Term used to describe any of several
kinds of low-level programming characterized by manipulation of
bit, flag,
diff --git a/html/B/bit-bucket.html b/html/B/bit-bucket.html
index 7571828e..0876ee9f 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-bucket.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-bucket.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used
to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register during a shift
instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have gone to the bit bucket. On
Unix, often used for
diff --git a/html/B/bit-decay.html b/html/B/bit-decay.html
index dc3738fd..5d5d7113 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-decay.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-decay.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
See bit rot. People with a physics
background tend to prefer this variant for the analogy with particle decay.
See also computron,
quantum bogodynamics.
(alt.: bit-shift keyboard) A
non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with the
Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early computer
equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see
diff --git a/html/B/bit-rot.html b/html/B/bit-rot.html
index 9a0157cd..cbe84609 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-rot.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-rot.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Also bit decay. Hypothetical
disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that
unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time
has passed, even if ‘nothing has changed’. The theory explains
diff --git a/html/B/bit-twiddling.html b/html/B/bit-twiddling.html
index 45e7ca54..52487ad6 100644
--- a/html/B/bit-twiddling.html
+++ b/html/B/bit-twiddling.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. (pejorative) An exercise in tuning (see
tune) in which incredible amounts of time and effort
go to produce little noticeable improvement, often with the result that the
code becomes incomprehensible.
2. Aimless small modification to a program, esp. for some pointless
diff --git a/html/B/bit.html b/html/B/bit.html
index 02a9e7d4..1f14b04a 100644
--- a/html/B/bit.html
+++ b/html/B/bit.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information
obtained from knowing the answer to a yes-or-no question for which the two
outcomes are equally probable.
2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that can take on one of two
values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done
diff --git a/html/B/bitblt.html b/html/B/bitblt.html
index e9caaca9..e0e7374f 100644
--- a/html/B/bitblt.html
+++ b/html/B/bitblt.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] Any of a family of closely related algorithms for moving
and copying rectangles of bits between main and display memory on a
bit-mapped device, or between two areas of either main or display memory
(the requirement to do the Right Thing in the case
diff --git a/html/B/bits.html b/html/B/bits.html
index a991b9c1..d7321203 100644
--- a/html/B/bits.html
+++ b/html/B/bits.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Information. Examples: “I need some bits about file
formats.” (“I need to know about file formats.”)
Compare core dump, sense 4.
2. Machine-readable representation of a document, specifically as
contrasted with paper: “I have only a photocopy of the Jargon File;
diff --git a/html/B/bitty-box.html b/html/B/bitty-box.html
index 1f53b4bb..37f49da4 100644
--- a/html/B/bitty-box.html
+++ b/html/B/bitty-box.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bitty box
1. A computer sufficiently small, primitive, or incapable as to
cause a hacker acute claustrophobia at the thought of developing software
on or for it. Especially used of small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only
personal machines such as the Atari 800, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80,
diff --git a/html/B/bixie.html b/html/B/bixie.html
index ad986bde..18773c03 100644
--- a/html/B/bixie.html
+++ b/html/B/bixie.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Variant emoticons used BIX (the BIX
Information eXchange); the term survived the demise of BIX itself. The
most common (smiley) bixie is <@_@>,
representing two cartoon eyes and a mouth. These were originally invented
diff --git a/html/B/black-art.html b/html/B/black-art.html
index 9f5a9920..d7a0b731 100644
--- a/html/B/black-art.html
+++ b/html/B/black-art.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] 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) considered classic
diff --git a/html/B/black-hat.html b/html/B/black-hat.html
index 9bd3cba6..1095251e 100644
--- a/html/B/black-hat.html
+++ b/html/B/black-hat.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common among security specialists] A
cracker, someone bent on breaking into the system
you are protecting. Oppose the less comon white
hat for an ally or friendly security specialist; the term
diff --git a/html/B/black-hole.html b/html/B/black-hole.html
index 91f4a958..48777806 100644
--- a/html/B/black-hole.html
+++ b/html/B/black-hole.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] What data (a piece of email or netnews, or a stream of
TCP/IP packets) has fallen into if it disappears mysteriously between its
origin and destination sites (that is, without returning a
bounce message). “I think there's a black
diff --git a/html/B/black-magic.html b/html/B/black-magic.html
index b4ebcd3e..c21e67ff 100644
--- a/html/B/black-magic.html
+++ b/html/B/black-magic.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-black magic
[common] 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
diff --git a/html/B/blammo.html b/html/B/blammo.html
index 682cbc36..11eab23b 100644
--- a/html/B/blammo.html
+++ b/html/B/blammo.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Oxford Brookes University and alumni, UK] To forcibly remove
someone from any interactive system, especially talker systems. The
operators, who may remain hidden, may “blammo” a user who is
misbehaving. Very similar to archaic MIT gun; in fact, the blammo-gun is a notional device used to
diff --git a/html/B/blargh.html b/html/B/blargh.html
index 0b11b62c..dd1998af 100644
--- a/html/B/blargh.html
+++ b/html/B/blargh.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
[MIT; now common] The opposite of ping, sense
5; an exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a quantum
of unhappiness. Less common than ping.
1. v.,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.
[very common; from Yiddish/German ‘brechen’, to vomit,
poss. via comic-strip exclamation ‘blech’] Term of disgust.
Often used in “Ugh, bletch”. Compare
barf.
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,
diff --git a/html/B/blinkenlights.html b/html/B/blinkenlights.html
index d761ced9..2fd72a39 100644
--- a/html/B/blinkenlights.html
+++ b/html/B/blinkenlights.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Front-panel diagnostic lights on a computer, esp. a
dinosaur. Now that dinosaurs are rare, this term
usually refers to status lights on a modem, network hub, or the
like.
This term derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic
diff --git a/html/B/blit.html b/html/B/blit.html
index 023603b8..076e3370 100644
--- a/html/B/blit.html
+++ b/html/B/blit.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] 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 copies the good parts up into high
diff --git a/html/B/blitter.html b/html/B/blitter.html
index 6d078834..fa6719e6 100644
--- a/html/B/blitter.html
+++ b/html/B/blitter.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-blitter
[common] 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 since 1990 the trend has been away from them (however, see
diff --git a/html/B/blivet.html b/html/B/blivet.html
index 73a6d787..8516d82c 100644
--- a/html/B/blivet.html
+++ b/html/B/blivet.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[allegedly from a World War II military term meaning “ten
pounds of manure in a five-pound bag”]
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 hacked over by so many incompetent
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.
6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a
diff --git a/html/B/bloatware.html b/html/B/bloatware.html
index 7db8fbfa..c4195ed6 100644
--- a/html/B/bloatware.html
+++ b/html/B/bloatware.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Software that provides minimal functionality while
requiring a disproportionate amount of diskspace and memory. Especially
used for application and OS upgrades. This term is very common in the
Windows/NT world. So is its cause.
[common] Short for weblog, an
on-line web-zine or diary (usually with facilities for reader comments and
discussion threads) made accessible through the World Wide Web. This term
is widespread and readily forms derivatives, of which the best known may be
diff --git a/html/B/blogosphere.html b/html/B/blogosphere.html
index 6cece3a9..dd525893 100644
--- a/html/B/blogosphere.html
+++ b/html/B/blogosphere.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The totality of all blogs. A culture heavily
overlapping with but not coincident with hackerdom; a few of its key
coinages (blogrolling,
fisking, anti-idiotarianism)
diff --git a/html/B/blogrolling.html b/html/B/blogrolling.html
index 827d5c7a..4ea7e2ed 100644
--- a/html/B/blogrolling.html
+++ b/html/B/blogrolling.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[From the American political term ‘logrolling’, for
supporting another's pet bill in the legislature in exchange for reciprocal
support,] When you hotlink to other bloggers' blogs (and-or other bloggers'
specific blog entries) in your blog, you are blogrolling. This is
diff --git a/html/B/blow-an-EPROM.html b/html/B/blow-an-EPROM.html
index e6013ff9..f3a3681f 100644
--- a/html/B/blow-an-EPROM.html
+++ b/html/B/blow-an-EPROM.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
(alt.: blast an EPROM,
burn an EPROM) To program a read-only
memory, e.g.: for use with an embedded system. This term arose because the
programming process for the Programmable Read-Only Memories (PROMs) that
diff --git a/html/B/blow-away.html b/html/B/blow-away.html
index 99f4524e..24c5fc99 100644
--- a/html/B/blow-away.html
+++ b/html/B/blow-away.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
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.
diff --git a/html/B/blow-out.html b/html/B/blow-out.html
index 43e86a1a..b9a0b810 100644
--- a/html/B/blow-out.html
+++ b/html/B/blow-out.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-blow out
1. [scientific computation] To become unstable. Suggests that the
computation is diverging so rapidly that it will soon overflow or at least
go nonlinear.
1. obs. Once upon a time, before all-digital switches made it
possible for the phone companies to move them out of band, one could
actually hear the switching tones used to route long-distance calls. Early
phreakers built devices called blue boxes that could reproduce these tones,
diff --git a/html/B/blue-goo.html b/html/B/blue-goo.html
index 722a12e1..f3dba71d 100644
--- a/html/B/blue-goo.html
+++ b/html/B/blue-goo.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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. The term
diff --git a/html/B/blue-wire.html b/html/B/blue-wire.html
index 3fa0eae2..d616b860 100644
--- a/html/B/blue-wire.html
+++ b/html/B/blue-wire.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IBM] Patch wires (esp. 30 AWG gauge) added to circuit boards at the
factory to correct design or fabrication problems. Blue wire is not
necessarily blue, the term describes function rather than color. These may
be necessary if there hasn't been time to design and qualify another board
diff --git a/html/B/blurgle.html b/html/B/blurgle.html
index 66addd2c..7bcf9a39 100644
--- a/html/B/blurgle.html
+++ b/html/B/blurgle.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[UK] Spoken metasyntactic variable, to
indicate some text that is obvious from context, or which is already
known. If several words are to be replaced, blurgle may well be doubled or
tripled. “To look for something in several files use ‘grep
diff --git a/html/B/boa.html b/html/B/boa.html
index dc9165b2..b2d3d771 100644
--- a/html/B/boa.html
+++ b/html/B/boa.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-boa
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 rumored within IBM
diff --git a/html/B/board.html b/html/B/board.html
index ccc3382c..880accdb 100644
--- a/html/B/board.html
+++ b/html/B/board.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
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.
3. Obsolete but still working hardware, especially when used of an
diff --git a/html/B/bob.html b/html/B/bob.html
index 47580edd..2afc1e43 100644
--- a/html/B/bob.html
+++ b/html/B/bob.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
At Demon Internet, all
tech support personnel are called “Bob”. (Female support
personnel have an option on “Bobette”). This has nothing to
do with Bob the divine drilling-equipment salesman of the
diff --git a/html/B/bodge.html b/html/B/bodge.html
index f2f0a108..cd8cd01e 100644
--- a/html/B/bodge.html
+++ b/html/B/bodge.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
(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
diff --git a/html/B/bogometer.html b/html/B/bogometer.html
index ec20492b..c728bcff 100644
--- a/html/B/bogometer.html
+++ b/html/B/bogometer.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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 also bogosity,
diff --git a/html/B/bogon-flux.html b/html/B/bogon-flux.html
index aee62159..24a36047 100644
--- a/html/B/bogon-flux.html
+++ b/html/B/bogon-flux.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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
diff --git a/html/B/bogon.html b/html/B/bogon.html
index 3dc5542b..52225f87 100644
--- a/html/B/bogon.html
+++ b/html/B/bogon.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[very common; by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless
reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adams's
‘Vogons’; see the Bibliography in Appendix C and note that
Arthur Dent actually mispronounces ‘Vogons’ as
diff --git a/html/B/bogosity.html b/html/B/bogosity.html
index 00b364dd..65a76841 100644
--- a/html/B/bogosity.html
+++ b/html/B/bogosity.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [orig. CMU, now very common] The degree to which something is
bogus. Bogosity is measured with a
bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says
something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say “My
diff --git a/html/B/bogotify.html b/html/B/bogotify.html
index 5deb2aca..049d2154 100644
--- a/html/B/bogotify.html
+++ b/html/B/bogotify.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bogotify
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 bogotified and you had better not use it any more. This coinage led
diff --git a/html/B/bogue-out.html b/html/B/bogue-out.html
index fc213275..e9dcd466 100644
--- a/html/B/bogue-out.html
+++ b/html/B/bogue-out.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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,
diff --git a/html/B/bogus.html b/html/B/bogus.html
index ed22e98b..518744fe 100644
--- a/html/B/bogus.html
+++ b/html/B/bogus.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
5. Unbelievable. “You claim to have solved the halting
problem for Turing Machines? That's totally bogus.”
6. Silly. “Stop writing those bogus sagas.”
Astrology is bogus. So is a bolt that is obviously about to break.
So is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have solved a scientific
problem. (This word seems to have some, but not all, of the connotations
diff --git a/html/B/boink.html b/html/B/boink.html
index cc45c3b3..76426dd4 100644
--- a/html/B/boink.html
+++ b/html/B/boink.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV series
Cheers, Moonlighting, and
Soap]v. To have
sex with; compare bounce, sense 2. (This is
diff --git a/html/B/bomb.html b/html/B/bomb.html
index 259dc7b9..1620bba5 100644
--- a/html/B/bomb.html
+++ b/html/B/bomb.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. v. General synonym for
crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a
noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. “Don't run Empire with
less than 32K stack, it'll bomb.”
2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh
diff --git a/html/B/bondage-and-discipline-language.html b/html/B/bondage-and-discipline-language.html
index c0a6f799..bedb5123 100644
--- a/html/B/bondage-and-discipline-language.html
+++ b/html/B/bondage-and-discipline-language.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A language (such as Pascal, Ada, APL, or
Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed so as to
enforce an author's theory of ‘right programming’ even though
said theory is demonstrably inadequate for systems hacking or even vanilla
diff --git a/html/B/bonk-oif.html b/html/B/bonk-oif.html
index da63a4c2..f4bdc90f 100644
--- a/html/B/bonk-oif.html
+++ b/html/B/bonk-oif.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
In the U.S. MUD community, it has become
traditional to express pique or censure by bonking the offending person. Convention holds
that one should acknowledge a bonk by saying “oif!” and there
is a myth to the effect that failing to do so upsets the cosmic bonk/oif
diff --git a/html/B/book-titles.html b/html/B/book-titles.html
index e9ef0aaa..7e513831 100644
--- a/html/B/book-titles.html
+++ b/html/B/book-titles.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally tagging important
textbooks and standards documents with the dominant color of their covers
or with some other conspicuous feature of the cover. Many of these are
described in this lexicon under their own entries. See
diff --git a/html/B/boot.html b/html/B/boot.html
index 87a2c959..e3b65b6d 100644
--- a/html/B/boot.html
+++ b/html/B/boot.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[techspeak; from ‘by one's bootstraps’] 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
diff --git a/html/B/borken.html b/html/B/borken.html
index e382f54b..8eae79c0 100644
--- a/html/B/borken.html
+++ b/html/B/borken.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[common on IRC, MUD and among gamers; from “robot”]
1. An IRC or MUD user
who is actually a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some
useful service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random users
diff --git a/html/B/bottom-feeder.html b/html/B/bottom-feeder.html
index 97e8f700..a32d4640 100644
--- a/html/B/bottom-feeder.html
+++ b/html/B/bottom-feeder.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. An Internet user that leeches off ISPs — the sort you can
never provide good enough services for, always complains about the price,
no matter how low it may be, and will bolt off to another service the
moment there is even the slimmest price difference. While most bottom
diff --git a/html/B/bottom-post.html b/html/B/bottom-post.html
index 6c89ad8d..95535809 100644
--- a/html/B/bottom-post.html
+++ b/html/B/bottom-post.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
In a news or mail reply, to put the response to a news or email
message after the quoted content from the parent message. This is correct
form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet that neither
the term ‘bottom-post’ nor its antonym
diff --git a/html/B/bottom-up-implementation.html b/html/B/bottom-up-implementation.html
index bf352a82..986cbbb1 100644
--- a/html/B/bottom-up-implementation.html
+++ b/html/B/bottom-up-implementation.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Hackish opposite of the techspeak term top-down design. It has been received wisdom
in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels
of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing
detail until you get to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in
diff --git a/html/B/bounce-message.html b/html/B/bounce-message.html
index 968c2aac..86a969d6 100644
--- a/html/B/bounce-message.html
+++ b/html/B/bounce-message.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] 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, sense 1). Reasons might include a
diff --git a/html/B/bounce.html b/html/B/bounce.html
index bf21f5ac..6deef306 100644
--- a/html/B/bounce.html
+++ b/html/B/bounce.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common; perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An electronic
mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the
sender is said to bounce. See also
bounce message.
2. To engage in sexual intercourse; prob.: from the expression
diff --git a/html/B/boustrophedon.html b/html/B/boustrophedon.html
index 897411a2..34d9619c 100644
--- a/html/B/boustrophedon.html
+++ b/html/B/boustrophedon.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from a Greek word for turning like an ox while plowing] An ancient
method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left lines.
This term is actually philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon.
Erudite hackers use it for an optimization performed by some computer
diff --git a/html/B/box.html b/html/B/box.html
index 191897bc..6d06dc88 100644
--- a/html/B/box.html
+++ b/html/B/box.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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, Windows
box, etc.) “We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before
handing it up to the mainframe.”
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:
[very common; by analogy with VAXen] Fanciful
plural of box often encountered in the phrase
‘Unix boxen’, used to describe commodity
Unix hardware. The connotation is that any two Unix
diff --git a/html/B/boxology.html b/html/B/boxology.html
index c688c472..d941c1ec 100644
--- a/html/B/boxology.html
+++ b/html/B/boxology.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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.
[from the name of a TV clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald]
Resembling or having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously
wrong, unintentionally humorous. Compare wonky,
demented. Note that the noun ‘bozo’
diff --git a/html/B/brain-damaged.html b/html/B/brain-damaged.html
index bbbc3b40..8db72f6a 100644
--- a/html/B/brain-damaged.html
+++ b/html/B/brain-damaged.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] 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!”
[common] 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 it saves a lot of useful
diff --git a/html/B/brain-fart.html b/html/B/brain-fart.html
index 43aa0141..ca4271a4 100644
--- a/html/B/brain-fart.html
+++ b/html/B/brain-fart.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[Great Britain] Analagous to bandwidth but
used strictly for human capacity to process information and especially to
multitask. “Writing email is taking up most of my brainwidth right
now, I can't look at that Flash animation.”
1. Debugging statements inserted into a program that emit output or
log indicators of the program's state to a file so
you can see where it dies or pin down the cause of surprising behavior. The
term is probably a reference to the Hansel and Gretel story from the
diff --git a/html/B/break-even-point.html b/html/B/break-even-point.html
index 8e322d0e..9c2f3276 100644
--- a/html/B/break-even-point.html
+++ b/html/B/break-even-point.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
In the process of implementing a new computer language, the point at
which the language is sufficiently effective that one can implement the
language in itself. That is, for a new language called, hypothetically,
FOOGOL, one has reached break-even when one can write a demonstration
diff --git a/html/B/break.html b/html/B/break.html
index 9ca7b062..9b145456 100644
--- a/html/B/break.html
+++ b/html/B/break.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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
diff --git a/html/B/breath-of-life-packet.html b/html/B/breath-of-life-packet.html
index bb06f81e..0f5a55f4 100644
--- a/html/B/breath-of-life-packet.html
+++ b/html/B/breath-of-life-packet.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[XEROX PARC] An Ethernet packet that contains bootstrap (see
boot) code, periodically sent out from a working
computer to infuse the ‘breath of life’ into any computer on
the network that has happened to crash. Machines depending on such packets
diff --git a/html/B/breedle.html b/html/B/breedle.html
index e4c3096e..a61d3d2e 100644
--- a/html/B/breedle.html
+++ b/html/B/breedle.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
1. A piece of equipment that has been programmed or configured into a
hung, wedged,unusable
state. Especially used to describe what happens to devices like routers or
PDAs that run from firmware when the firmware image is damaged or its
diff --git a/html/B/bricktext.html b/html/B/bricktext.html
index 7c1678fb..3a5849da 100644
--- a/html/B/bricktext.html
+++ b/html/B/bricktext.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet: common] Text which is carefully composed to be
right-justified (and sometimes to have a deliberate gutter at mid-page)
without use of extra spaces, just through careful word-length choices. A
minor art form. The best examples have something of the quality of imagist
diff --git a/html/B/bring-X-to-its-knees.html b/html/B/bring-X-to-its-knees.html
index f3de1ff2..7e185457 100644
--- a/html/B/bring-X-to-its-knees.html
+++ b/html/B/bring-X-to-its-knees.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] 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
diff --git a/html/B/brittle.html b/html/B/brittle.html
index 0ffe5a0a..c02c3695 100644
--- a/html/B/brittle.html
+++ b/html/B/brittle.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-brittle
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 abnormal but expected external stimuli; e.g., a file system
diff --git a/html/B/broadcast-storm.html b/html/B/broadcast-storm.html
index 28823ce0..25e6f078 100644
--- a/html/B/broadcast-storm.html
+++ b/html/B/broadcast-storm.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] 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; compare
mail storm.
[IBM] 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
diff --git a/html/B/broken-ring-network.html b/html/B/broken-ring-network.html
index b26d3022..99090046 100644
--- a/html/B/broken-ring-network.html
+++ b/html/B/broken-ring-network.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Pejorative hackerism for “token-ring network”, an early
and very slow LAN technology from IBM that lost the standards war to
Ethernet. Though token-ring survives in a few niche markets (such as
factory automation) that put a high premium on resistance to electrical
diff --git a/html/B/broken.html b/html/B/broken.html
index 1d32c84a..1d13c7fe 100644
--- a/html/B/broken.html
+++ b/html/B/broken.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Not working according to design (of programs). This is the
mainstream sense.
2. Improperly designed, This sense carries a more or less
disparaging implication that the designer should have known better, while
sense 1 doesn't necessarily assign blame. Which of senses 1 or 2 is
diff --git a/html/B/broket.html b/html/B/broket.html
index 41b1bc08..ad728a63 100644
--- a/html/B/broket.html
+++ b/html/B/broket.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[rare; by analogy with ‘bracket’: a ‘broken
bracket’] Either of the characters < and
>, when used as paired enclosing delimiters. This
word originated as a contraction of the phrase ‘broken
diff --git a/html/B/brown-paper-bag-bug.html b/html/B/brown-paper-bag-bug.html
index 44033238..730ed3bc 100644
--- a/html/B/brown-paper-bag-bug.html
+++ b/html/B/brown-paper-bag-bug.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A bug in a public software release that is so embarrassing that the
author notionally wears a brown paper bag over his head for a while so he
won't be recognized on the net. Entered popular usage after the early-1999
release of the first Linux 2.2, which had one. The phrase was used in
diff --git a/html/B/browser.html b/html/B/browser.html
index d96e4ea8..ffab9694 100644
--- a/html/B/browser.html
+++ b/html/B/browser.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A program specifically designed to help users view and navigate
hypertext, on-line documentation, or a database. While this general sense
has been present in jargon for a long time, the proliferation of browsers
for the World Wide Web after 1992 has made it much more popular and
diff --git a/html/B/brute-force-and-ignorance.html b/html/B/brute-force-and-ignorance.html
index b07a588f..dbbf3d8e 100644
--- a/html/B/brute-force-and-ignorance.html
+++ b/html/B/brute-force-and-ignorance.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A popular design technique at many software houses —
brute force coding unrelieved by any knowledge of
how problems have been previously solved in elegant ways. Dogmatic
adherence to design methodologies tends to encourage this sort of thing.
diff --git a/html/B/brute-force.html b/html/B/brute-force.html
index 3ee35cd4..c1579122 100644
--- a/html/B/brute-force.html
+++ b/html/B/brute-force.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Describes a primitive programming style, one in which the programmer
relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his or her own
intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and
applying naive methods suited to small problems directly to large ones.
diff --git a/html/B/bubble-sort.html b/html/B/bubble-sort.html
index 87bd6f66..0efe6637 100644
--- a/html/B/bubble-sort.html
+++ b/html/B/bubble-sort.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Techspeak for a particular sorting technique in which pairs of
adjacent values in the list to be sorted are compared and interchanged if
they are out of order; thus, list entries ‘bubble upward’ in
the list until they bump into one with a lower sort value. Because it is
diff --git a/html/B/bucky-bits.html b/html/B/bucky-bits.html
index 669402e9..db755653 100644
--- a/html/B/bucky-bits.html
+++ b/html/B/bucky-bits.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [obs.] The bits produced by the CONTROL and META shift keys on a
SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and 400 respectively), resulting in a 9-bit
keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards extended this
with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and META keys, resulting in a
diff --git a/html/B/buffer-chuck.html b/html/B/buffer-chuck.html
index 40e2b054..efa407f1 100644
--- a/html/B/buffer-chuck.html
+++ b/html/B/buffer-chuck.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
What happens when you try to stuff more data into a buffer (holding
area) than it can handle. This problem is commonly exploited by
crackers to get arbitrary commands executed by a
program running with root permissions. This may be due to a mismatch in
diff --git a/html/B/bug-compatible.html b/html/B/bug-compatible.html
index 9b318d00..18a3e289 100644
--- a/html/B/bug-compatible.html
+++ b/html/B/bug-compatible.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Said of a design or revision that has been badly
compromised by a requirement to be compatible with
fossils or misfeatures in
other programs or (esp.) previous releases of itself. “MS-DOS 2.0
diff --git a/html/B/bug-for-bug-compatible.html b/html/B/bug-for-bug-compatible.html
index fa944d99..47aa3414 100644
--- a/html/B/bug-for-bug-compatible.html
+++ b/html/B/bug-for-bug-compatible.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-bug-for-bug compatible
[from “book-of-the-month club”, a time-honored
mail-order-marketing technique in the U.S.] A mythical club which users of
sendmail(8) (the Unix mail daemon)
belong to; this was coined on the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.unix at a
diff --git a/html/B/bug.html b/html/B/bug.html
index cb2922d2..7e9f474f 100644
--- a/html/B/bug.html
+++ b/html/B/bug.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of
hardware, esp. one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym of
feature. Examples: “There's a bug in the
editor: it writes things out backwards.” “The system crashed
diff --git a/html/B/bulletproof.html b/html/B/bulletproof.html
index 52273dc8..0584f605 100644
--- a/html/B/bulletproof.html
+++ b/html/B/bulletproof.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-bulletproof
Used of an algorithm or implementation considered extremely
robust; lossage-resistant; capable of correctly
recovering from any imaginable exception condition — a rare and
valued quality. Implies that the programmer has thought of all possible
diff --git a/html/B/bullschildt.html b/html/B/bullschildt.html
index b6a0d651..04c3309c 100644
--- a/html/B/bullschildt.html
+++ b/html/B/bullschildt.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[comp.lang.c on USENET] A confident, but incorrect, statement about
a programming language. This immortalizes a very bad book about
C, Herbert Schildt's C - The Complete
Reference. One reviewer commented “The naive errors in
diff --git a/html/B/bump.html b/html/B/bump.html
index 2aff441e..a045d251 100644
--- a/html/B/bump.html
+++ b/html/B/bump.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-bump
Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as C's ++ operator.
Used esp. of counter variables, pointers, and index dummies in for, while, and
do-while loops.
[from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky] Like
flame, but connotes that the source is truly
clueless and ineffectual (mere flamers can be competent). A term of deep
contempt. “There's some guy on the phone burbling about how he got a
diff --git a/html/B/buried-treasure.html b/html/B/buried-treasure.html
index 9c0161b1..a571b1c7 100644
--- a/html/B/buried-treasure.html
+++ b/html/B/buried-treasure.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-buried treasure
A surprising piece of code found in some program. While usually not
wrong, it tends to vary from crufty to
bletcherous, and has lain undiscovered only because
it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. Used sarcastically,
diff --git a/html/B/burn-a-CD.html b/html/B/burn-a-CD.html
index d275bf41..54e770dd 100644
--- a/html/B/burn-a-CD.html
+++ b/html/B/burn-a-CD.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
To write a software or document distribution on a CDR. Coined from
the fact that a laser is used to inscribe the information by burning small
pits in the medium, and from the fact that disk comes out of the drive warm
to the touch. Writable CDs can be done on a normal desk-top machine with a
diff --git a/html/B/burn-in-period.html b/html/B/burn-in-period.html
index 3305f535..71dda603 100644
--- a/html/B/burn-in-period.html
+++ b/html/B/burn-in-period.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. A factory test designed to catch systems with
marginal components before they get out the door;
the theory is that burn-in will protect customers by outwaiting the
steepest part of the bathtub curve (see
diff --git a/html/B/burst-page.html b/html/B/burst-page.html
index bdbb6ab7..305ce058 100644
--- a/html/B/burst-page.html
+++ b/html/B/burst-page.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
Used of human behavior, conveys that the subject is busy waiting for
someone or something, intends to move instantly as soon as it shows up, and
thus cannot do anything else at the moment. “Can't talk now, I'm
busy-waiting till Bill gets off the phone.”
Technically, busy-wait means to
diff --git a/html/B/buzz.html b/html/B/buzz.html
index c1088654..75fd05ad 100644
--- a/html/B/buzz.html
+++ b/html/B/buzz.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress and perhaps
without guarantee of ever finishing; esp. said of programs thought to be
executing tight loops of code. A program that is buzzing appears to be
catatonic, but never gets out of catatonia, while a
diff --git a/html/B/buzzword-compliant.html b/html/B/buzzword-compliant.html
index ad159862..b98f649a 100644
--- a/html/B/buzzword-compliant.html
+++ b/html/B/buzzword-compliant.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[also buzzword-enabled] Used
(disparagingly) of products that seem to have been specified to incorporate
all of this month's trendy technologies. Key buzzwords that often show up
in buzzword-compliant specifications as of 2001 include ‘XML’,
diff --git a/html/B/by-hand.html b/html/B/by-hand.html
index 9f76cc28..51f5235f 100644
--- a/html/B/by-hand.html
+++ b/html/B/by-hand.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] Said of an operation (especially a repetitive, trivial,
and/or tedious one) that ought to be performed automatically by the
computer, but which a hacker instead has to step tediously through.
“My mailer doesn't have a command to include the text of the message
diff --git a/html/B/byte-sex.html b/html/B/byte-sex.html
index 4b1f38f0..b59f3c5e 100644
--- a/html/B/byte-sex.html
+++ b/html/B/byte-sex.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-byte sex
[techspeak] A unit of memory or data equal to the amount used to
represent one character; on modern architectures this is invariably 8 bits.
Some older architectures used byte
for quantities of 6, 7, or (especially) 9 bits, and the PDP-10 supported
diff --git a/html/B/bytesexual.html b/html/B/bytesexual.html
index 35d46c77..77beb03c 100644
--- a/html/B/bytesexual.html
+++ b/html/B/bytesexual.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[rare] Said of hardware, denotes willingness to compute or pass data
in either big-endian or
little-endian format (depending, presumably, on a
mode bit somewhere). See also
diff --git a/html/C-frame.html b/html/C-frame.html
index 1c5e3648..f62c8be4 100644
--- a/html/C-frame.html
+++ b/html/C-frame.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
The tendency of the undisciplined C programmer to set arbitrary but
supposedly generous static limits on table sizes (defined, if you're lucky,
by constants in header files) rather than taking the trouble to do proper
dynamic storage allocation. If an application user later needs to put 68
diff --git a/html/C/C-ampersand-C.html b/html/C/C-ampersand-C.html
index 3eff7e66..7a76af45 100644
--- a/html/C/C-ampersand-C.html
+++ b/html/C/C-ampersand-C.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common, esp. on news.admin.net-abuse.email] Contraction of
“Coffee & Cats”. This frequently occurs as a warning
label on USENET posts that are likely to cause you to
snarf coffee onto your keyboard and startle the cat
diff --git a/html/C/C-plus-plus.html b/html/C/C-plus-plus.html
index 0ac3fbe6..d57fa493 100644
--- a/html/C/C-plus-plus.html
+++ b/html/C/C-plus-plus.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup of AT&T Bell Labs as a successor
to C. Now one of the languages of
choice, although many hackers still grumble that it is the
successor to either Algol 68 or Ada (depending on generation), and a prime
diff --git a/html/C/C.html b/html/C/C.html
index 580f4aac..3658d621 100644
--- a/html/C/C.html
+++ b/html/C/C.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
3. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie
during the early 1970s and immediately used to reimplement
Unix; so called because many features derived from
an earlier compiler named ‘B’ in commemoration of
diff --git a/html/C/CDA.html b/html/C/CDA.html
index 6039fa0b..3a18551e 100644
--- a/html/C/CDA.html
+++ b/html/C/CDA.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The “Communications Decency Act”, passed as section 502
of a major telecommunications reform bill on February 8th, 1996
(“Black Thursday”). The CDA made it a federal crime in the USA
to send a communication which is “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy,
diff --git a/html/C/CHOP.html b/html/C/CHOP.html
index 44733175..25af0023 100644
--- a/html/C/CHOP.html
+++ b/html/C/CHOP.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-CHOP
Hackerism for ‘CIS’, CompuServe Information Service.
The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line charges. Often
used in sig blocks just before a CompuServe address.
Syn. Compu$erve.
1. n. An action endangering
one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly
one's job: “His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He
won the prize for ‘best CLM’.”
2. adj. Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a customer
diff --git a/html/C/CNK.html b/html/C/CNK.html
index 44d60099..00bbd6ea 100644
--- a/html/C/CNK.html
+++ b/html/C/CNK.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Reported from Sweden, a (hypothetical) disease one might get from
coding in COBOL. The language requires code verbose beyond all reason (see
candygrammar); thus it is alleged that programming
too much in COBOL causes one's fingers to wear down to stubs by the endless
diff --git a/html/C/COBOL.html b/html/C/COBOL.html
index 5c367fbf..38802b34 100644
--- a/html/C/COBOL.html
+++ b/html/C/COBOL.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[COmmon Business-Oriented Language] (Synonymous with
evil.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language used by
code grinders to do boring mindless things on
dinosaur mainframes. Hackers believe that all COBOL
diff --git a/html/C/COME-FROM.html b/html/C/COME-FROM.html
index b4644156..4048619d 100644
--- a/html/C/COME-FROM.html
+++ b/html/C/COME-FROM.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A semi-mythical language construct dual to the ‘go to’;
COME FROM <label> would cause the
referenced label to act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever
reached it control would quietly and automagically
diff --git a/html/C/CP-M.html b/html/C/CP-M.html
index 8dd0462b..daa87e3b 100644
--- a/html/C/CP-M.html
+++ b/html/C/CP-M.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Control Program/Monitor; later retconned to
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
diff --git a/html/C/CPU-Wars.html b/html/C/CPU-Wars.html
index fce2e034..63a31712 100644
--- a/html/C/CPU-Wars.html
+++ b/html/C/CPU-Wars.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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 rather transparent allegory featured many references to
diff --git a/html/C/CRC-handbook.html b/html/C/CRC-handbook.html
index edc2acba..56061831 100644
--- a/html/C/CRC-handbook.html
+++ b/html/C/CRC-handbook.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Any of the editions of the Chemical Rubber Company
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics; there are other CRC
handbooks, such as the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables and
Formulae, but “the” CRC handbook is the chemistry
diff --git a/html/C/CTSS.html b/html/C/CTSS.html
index a10aa561..99cdbcec 100644
--- a/html/C/CTSS.html
+++ b/html/C/CTSS.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the
design of interactive timesharing operating systems, ancestral to
Multics, Unix, and
ITS. The name ITS
diff --git a/html/C/Camel-Book.html b/html/C/Camel-Book.html
index a3eb7322..199a1b77 100644
--- a/html/C/Camel-Book.html
+++ b/html/C/Camel-Book.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Universally recognized nickname for the book Programming
Perl, by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and
Associates 1991, ISBN 0-937175-64-1 (second edition 1996, ISBN
1-56592-149-6; third edition 2000, 0-596-00027-8, adding as authors Tom
diff --git a/html/C/Cancelmoose.html b/html/C/Cancelmoose.html
index da252939..80ea6b31 100644
--- a/html/C/Cancelmoose.html
+++ b/html/C/Cancelmoose.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet] The archetype and model of all good
spam-fighters. Once upon a time, the 'Moose would
send out spam-cancels and then post notice anonymously to news.admin.policy, news.admin.misc, and alt.current-events.net-abuse. The 'Moose
stepped to the fore on its own initiative, at a time (mid-1994) when
diff --git a/html/C/Chernobyl-chicken.html b/html/C/Chernobyl-chicken.html
index 3c922de6..1866d368 100644
--- a/html/C/Chernobyl-chicken.html
+++ b/html/C/Chernobyl-chicken.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
A network packet that induces a
broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, in memory
of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical
scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway
diff --git a/html/C/Chinese-Army-technique.html b/html/C/Chinese-Army-technique.html
index 554ef125..09722a9f 100644
--- a/html/C/Chinese-Army-technique.html
+++ b/html/C/Chinese-Army-technique.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
A packet with every single option set for whatever protocol is in
use. See kamikaze packet,
Chernobyl packet. (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful image of
each little option bit being represented by a different-colored light bulb,
diff --git a/html/C/Christmas-tree.html b/html/C/Christmas-tree.html
index 7d9ad1b0..0ec733a5 100644
--- a/html/C/Christmas-tree.html
+++ b/html/C/Christmas-tree.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
A mutant offshoot of Discordianism launched
in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the
‘Reverend’ Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist with a gift for
promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source of bizarre imagery and
diff --git a/html/C/Cinderella-Book.html b/html/C/Cinderella-Book.html
index 61d09b5e..db7dbb7a 100644
--- a/html/C/Cinderella-Book.html
+++ b/html/C/Cinderella-Book.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[CMU] Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and
Computation, by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman,
(Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl
(putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device and
diff --git a/html/C/Classic-C.html b/html/C/Classic-C.html
index 3ae90f73..725149a7 100644
--- a/html/C/Classic-C.html
+++ b/html/C/Classic-C.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[a play on ‘Coke Classic’] The C programming language as
defined in the first edition of K&R, with some small additions. It
is also known as ‘K&R C’. The name came into use while C
was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee. Also ‘C
diff --git a/html/C/Code-of-the-Geeks.html b/html/C/Code-of-the-Geeks.html
index 9f454a7c..f811822f 100644
--- a/html/C/Code-of-the-Geeks.html
+++ b/html/C/Code-of-the-Geeks.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
Hacker jargon as spoken in English outside the U.S., esp. in the
British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more
likely to pronounce truncations like ‘char’ and
‘soc’, etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in
diff --git a/html/C/CompuServe.html b/html/C/CompuServe.html
index 1edcc0a2..2ee560c3 100644
--- a/html/C/CompuServe.html
+++ b/html/C/CompuServe.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
The rule that the organization of the software and the organization
of the software team will be congruent; commonly stated as “If you
have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass
compiler”. The original statement was more general,
diff --git a/html/C/Core-Wars.html b/html/C/Core-Wars.html
index 6a1b5008..33981379 100644
--- a/html/C/Core-Wars.html
+++ b/html/C/Core-Wars.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A game between assembler
programs in a machine or machine simulator, where the objective is to kill
your opponent's program by overwriting it. Popularized in the 1980s by
A. K. Dewdney's column in Scientific American
diff --git a/html/C/CrApTeX.html b/html/C/CrApTeX.html
index a8ac1c3d..3a2cf0b6 100644
--- a/html/C/CrApTeX.html
+++ b/html/C/CrApTeX.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[University of York, England] Term of abuse used to describe TeX and
LaTeX when they don't work (when used by TeXhackers), or all the time (by
everyone else). The non-TeX-enthusiasts generally dislike it because it is
more verbose than other formatters (e.g. troff) and
diff --git a/html/C/calculator.html b/html/C/calculator.html
index d16f9d32..57ea9612 100644
--- a/html/C/calculator.html
+++ b/html/C/calculator.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
A variable in a programming language is sait to be camelCased when
all words but the first are capitalized. This practice contrasts with the
C tradition of either running syllables together or marking syllable breaks
with underscores; thus, where a C programmer would write
diff --git a/html/C/camelCasing.html b/html/C/camelCasing.html
index ed935cfe..ee316c09 100644
--- a/html/C/camelCasing.html
+++ b/html/C/camelCasing.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
The traditional program comment for code executed under a condition
that should never be true, for example a file size computed as negative.
Often, such a condition being true indicates data corruption or a faulty
algorithm; it is almost always handled by emitting a fatal error message
diff --git a/html/C/cancelbot.html b/html/C/cancelbot.html
index e3dbb3ba..c96643cb 100644
--- a/html/C/cancelbot.html
+++ b/html/C/cancelbot.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
A programming-language grammar that is mostly syntactic
sugar; the term is also a play on ‘candygram’.
COBOL, Apple's Hypertalk language, and a lot of the
so-called ‘4GL’ database languages share this property. The
diff --git a/html/C/canonical.html b/html/C/canonical.html
index 033329f7..3701531c 100644
--- a/html/C/canonical.html
+++ b/html/C/canonical.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[very common; historically, ‘according to religious
law’] The usual or standard state or manner of something. This word
has a somewhat more technical meaning in mathematics. Two formulas such as
9 + x and x +
diff --git a/html/C/careware.html b/html/C/careware.html
index e0d81d17..38cc540c 100644
--- a/html/C/careware.html
+++ b/html/C/careware.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-careware
A variety of shareware for which either the
author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity or a levy
directed to charity is included on top of the distribution charge. Syn.:
charityware; compare
diff --git a/html/C/cargo-cult-programming.html b/html/C/cargo-cult-programming.html
index b2f6046e..00005665 100644
--- a/html/C/cargo-cult-programming.html
+++ b/html/C/cargo-cult-programming.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion
of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult
programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around
some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the
diff --git a/html/C/cascade.html b/html/C/cascade.html
index 988295e0..d407b787 100644
--- a/html/C/cascade.html
+++ b/html/C/cascade.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. A huge volume of spurious error-message output produced by a
compiler with poor error recovery. Too frequently, one trivial syntax
error (such as a missing ‘)’ or ‘}’) throws the
parser out of synch so that much of the remaining program text is
diff --git a/html/C/case-and-paste.html b/html/C/case-and-paste.html
index 88cc8304..9559e4fb 100644
--- a/html/C/case-and-paste.html
+++ b/html/C/case-and-paste.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The addition of a new feature to an existing
system by selecting the code from an existing feature and pasting it in
with minor changes. Common in telephony circles because most operations in
a telephone switch are selected using case
diff --git a/html/C/case-mod.html b/html/C/case-mod.html
index f1077bcb..544d0f2a 100644
--- a/html/C/case-mod.html
+++ b/html/C/case-mod.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Originally a kind of hardware hack on a PC intended to support
overclocking (e.g. with cutouts
for oversized fans, or a freon-based or water-cooling system).
2. Nowadays, similar drastic surgery that's done just to make a
machine look nifty. The commonest case mods combine acrylic case windows
diff --git a/html/C/casters-up-mode.html b/html/C/casters-up-mode.html
index da6d75db..39eb9e62 100644
--- a/html/C/casters-up-mode.html
+++ b/html/C/casters-up-mode.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IBM, prob. fr. slang belly
up] Yet another synonym for ‘broken’ or
‘down’. Usually connotes a major failure. A system (hardware
or software) which is down may be
diff --git a/html/C/casting-the-runes.html b/html/C/casting-the-runes.html
index 20c4b9b3..2ecabf76 100644
--- a/html/C/casting-the-runes.html
+++ b/html/C/casting-the-runes.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
What a guru does when you ask him or her to
run a particular program and type at it because it never works for anyone
else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different
from what J. Random Luser does. Compare
diff --git a/html/C/cat.html b/html/C/cat.html
index aeb6c93e..d9c2508f 100644
--- a/html/C/cat.html
+++ b/html/C/cat.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
output sink without pause (syn. blast).
2. By extension, to dump large amounts of data at an unprepared
diff --git a/html/C/catatonic.html b/html/C/catatonic.html
index c7023da3..d55e04e8 100644
--- a/html/C/catatonic.html
+++ b/html/C/catatonic.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is
so wedged or hung that it
makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the
computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let
diff --git a/html/C/cathedral.html b/html/C/cathedral.html
index 93c5abc7..f584d090 100644
--- a/html/C/cathedral.html
+++ b/html/C/cathedral.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[see bazaar for derivation] The
‘classical’ mode of software engineering long thought to be
necessarily implied by Brooks's Law. Features small
teams, tight project control, and long release intervals. This term came
diff --git a/html/C/cd-tilde.html b/html/C/cd-tilde.html
index 0abce170..31e793a9 100644
--- a/html/C/cd-tilde.html
+++ b/html/C/cd-tilde.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
To go home. From the Unix C-shell and Korn-shell command cd ~, which takes one to one's $HOME (cd with no
arguments happens to do the same thing). By extension, may be used with
other arguments; thus, over an electronic chat link, cd ~coffee would mean “I'm going to the coffee
machine.”
[from LISP] To skip past the first item from a list of things
(generalized from the LISP operation on binary tree structures, which
returns a list consisting of all but the first element of its argument).
In the form cdr down, to trace down a
diff --git a/html/C/chad-box.html b/html/C/chad-box.html
index 00a40200..489311e2 100644
--- a/html/C/chad-box.html
+++ b/html/C/chad-box.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A metal box about the size of a lunchbox (or in some models a large
wastebasket), for collecting the chad (sense 2) that
accumulated in Iron Age card punches. You had to
open the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the chad box. The
diff --git a/html/C/chad.html b/html/C/chad.html
index 98c6ef6f..a240f331 100644
--- a/html/C/chad.html
+++ b/html/C/chad.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after they
have been separated from the printed portion. Also called
selvage, perf, and
ripoff.
2. The confetti-like paper bits punched out of cards or paper tape;
diff --git a/html/C/chain.html b/html/C/chain.html
index 20b0012e..5849c58d 100644
--- a/html/C/chain.html
+++ b/html/C/chain.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. vi. [orig. from BASIC's
CHAIN statement] To hand off execution to a
child or successor without going through the OS
command interpreter that invoked it. The state of the parent program is
diff --git a/html/C/chainik.html b/html/C/chainik.html
index d3d154f9..10e5e8ba 100644
--- a/html/C/chainik.html
+++ b/html/C/chainik.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Russian, literally “teapot”] Almost synonymous with
muggle. Implies both ignorance and a certain amount
of willingness to learn, but does not necessarily imply as little
experience or short exposure time as newbie and is
diff --git a/html/C/channel-hopping.html b/html/C/channel-hopping.html
index 0daddaf2..d47f8447 100644
--- a/html/C/channel-hopping.html
+++ b/html/C/channel-hopping.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common; IRC, GEnie] To rapidly switch channels on
IRC, or a GEnie chat board, just as a social
butterfly might hop from one group to another at a party. This term may
derive from the TV watcher's idiom, channel
diff --git a/html/C/channel-op.html b/html/C/channel-op.html
index 85986b1a..9301bdc7 100644
--- a/html/C/channel-op.html
+++ b/html/C/channel-op.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-channel op
[IRC] Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular
IRC channel; commonly abbreviated chanop or CHOP or just op (as of 2000 these short forms have almost
crowded out the parent usage). These privileges include the right to
kick users, to change various status bits, and to
diff --git a/html/C/channel.html b/html/C/channel.html
index 24419b30..92af0182 100644
--- a/html/C/channel.html
+++ b/html/C/channel.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[IRC] The basic unit of discussion on IRC.
Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that
channel. Channels are named with strings that begin with a ‘#’
sign and can have topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to the
diff --git a/html/C/chanop.html b/html/C/chanop.html
index 1c479f79..d4f87671 100644
--- a/html/C/chanop.html
+++ b/html/C/chanop.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
1. vi. To go through multiple
levels of indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.
Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very common
data type. This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when used of human
diff --git a/html/C/chawmp.html b/html/C/chawmp.html
index 972be8ff..f4d01d0d 100644
--- a/html/C/chawmp.html
+++ b/html/C/chawmp.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[University of Florida] 16 or 18 bits (half of a machine word).
This term was used by FORTH hackers during the late 1970s/early 1980s; it
is said to have been archaic then, and may now be obsolete. It was coined
in revolt against the promiscuous use of ‘word’ for anything
diff --git a/html/C/check.html b/html/C/check.html
index 2dba88f7..0348d3e0 100644
--- a/html/C/check.html
+++ b/html/C/check.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A hardware-detected error condition, most commonly used to refer to
actual hardware failures rather than software-induced traps. E.g., a
parity check is the result of a
hardware-detected parity error. Recorded here because the word often
diff --git a/html/C/cheerfully.html b/html/C/cheerfully.html
index 38ee12c7..92a6a83b 100644
--- a/html/C/cheerfully.html
+++ b/html/C/cheerfully.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
[Cambridge] Someone who wastes computer time on
number-crunching when you'd far rather the machine
were doing something more productive, such as working out anagrams of your
name or printing Snoopy calendars or running life
diff --git a/html/C/chicken-head.html b/html/C/chicken-head.html
index 397601aa..b306462a 100644
--- a/html/C/chicken-head.html
+++ b/html/C/chicken-head.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Commodore] The Commodore Business Machines logo, which strongly
resembles a poultry part (within Commodore itself the logo was always
called chicken lips). Rendered in
ASCII as ‘C=’. With the arguable exception of the
diff --git a/html/C/chickenboner.html b/html/C/chickenboner.html
index 6d900041..344d356a 100644
--- a/html/C/chickenboner.html
+++ b/html/C/chickenboner.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[spamfighters] Derogatory term for a spammer. The image that goes
with it is of an overweight redneck with bad teeth living in a trailer,
hunched in semi-darkness over his computer and surrounded by rotting
chicken bones in half-eaten KFC buckets and empty beer cans. See http://www.spamfaq.net/terminology.shtml#chickenboner
diff --git a/html/C/chiclet-keyboard.html b/html/C/chiclet-keyboard.html
index b9824d04..50184667 100644
--- a/html/C/chiclet-keyboard.html
+++ b/html/C/chiclet-keyboard.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber
or plastic keys that look like pieces of chewing gum. (Chiclets is the
brand name of a variety of chewing gum that does in fact resemble the keys
of chiclet keyboards.) Used esp. to describe the original IBM PCjr
diff --git a/html/C/choad.html b/html/C/choad.html
index 2d9e1ff1..a7a6774f 100644
--- a/html/C/choad.html
+++ b/html/C/choad.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Synonym for ‘penis’ used in alt.tasteless and popularized by the denizens
thereof. They say: “We think maybe it's from Middle English but
we're all too damned lazy to check the OED.” [I'm not. It
isn't. —ESR] This term is alleged to have been inherited through
diff --git a/html/C/choke.html b/html/C/choke.html
index 592ff64b..40700c1c 100644
--- a/html/C/choke.html
+++ b/html/C/choke.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] To reject input, often ungracefully. “NULs make
System V's
lpr(1)
choke.” “I tried building an EMACS
diff --git a/html/C/chomp.html b/html/C/chomp.html
index 1c0d3ebf..80b9f6b4 100644
--- a/html/C/chomp.html
+++ b/html/C/chomp.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-chomp
A hand gesture commonly accompanies this. To perform it, hold the
four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and
diff --git a/html/C/chomper.html b/html/C/chomper.html
index 33d93bd4..91a0b81f 100644
--- a/html/C/chomper.html
+++ b/html/C/chomper.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
[from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to
attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system.
“The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are
pretty chrome!” Distinguished from
diff --git a/html/C/chug.html b/html/C/chug.html
index d682c552..b3d2dad1 100644
--- a/html/C/chug.html
+++ b/html/C/chug.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
1. adj. Used of hardware or
software designs, implies ‘elegance in the small’, that is, a
design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in
a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from
diff --git a/html/C/click-of-death.html b/html/C/click-of-death.html
index e2aaef66..81649a63 100644
--- a/html/C/click-of-death.html
+++ b/html/C/click-of-death.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A syndrome of certain Iomega ZIP drives, named for the clicking noise
that is caused by the malady. An affected drive will, after accepting a
disk, will start making a clicking noise and refuse to eject the disk. A
common solution for retrieving the disk is to insert the bent end of a
diff --git a/html/C/clobber.html b/html/C/clobber.html
index 12a6f537..3122dae9 100644
--- a/html/C/clobber.html
+++ b/html/C/clobber.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
To overwrite, usually unintentionally: “I walked off the end
of the array and clobbered the stack.” Compare
mung, scribble,
trash, and
diff --git a/html/C/clock.html b/html/C/clock.html
index a38ff987..f4bc0b62 100644
--- a/html/C/clock.html
+++ b/html/C/clock.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [techspeak] The master oscillator that steps a CPU or other
digital circuit through its paces. This has nothing to do with the time of
day, although the software counter that keeps track of the latter may be
derived from the former.
2. vt. To run a CPU or other
diff --git a/html/C/clocks.html b/html/C/clocks.html
index e55fed5a..0f7a9a54 100644
--- a/html/C/clocks.html
+++ b/html/C/clocks.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Processor logic cycles, so called because each generally corresponds
to one clock pulse in the processor's timing. The relative execution times
of instructions on a machine are usually discussed in clocks rather than
absolute fractions of a second; one good reason for this is that clock
diff --git a/html/C/clone-and-hack-coding.html b/html/C/clone-and-hack-coding.html
index 3dec4271..cca0d039 100644
--- a/html/C/clone-and-hack-coding.html
+++ b/html/C/clone-and-hack-coding.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
1. An exact duplicate: “Our product is a clone of their
product.” Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by
reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower price.
2. A shoddy, spurious copy: “Their product is a clone of our
product.”
3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating copyright, patent, or
diff --git a/html/C/clover-key.html b/html/C/clover-key.html
index 2e28878d..ba63445e 100644
--- a/html/C/clover-key.html
+++ b/html/C/clover-key.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
[Usenet: portmanteau, clue + two-by-four] The notional stick with
which one whacks an aggressively clueless person. This term derives from a
western American folk saying about training a mule “First, you got to
hit him with a two-by-four. That's to get his attention.” The
diff --git a/html/C/clustergeeking.html b/html/C/clustergeeking.html
index 6e1794b4..9a7dc18a 100644
--- a/html/C/clustergeeking.html
+++ b/html/C/clustergeeking.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[very common; first heard c.1995] Short for
‘co-location’, used of a machine you own that is physically
sited on the premises of an ISP in order to take advantage of the ISP's
direct access to lots of network bandwidth. Often in the phrases co-lo box or co-lo
diff --git a/html/C/coaster-toaster.html b/html/C/coaster-toaster.html
index 5c08952c..a1f503c2 100644
--- a/html/C/coaster-toaster.html
+++ b/html/C/coaster-toaster.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-coaster toaster
1. Unuseable CD produced during failed attempt at writing to
writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like
shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. “I made a
lot of coasters before I got a good CD.”
2. Useless CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$,
diff --git a/html/C/cobweb-site.html b/html/C/cobweb-site.html
index 8a3e9053..63a06b1b 100644
--- a/html/C/cobweb-site.html
+++ b/html/C/cobweb-site.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
1. A suit-wearing minion of the sort hired in
legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement payroll
packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors. In its native habitat,
the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to reveal an underplumage
diff --git a/html/C/code-monkey.html b/html/C/code-monkey.html
index 1955aa6e..b03a204d 100644
--- a/html/C/code-monkey.html
+++ b/html/C/code-monkey.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. A person only capable of grinding out code, but unable to perform
the higher-primate tasks of software architecture, analysis, and design.
Mildly insulting. Often applied to the most junior people on a programming
team.
2. Anyone who writes code for a living; a programmer.
3. A self-deprecating way of denying responsibility for a
diff --git a/html/C/code-police.html b/html/C/code-police.html
index 89c19cd5..de781f3d 100644
--- a/html/C/code-police.html
+++ b/html/C/code-police.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[by analogy with George Orwell's ‘thought police’] A
mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst into one's
office and arrest one for violating programming style rules. May be used
either seriously, to underline a claim that a particular style violation is
diff --git a/html/C/code.html b/html/C/code.html
index b8e0ce4a..18566a76 100644
--- a/html/C/code.html
+++ b/html/C/code.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. n. The stuff that software
writers write, either in source form or after translation by a compiler or
assembler. Often used in opposition to “data”, which is the
stuff that code operates on. Among hackers this is a mass noun, as in
diff --git a/html/C/codes.html b/html/C/codes.html
index df0e31c8..80fc5a00 100644
--- a/html/C/codes.html
+++ b/html/C/codes.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[scientific computing] Programs. This usage is common in people who
hack supercomputers and heavy-duty number-crunching,
rare to unknown elsewhere (if you say “codes” to hackers
outside scientific computing, their first association is likely to be
diff --git a/html/C/codewalker.html b/html/C/codewalker.html
index 20c184a8..e84fcd85 100644
--- a/html/C/codewalker.html
+++ b/html/C/codewalker.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A program component that traverses other programs for a living.
Compilers have codewalkers in their front ends; so do cross-reference
generators and some database front ends. Other utility programs that try
to do too much with source code may turn into codewalkers. As in
diff --git a/html/C/coefficient-of-X.html b/html/C/coefficient-of-X.html
index 1e1e73a8..a4375883 100644
--- a/html/C/coefficient-of-X.html
+++ b/html/C/coefficient-of-X.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Hackish speech makes heavy use of pseudo-mathematical metaphors.
Four particularly important ones involve the terms coefficient, factor, index of
X, and quotient. They are
often loosely applied to things you cannot really be quantitative about,
diff --git a/html/C/cokebottle.html b/html/C/cokebottle.html
index 96c81c05..455a8d73 100644
--- a/html/C/cokebottle.html
+++ b/html/C/cokebottle.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Any very unusual character, particularly one you can't type because
it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the
‘control-meta-cokebottle’ commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
complained right back about the ‘escape-escape-cokebottle’
diff --git a/html/C/cold-boot.html b/html/C/cold-boot.html
index 148c7dc9..38c58ad1 100644
--- a/html/C/cold-boot.html
+++ b/html/C/cold-boot.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
To surround a section of code with comment delimiters or to prefix
every line in the section with a comment marker; this prevents it from
being compiled or interpreted. Often done when the code is redundant or
obsolete, but is being left in the source to make the intent of the active
diff --git a/html/C/compact.html b/html/C/compact.html
index 0a7902bd..9389c8c4 100644
--- a/html/C/compact.html
+++ b/html/C/compact.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Of a design, describes the valuable property that it can all be
apprehended at once in one's head. This generally means the thing created
from the design can be used with greater facility and fewer errors than an
equivalent tool that is not compact. Compactness does not imply triviality
diff --git a/html/C/compiler-jock.html b/html/C/compiler-jock.html
index 279a3201..b59cfe6f 100644
--- a/html/C/compiler-jock.html
+++ b/html/C/compiler-jock.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
[demoscene] Finnish-originated slang for
‘competition’. Demo compos are held at a
demoparty. The usual protocol is that several groups
make demos for a compo, they are shown on a big screen, and then the party
diff --git a/html/C/compress.html b/html/C/compress.html
index 0c494b49..3d1aed0b 100644
--- a/html/C/compress.html
+++ b/html/C/compress.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Unix] When used without a qualifier, generally refers to
crunching of a file using a particular C
implementation of compression by Joseph M. Orost et al.: and widely
circulated via Usenet; use of
diff --git a/html/C/computer-confetti.html b/html/C/computer-confetti.html
index cab5dd2f..0b35e5d7 100644
--- a/html/C/computer-confetti.html
+++ b/html/C/computer-confetti.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Syn. chad. [obs.] Though this term was
common at one time, this use of punched-card chad is not a good idea, as
the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes.
GLS reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and a
diff --git a/html/C/computron.html b/html/C/computron.html
index 509e8af4..930baf32 100644
--- a/html/C/computron.html
+++ b/html/C/computron.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] A notional unit of computing power combining instruction
speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second
times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. “That
machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!”
diff --git a/html/C/con_.html b/html/C/con_.html
index fdcb8123..2746f1ad 100644
--- a/html/C/con_.html
+++ b/html/C/con_.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from SF fandom] A science-fiction convention. Not used of other
sorts of conventions, such as professional meetings. This term, unlike
many others imported from SF-fan slang, is widely recognized even by
hackers who aren't fans. “We'd been
diff --git a/html/C/condition-out.html b/html/C/condition-out.html
index c5b79531..953b85c9 100644
--- a/html/C/condition-out.html
+++ b/html/C/condition-out.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-condition out
To prevent a section of code from being compiled by surrounding it
with a conditional-compilation directive whose condition is always false.
The canonical examples of these directives are
#if 0 (or #ifdef
diff --git a/html/C/condom.html b/html/C/condom.html
index 64ace95a..7e4d1fc8 100644
--- a/html/C/condom.html
+++ b/html/C/condom.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-condom
1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch microfloppy
diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes. Unlike the write
protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only impedes the practice of
SEX but has also been shown to have a high failure
diff --git a/html/C/confuser.html b/html/C/confuser.html
index 058f7612..1e4b742c 100644
--- a/html/C/confuser.html
+++ b/html/C/confuser.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10 (one
model of the PDP-10), none of whose connectors
matched anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension,
programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products that
diff --git a/html/C/cons.html b/html/C/cons.html
index cedac9a0..1c7f9b9f 100644
--- a/html/C/cons.html
+++ b/html/C/cons.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. vt. To add a new element to a
specified list, esp. at the top. “OK, cons picking a replacement
for the console TTY onto the agenda.”
2. cons up: vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces: “to
cons up an example”.
In LISP itself, cons is the most
diff --git a/html/C/considered-harmful.html b/html/C/considered-harmful.html
index d5dab568..5dd7532f 100644
--- a/html/C/considered-harmful.html
+++ b/html/C/considered-harmful.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[very common] Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968
Communications of the ACM, Goto Statement
Considered Harmful, fired the first salvo in the structured
programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics/).
diff --git a/html/C/console-jockey.html b/html/C/console-jockey.html
index 80b6e121..be592e71 100644
--- a/html/C/console-jockey.html
+++ b/html/C/console-jockey.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
1. The operator's station of a mainframe. In
times past, this was a privileged location that conveyed godlike powers to
anyone with fingers on its keys. Under Unix and other modern timesharing
OSes, such privileges are guarded by passwords instead, and the console is
diff --git a/html/C/content-free.html b/html/C/content-free.html
index 5627083f..d1fadd2f 100644
--- a/html/C/content-free.html
+++ b/html/C/content-free.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[by analogy with techspeak context-free] Used of a message that adds
nothing to the recipient's knowledge. Though this adjective is sometimes
applied to flamage, it more usually connotes
derision for communication styles that exalt form over substance or are
diff --git a/html/C/control-C.html b/html/C/control-C.html
index 2576d895..672e9609 100644
--- a/html/C/control-C.html
+++ b/html/C/control-C.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. “Stop whatever you are doing.” From the interrupt
character used on many operating systems to abort a running program.
Considered silly.
2. interj. Among BSD Unix
hackers, the canonical humorous response to “Give me a
diff --git a/html/C/control-O.html b/html/C/control-O.html
index b79c0c2b..92304c7b 100644
--- a/html/C/control-O.html
+++ b/html/C/control-O.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-control-O
“Stop talking.” From the character used on some
operating systems to abort output but allow the program to keep on running.
Generally means that you are not interested in hearing anything more from
that person, at least on that topic; a standard response to someone who is
diff --git a/html/C/control-Q.html b/html/C/control-Q.html
index 551fcf00..67024809 100644
--- a/html/C/control-Q.html
+++ b/html/C/control-Q.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
“Stop talking for a second.” From the ASCII DC3 or XOFF
character (the pronunciation /X-of/ is therefore also used). Control-S
differs from control-O in that the person is asked
to stop talking (perhaps because you are on the phone) but will be allowed
diff --git a/html/C/cookbook.html b/html/C/cookbook.html
index 1702ce06..56d9b3fb 100644
--- a/html/C/cookbook.html
+++ b/html/C/cookbook.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from amateur electronics and radio] A book of small code segments
that the reader can use to do various magic things
in programs. Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into
voodoo programming, but are useful for hackers
diff --git a/html/C/cooked-mode.html b/html/C/cooked-mode.html
index 9699c3f5..bdabc842 100644
--- a/html/C/cooked-mode.html
+++ b/html/C/cooked-mode.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Unix, by opposition from raw mode] The
normal character-input mode, with interrupts enabled and with erase, kill
and other special-character interpretations performed directly by the tty
driver. Oppose raw mode,
diff --git a/html/C/cookie-bear.html b/html/C/cookie-bear.html
index 1ff7ba6d..e3d7eb69 100644
--- a/html/C/cookie-bear.html
+++ b/html/C/cookie-bear.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Original term, pre-Sesame-Street, for what is now universally called
a cookie monster. A correspondent observes “In
those days, hackers were actually getting their yucks from...sit
down now...Andy Williams. Yes, that Andy
diff --git a/html/C/cookie-file.html b/html/C/cookie-file.html
index adb8631e..b6e05147 100644
--- a/html/C/cookie-file.html
+++ b/html/C/cookie-file.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-cookie file
A collection of fortune cookies in a format
that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program. There are several
different cookie files in public distribution, and site admins often
assemble their own from various sources including this lexicon.
diff --git a/html/C/cookie-jar.html b/html/C/cookie-jar.html
index 29848bb9..1aa9ffa0 100644
--- a/html/C/cookie-jar.html
+++ b/html/C/cookie-jar.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-cookie jar
An area of memory set aside for storing
cookies. Most commonly heard in the Atari ST
community; many useful ST programs record their presence by storing a
distinctive magic number in the jar. Programs can
diff --git a/html/C/cookie-monster.html b/html/C/cookie-monster.html
index da2d0031..5a610406 100644
--- a/html/C/cookie-monster.html
+++ b/html/C/cookie-monster.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from the children's TV program Sesame
Street] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on
TOPS-10, ITS,
Multics, and elsewhere that would lock up either the
diff --git a/html/C/cookie.html b/html/C/cookie.html
index ffdb044f..413b2030 100644
--- a/html/C/cookie.html
+++ b/html/C/cookie.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between
cooperating programs. “I give him a packet, he gives me back a
cookie.” The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop is a
perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's useful for is to
diff --git a/html/C/copious-free-time.html b/html/C/copious-free-time.html
index 21e9098b..a8dbd502 100644
--- a/html/C/copious-free-time.html
+++ b/html/C/copious-free-time.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Apple; orig. fr. the intro to Tom Lehrer's song It Makes
A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier]
1. [used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity
in question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to be
unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the speaker is
diff --git a/html/C/copper.html b/html/C/copper.html
index 57f92836..af4733a1 100644
--- a/html/C/copper.html
+++ b/html/C/copper.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
Conventional electron-carrying network cable with a core conductor
of copper — or aluminum! Opposed to
light pipe or, say, a short-range microwave link.
1. [play on copyright] Used to
describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been
‘broken’; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme
disabled. Syn. copywronged.
2. Copy-protected software which is unusable because of some bit-rot
diff --git a/html/C/copycenter.html b/html/C/copycenter.html
index f66d3ce9..568f2271 100644
--- a/html/C/copycenter.html
+++ b/html/C/copycenter.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. The copyright notice carried by the various flavors of freeware
BSD. According to Kirk McKusick at BSDCon 1999: “The way it was
characterized politically, you had copyright, which is what the big
companies use to lock everything up; you had copyleft, which is free
diff --git a/html/C/copyleft.html b/html/C/copyleft.html
index 871aad51..f1722837 100644
--- a/html/C/copyleft.html
+++ b/html/C/copyleft.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-copyleft
[C64/amiga demoscene] A computer party
organized so demosceners can meet other in real life, and to facilitate
software copying (mostly pirated software). The copyparty has become less
common as the Internet makes communication easier. The demoscene has
diff --git a/html/C/copywronged.html b/html/C/copywronged.html
index 31c7affe..f884df2e 100644
--- a/html/C/copywronged.html
+++ b/html/C/copywronged.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
Main storage or RAM. Dates from the days of ferrite-core memory;
now archaic as techspeak most places outside IBM, but also still used in
the Unix community and by old-time hackers or those who would sound like
them. Some derived idioms are quite current; in
diff --git a/html/C/cosmic-rays.html b/html/C/cosmic-rays.html
index d3debeee..b8a2b716 100644
--- a/html/C/cosmic-rays.html
+++ b/html/C/cosmic-rays.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-cosmic rays
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
diff --git a/html/C/cough-and-die.html b/html/C/cough-and-die.html
index 0acf8ec1..ba5626ae 100644
--- a/html/C/cough-and-die.html
+++ b/html/C/cough-and-die.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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.” Compare
diff --git a/html/C/courier.html b/html/C/courier.html
index 3bd956d8..9e481e73 100644
--- a/html/C/courier.html
+++ b/html/C/courier.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[BBS & cracker cultures] A person who distributes newly cracked
warez, as opposed to a server
who makes them available for download or a leech who
merely downloads them. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it
diff --git a/html/C/cow-orker.html b/html/C/cow-orker.html
index a7386ef3..cc410d65 100644
--- a/html/C/cow-orker.html
+++ b/html/C/cow-orker.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet] n. fortuitous typo for co-worker, widely used in Usenet,
with perhaps a hint that orking cows is illegal. This term was popularized
by Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) but already
appears in the January 1996 version of the
diff --git a/html/C/cowboy.html b/html/C/cowboy.html
index 9cc1486a..061c60b0 100644
--- a/html/C/cowboy.html
+++ b/html/C/cowboy.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
2. v. Action of removing the
copy protection from a commercial program. People who write cracks
consider themselves challenged by the copy protection measures. They will
diff --git a/html/C/cracker.html b/html/C/cracker.html
index 970af6a5..ac99d1e1 100644
--- a/html/C/cracker.html
+++ b/html/C/cracker.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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.
Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the
diff --git a/html/C/cracking.html b/html/C/cracking.html
index 6f0e6479..4d219656 100644
--- a/html/C/cracking.html
+++ b/html/C/cracking.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[very common] The act of breaking into a computer system; what a
cracker does. Contrary to widespread myth, this
does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but
rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly
diff --git a/html/C/crank.html b/html/C/crank.html
index fa989e26..79ad44b1 100644
--- a/html/C/crank.html
+++ b/html/C/crank.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from automotive slang] 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.”
[portmanteau, crap + applet] A worthless applet, esp. a Java widget
attached to a web page that doesn't work or even crashes your browser.
Also spelled ‘craplet’.
diff --git a/html/C/crash-and-burn.html b/html/C/crash-and-burn.html
index e883c250..bf5cb992 100644
--- a/html/C/crash-and-burn.html
+++ b/html/C/crash-and-burn.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-crash and burn
A spectacular crash, in the mode of the conclusion of the car-chase
scene in the movie Bullitt and many subsequent
imitators (compare die horribly). The construction
crash-and-burn machine is reported
diff --git a/html/C/crash.html b/html/C/crash.html
index 99801a33..c5196d16 100644
--- a/html/C/crash.html
+++ b/html/C/crash.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. n. A sudden, usually drastic
failure. Most often said of the system (q.v., sense
1), esp. of magnetic disk drives (the term originally described what
happens when the air gap of a hard disk collapses). “Three
diff --git a/html/C/crawling-horror.html b/html/C/crawling-horror.html
index 366de285..1bf6c14c 100644
--- a/html/C/crawling-horror.html
+++ b/html/C/crawling-horror.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-crawling horror
Ancient crufty hardware or software that is kept obstinately alive
by forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site. Like
dusty deck or gonkulator, but
connotes that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active
diff --git a/html/C/creationism.html b/html/C/creationism.html
index ba40a48c..ba07ca75 100644
--- a/html/C/creationism.html
+++ b/html/C/creationism.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The (false) belief that large, innovative software designs can be
completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the
void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers. In
fact, experience has shown repeatedly that good designs arise only from
diff --git a/html/C/creep.html b/html/C/creep.html
index cbe08a5a..bda17fd4 100644
--- a/html/C/creep.html
+++ b/html/C/creep.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
To advance, grow, or multiply inexorably. In hackish usage this
verb has overtones of menace and silliness, evoking the creeping horrors of
low-budget monster movies.
Describes a tendency for parts of a design to become
elegant past the point of diminishing return,
something which often happens at the expense of the less interesting parts
of the design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the
diff --git a/html/C/creeping-featurism.html b/html/C/creeping-featurism.html
index 82b8204f..4ad48705 100644
--- a/html/C/creeping-featurism.html
+++ b/html/C/creeping-featurism.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Describes a systematic tendency to load more
chrome and features onto
systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed when
diff --git a/html/C/creeping-featuritis.html b/html/C/creeping-featuritis.html
index fa51edd1..2b76e441 100644
--- a/html/C/creeping-featuritis.html
+++ b/html/C/creeping-featuritis.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Variant of creeping featurism, with its own
spoonerization: feeping creaturitis.
Some people like to reserve this form for the disease as it actually
manifests in software or hardware, as opposed to the lurking general
diff --git a/html/C/cretin.html b/html/C/cretin.html
index 1bd05118..aebe64fc 100644
--- a/html/C/cretin.html
+++ b/html/C/cretin.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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 /kretin/ over standard American
/kreetn/; it is thought
diff --git a/html/C/cretinous.html b/html/C/cretinous.html
index 6f078ca9..02ddf331 100644
--- a/html/C/cretinous.html
+++ b/html/C/cretinous.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Wrong; stupid; non-functional; very poorly designed. Also used
pejoratively of people. See dread high-bit disease
for an example. Approximate synonyms: bletcherous,
bagbiting, losing,
diff --git a/html/C/crippleware.html b/html/C/crippleware.html
index 58cbd3dd..ff682a24 100644
--- a/html/C/crippleware.html
+++ b/html/C/crippleware.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [common] Software that has some important functionality
deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a working
version.
2. [Cambridge] Variety of guiltware that
exhorts you to donate to some charity (compare
diff --git a/html/C/critical-mass.html b/html/C/critical-mass.html
index 09580071..144b16cd 100644
--- a/html/C/critical-mass.html
+++ b/html/C/critical-mass.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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. (This malady has many causes:
diff --git a/html/C/crlf.html b/html/C/crlf.html
index ef84b0e4..0174c587 100644
--- a/html/C/crlf.html
+++ b/html/C/crlf.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
(often capitalized as ‘CRLF’) A carriage return (CR,
ASCII 0001101) followed by a line feed (LF, ASCII 0001010). More loosely,
whatever it takes to get you from the end of one line of text to the
beginning of the next line. See newline. Under
diff --git a/html/C/crock.html b/html/C/crock.html
index 32593f79..4ae2a8dc 100644
--- a/html/C/crock.html
+++ b/html/C/crock.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made
cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error codes
without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, Unix
diff --git a/html/C/cross-post.html b/html/C/cross-post.html
index 2165e538..1ec80182 100644
--- a/html/C/cross-post.html
+++ b/html/C/cross-post.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[Usenet; very common] 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 (which
is very bad form). Gratuitous cross-posting without a Followup-To line
diff --git a/html/C/crossload.html b/html/C/crossload.html
index 10f70eb0..d765753e 100644
--- a/html/C/crossload.html
+++ b/html/C/crossload.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[proposed, by analogy with upload and
download] To move files between machines on a
peer-to-peer network of nodes that act as both servers and clients for a
distributed file store. Esp. appropriate for anonymized networks like
diff --git a/html/C/crudware.html b/html/C/crudware.html
index 04100254..cd76ff3b 100644
--- a/html/C/crudware.html
+++ b/html/C/crudware.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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
diff --git a/html/C/cruft-together.html b/html/C/cruft-together.html
index d105f736..6729f3dc 100644
--- a/html/C/cruft-together.html
+++ b/html/C/cruft-together.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-cruft together
(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 about 10 minutes.”
diff --git a/html/C/cruft.html b/html/C/cruft.html
index bd06eec4..554dd0b9 100644
--- a/html/C/cruft.html
+++ b/html/C/cruft.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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
diff --git a/html/C/cruftsmanship.html b/html/C/cruftsmanship.html
index 84a1616f..005fe2cd 100644
--- a/html/C/cruftsmanship.html
+++ b/html/C/cruftsmanship.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
[very common; origin unknown; poss. from ‘crusty’ or
‘cruddy’]
1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The
canonical example is “This is standard old
crufty DEC software”. In fact, one fanciful
diff --git a/html/C/crumb.html b/html/C/crumb.html
index aab9bbb2..543976b2 100644
--- a/html/C/crumb.html
+++ b/html/C/crumb.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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.
diff --git a/html/C/cryppie.html b/html/C/cryppie.html
index 404918e8..0b612f0a 100644
--- a/html/C/cryppie.html
+++ b/html/C/cryppie.html
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
-
Having the nature of a Cthulhu, the horrific tentacled green
monstrosity from H.P. Lovecraft's seminal horror fiction. Cthulhu sends
dreams that drive men mad, feeds on the flesh of screaming victims rent
limb from limb, and is served by a cult of degenerates. Hackers think this
diff --git a/html/C/cube.html b/html/C/cube.html
index 8e16b195..f720d570 100644
--- a/html/C/cube.html
+++ b/html/C/cube.html
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-
The tray of a CD-ROM drive, or by extension the CD drive itself. So
called because of a common tech support legend about the idiot who called
to complain that the cup holder on his computer broke. A joke program was
once distributed around the net called “cupholder.exe”, which
diff --git a/html/C/cursor-dipped-in-X.html b/html/C/cursor-dipped-in-X.html
index 0c90c00a..6159396d 100644
--- a/html/C/cursor-dipped-in-X.html
+++ b/html/C/cursor-dipped-in-X.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
There are a couple of metaphors in English of the form ‘pen
dipped in X’ (perhaps the most common values of X are
‘acid’, ‘bile’, and ‘vitriol’). These
map over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving
diff --git a/html/C/cuspy.html b/html/C/cuspy.html
index b1f8ec73..160cb3df 100644
--- a/html/C/cuspy.html
+++ b/html/C/cuspy.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[WPI: from the DEC abbreviation CUSP, for
‘Commonly Used System Program’, i.e., a utility program used by
many people. Now rare.]
1. (of a program) Well-written.
2. Functionally excellent. A program that performs well and
interfaces well to users is cuspy. Oppose
diff --git a/html/C/cut-a-tape.html b/html/C/cut-a-tape.html
index 75008fba..861be5de 100644
--- a/html/C/cut-a-tape.html
+++ b/html/C/cut-a-tape.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
To write a software or document distribution on magnetic tape for
shipment. Has nothing to do with physically cutting the medium! Early
versions of this lexicon claimed that one never analogously speaks of
‘cutting a disk’, but this has since been reported as live
diff --git a/html/C/cybercrud.html b/html/C/cybercrud.html
index 5f537c8e..3ffa0a68 100644
--- a/html/C/cybercrud.html
+++ b/html/C/cybercrud.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. [coined by Ted Nelson] Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a
high MEGO factor. The computer equivalent of
bureaucratese.
2. Incomprehensible stuff embedded in email. First there were the
“Received” headers that show how mail flows through systems,
diff --git a/html/C/cyberpunk.html b/html/C/cyberpunk.html
index 2d6ca55d..a5a7e736 100644
--- a/html/C/cyberpunk.html
+++ b/html/C/cyberpunk.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] A
subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel
Neuromancer (though its roots go back through Vernor
Vinge's True Names (see the Bibliography in Appendix C) to John
diff --git a/html/C/cyberspace.html b/html/C/cyberspace.html
index 2dffd8e3..5ddc3e2b 100644
--- a/html/C/cyberspace.html
+++ b/html/C/cyberspace.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
1. Notional ‘information-space’ loaded with visual cues
and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called cyberspace decks; a characteristic prop of
cyberpunk SF. Serious efforts to construct
virtual reality interfaces modeled explicitly on
diff --git a/html/C/cycle-of-reincarnation.html b/html/C/cycle-of-reincarnation.html
index b73fae8f..b44da075 100644
--- a/html/C/cycle-of-reincarnation.html
+++ b/html/C/cycle-of-reincarnation.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
A powerful machine that exists primarily for running large compute-,
disk-, or memory-intensive jobs (more formally called a compute server). Implies that interactive
tasks such as editing are done on other machines on the network, such as
workstations.
1. n. The basic unit of
computation. What every hacker wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper
described himself as a “cycle junkie”). One can describe an
instruction as taking so many clock
diff --git a/html/C/cypherpunk.html b/html/C/cypherpunk.html
index 4dd4e95e..86be5b93 100644
--- a/html/C/cypherpunk.html
+++ b/html/C/cypherpunk.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-cypherpunk
[from cyberpunk] Someone interested in the
uses of encryption via electronic ciphers for enhancing personal privacy
and guarding against tyranny by centralized, authoritarian power
structures, especially government. There is an active cypherpunks mailing
diff --git a/html/D-frame.html b/html/D-frame.html
index 849e26f8..e49a57a9 100644
--- a/html/D-frame.html
+++ b/html/D-frame.html
@@ -1,2 +1,3 @@
-
[German FidoNet] German acronym for Dmmster Anzunehmender User
(stupidest imaginable user). From the engineering-slang GAU for
Grsster Anzunehmender Unfall, worst assumable accident, esp. of a LNG
tank farm plant or something with similarly disastrous consequences. In
diff --git a/html/D/DDT.html b/html/D/DDT.html
index b7470bf5..8bf82b21 100644
--- a/html/D/DDT.html
+++ b/html/D/DDT.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[from the insecticide para-dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethene]
1. Generic term for a program that assists in debugging other
programs by showing individual machine instructions in a readable symbolic
form and letting the user change them. In this sense the term DDT is now
diff --git a/html/D/DEADBEEF.html b/html/D/DEADBEEF.html
index 8af2262c..c0f6a67c 100644
--- a/html/D/DEADBEEF.html
+++ b/html/D/DEADBEEF.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for freshly allocated memory under
a number of IBM environments, including the RS/6000. Some modern debugging
tools deliberately fill freed memory with this value as a way of converting
heisenbugs into Bohr bugs.
diff --git a/html/D/DEC-Wars.html b/html/D/DEC-Wars.html
index cb098a8e..16513ad8 100644
--- a/html/D/DEC-Wars.html
+++ b/html/D/DEC-Wars.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
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-longer
diff --git a/html/D/DEC.html b/html/D/DEC.html
index fe04d2ef..2fea86fd 100644
--- a/html/D/DEC.html
+++ b/html/D/DEC.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
n. Commonly used abbreviation
for Digital Equipment Corporation, later deprecated by DEC itself in favor
of “Digital” and now entirely obsolete following the buyout by
Compaq. Before the killer micro revolution of the
diff --git a/html/D/DED.html b/html/D/DED.html
index f0cfa461..3dc33a62 100644
--- a/html/D/DED.html
+++ b/html/D/DED.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
Dark-Emitting Diode (that is, a burned-out LED). Compare
SED, LER,
write-only memory. In the early 1970s both
Signetics and Texas instruments released DED spec sheets as
diff --git a/html/D/DMZ.html b/html/D/DMZ.html
index 483f2636..4ba3f629 100644
--- a/html/D/DMZ.html
+++ b/html/D/DMZ.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-
[common] Literally, De-Militarized Zone. Figuratively, the portion
of a private network that is visible through the network's firewalls (see
firewall machine). Coined in the late 1990s as
jargon, this term is now borderline techspeak.
[from Yiddish/German ‘dreck’, meaning filth] Deliberate
distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol used in the
VMS community. So called because
DEC helped write the Ethernet specification and then
diff --git a/html/D/DSW.html b/html/D/DSW.html
index 5b4187c3..040c0573 100644
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[alt.(sysadmin|tech-support).recovery; abbrev. for Dick Size War] A contest between two or more
people boasting about who has the faster machine, keys on (either physical
or cryptographic) keyring, greyer hair, or almost anything. Salvos in a
DSW are typically humorous and playful, often self-mocking.
A magazine that many hackers assume all suits
read. Used to question an unbelieved quote, as in “Did you read that
in Datamation?”. It used to publish something
hackishly funny every once in a while, like the original paper on
diff --git a/html/D/Dave-the-Resurrector.html b/html/D/Dave-the-Resurrector.html
index 909650ce..fd3b2153 100644
--- a/html/D/Dave-the-Resurrector.html
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[Usenet; also abbreviated DtR] A cancelbot
that cancels cancels. Dave the Resurrector originated when some
spam-spewers decided to try to impede spam-fighting
by wholesale cancellation of anti-spam coordination messages in the
diff --git a/html/D/Death--X-of.html b/html/D/Death--X-of.html
index ae5bd558..b08c33a7 100644
--- a/html/D/Death--X-of.html
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[common] A construction used to imbue the subject with campy menace,
usually with intent to ridicule. The ancestor of this term is a famous
Far Side cartoon from the 1980s in which a balloon
with a fierce face painted on it is passed off as the “Floating Head
diff --git a/html/D/Death-Square.html b/html/D/Death-Square.html
index ce73cf67..6974bb31 100644
--- a/html/D/Death-Square.html
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-Death Square
The corporate logo of Novell, the people who acquired USL after
AT&T let go of it (Novell eventually sold the Unix group to SCO).
Coined by analogy with Death Star, because many
people believed Novell was bungling the lead in Unix systems exactly as
diff --git a/html/D/Death-Star.html b/html/D/Death-Star.html
index a83d95fd..fe7d9098 100644
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1. The AT&T corporate logo, which bears an uncanny resemblance
to the Death Star in the Star Wars movies. This usage was particularly
common among partisans of BSD Unix in the 1980s, who
tended to regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad
diff --git a/html/D/Dejagoo.html b/html/D/Dejagoo.html
index 3ad2803c..c4b31a00 100644
--- a/html/D/Dejagoo.html
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@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
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[Portmanteau of Dejanews and Google] Google newsgroups. Became
common in 2001 after Google acquired Dejanews, and with it the largest
on-line archive of Usenet postings.
n. Name and title character of a
comic strip nationally syndicated in the U.S. and enormously popular among
hackers. Dilbert is an archetypical engineer-nerd who works at an
anonymous high-technology company; the strips present a lacerating satire
diff --git a/html/D/Discordianism.html b/html/D/Discordianism.html
index 69a12d34..f4f05bb0 100644
--- a/html/D/Discordianism.html
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The veneration of Eris, a.k.a. Discordia;
widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularized by Robert Shea
and Robert Anton Wilson's novel Illuminatus! as a
sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners — it should on no
diff --git a/html/D/Dissociated-Press.html b/html/D/Dissociated-Press.html
index 7ae881d7..7f8858da 100644
--- a/html/D/Dissociated-Press.html
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[play on ‘Associated Press’; perhaps inspired by a
reference in the 1950 Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Up,
Doc?] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially
humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a
diff --git a/html/D/DoS-attack.html b/html/D/DoS-attack.html
index 6a009685..45d4290e 100644
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[Usenet,common; note that it's unrelated to DOS as name of an operating system]
Abbreviation for Denial-Of-Service attack. This abbreviation is most often
used of attempts to shut down newsgroups with floods of
spam, or to flood network links with large amounts
diff --git a/html/D/Don-t-do-that-then-.html b/html/D/Don-t-do-that-then-.html
index 8f5b6daa..35d61a10 100644
--- a/html/D/Don-t-do-that-then-.html
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[from an old doctor's office joke about a patient with a trivial
complaint] Stock response to a user complaint. “When I type
control-S, the whole system comes to a halt for thirty seconds.”
“Don't do that, then!” (or “So don't do that!”).
diff --git a/html/D/Doom--X-of.html b/html/D/Doom--X-of.html
index abbc5d88..5c414691 100644
--- a/html/D/Doom--X-of.html
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[common] A construction similar to ‘Death, X
of, but derived rather from the Cracks of Doom in
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The connotations are slightly different; a Foo of Death is mainly being
diff --git a/html/D/Dr--Fred-Mbogo.html b/html/D/Dr--Fred-Mbogo.html
index 1bae8079..4c650d87 100644
--- a/html/D/Dr--Fred-Mbogo.html
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[Stanford] The archetypal man you don't want to see about a problem,
esp. an incompetent professional; a shyster. “Do you know a good
eye doctor?” “Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry
Cleaning.” The name comes from synergy between
diff --git a/html/D/Dragon-Book.html b/html/D/Dragon-Book.html
index b98adde4..50e096a1 100644
--- a/html/D/Dragon-Book.html
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The classic text Compilers: Principles, Techniques and
Tools, by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman
(Addison-Wesley 1986; ISBN 0-201-10088-6), so called because of the cover
design featuring a dragon labeled ‘complexity of compiler
diff --git a/html/D/Duffs-device.html b/html/D/Duffs-device.html
index adacbd14..e209c6e6 100644
--- a/html/D/Duffs-device.html
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@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
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The most dramatic use yet seen of
fall through in C, invented by Tom Duff when he was at Lucasfilm.
Trying to optimize all the instructions he could out of an inner loop that
copied data serially onto an output port, he decided to unroll it. He then
diff --git a/html/D/daemon-book.html b/html/D/daemon-book.html
index cf38b1ce..41893ebc 100644
--- a/html/D/daemon-book.html
+++ b/html/D/daemon-book.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
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The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX
Operating System, by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk McKusick,
Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley Publishers, 1989,
ISBN 0-201-06196-1); or The Design and Implementation of the 4.4
diff --git a/html/D/daemon.html b/html/D/daemon.html
index d9149169..7f0b2448 100644
--- a/html/D/daemon.html
+++ b/html/D/daemon.html
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-daemon