to [nt]roff). Several versions of a joke have floated around the internet in which some idiot programmer fixes the Y2K bug by changing all the Y’s in something to K’s, as in Januark, Februark, etc. _________________________________________________________________
Node:404, Next:[227]404 compliant, Previous:[228]2, Up:[229]= 0 =
404 // n.
[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”. _________________________________________________________________
Node:404 compliant, Next:[230]4.2, Previous:[231]404, Up:[232]= 0 =
404 compliant adj.
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. See also: [233]spam, [234]spamvertize. _________________________________________________________________
Node:4.2, Next:[235]@-party, Previous:[236]404 compliant, Up:[237]= 0 =
4.2 /for’ poynt too’/ n.
Without a prefix, this almost invariably refers to [238]BSD Unix release 4.2. Note that it is an indication of cluelessness to say “version 4.2”, and “release 4.2” is rare; the number stands on its own, or is used in the more explicit forms 4.2BSD or (less commonly) BSD 4.2. Similar remarks apply to “4.3”, “4.4” and to earlier, less-widespread releases 4.1 and 2.9.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:@-party, Next:[239]abbrev, Previous:[240]4.2, Up:[241]= 0 =
@-party /at’par`tee/ n.
[from the @-sign in an Internet address] (alt. `@-sign party’ /at’si:n par`tee/) A semi-closed party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp. the annual World Science Fiction Convention or “Worldcon”); one must have a [242]network address to get in, or at least be in company with someone who does. One of the most reliable opportunities for hackers to meet face to face with people who might otherwise be represented by mere phosphor dots on their screens. Compare [243]boink.
The first recorded @-party was held at the Westercon (a U.S. western regional SF convention) over the July 4th weekend in 1980. It is not clear exactly when the canonical @-party venue shifted to the Worldcon but it had certainly become established by Constellation in 1983. Sadly, the @-party tradition has been in decline since about 1996, mainly because having an @-address no longer functions as an effective lodge pin.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:= A =, Next:[244]= B =, Previous:[245]= 0 =, Up:[246]The Jargon Lexicon
= A =
* [247]abbrev:
* [248]ABEND:
* [249]accumulator:
* [250]ACK:
* [251]Acme:
* [252]acolyte:
* [253]ad-hockery:
* [254]Ada:
* [255]address harvester:
* [256]adger:
* [257]admin:
* [258]ADVENT:
* [259]AFAIK:
* [260]AFJ:
* [261]AFK:
* [262]AI:
* [263]AI-complete:
* [264]AI koans:
* [265]AIDS:
* [266]AIDX:
* [267]airplane rule:
* [268]Alderson loop:
* [269]aliasing bug:
* [270]Alice and Bob:
* [271]all-elbows:
* [272]alpha geek:
* [273]alpha particles:
* [274]alt:
* [275]alt bit:
* [276]Aluminum Book:
* [277]ambimouseterous:
* [278]Amiga:
* [279]Amiga Persecution Complex: * [280]amoeba:
* [281]amp off:
* [282]amper:
* [283]Angband:
* [284]angle brackets:
* [285]angry fruit salad:
* [286]annoybot:
* [287]annoyware:
* [288]ANSI:
* [289]ANSI standard:
* [290]ANSI standard pizza:
* [291]AOL!:
* [292]app:
* [293]arena:
* [294]arg:
* [295]ARMM:
* [296]armor-plated:
* [297]asbestos:
* [298]asbestos cork award:
* [299]asbestos longjohns:
* [300]ASCII:
* [301]ASCII art:
* [302]ASCIIbetical order:
* [303]astroturfing:
* [304]atomic:
* [305]attoparsec:
* [306]AUP:
* [307]autobogotiphobia:
* [308]automagically:
* [309]avatar:
* [310]awk:
_________________________________________________________________
Node:abbrev, Next:[311]ABEND, Previous:[312]@-party, Up:[313]= A =
abbrev /*-breev’/, /*-brev’/ n.
Common abbreviation for `abbreviation’. _________________________________________________________________
Node:ABEND, Next:[314]accumulator, Previous:[315]abbrev, Up:[316]= A =
ABEND /a’bend/, /*-bend’/ n.
[ABnormal END] 1. Abnormal termination (of software); [317]crash; [318]lossage. Derives from an error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but seriously mainly by [319]code grinders. Usually capitalized, but may appear as `abend’. Hackers will try to persuade you that ABEND is called `abend’ because it is what system operators do to the machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day, and hence is from the German `Abend’ = `Evening’. 2. [alt.callahans] Absent By Enforced Net Deprivation – used in the subject lines of postings warning friends of an imminent loss of Internet access. (This can be because of computer downtime, loss of provider, moving or illness.) Variants of this also appear: ABVND = `Absent By Voluntary Net Deprivation’ and ABSEND = `Absent By Self-Enforced Net Deprivation’ have been sighted. _________________________________________________________________
Node:accumulator, Next:[320]ACK, Previous:[321]ABEND, Up:[322]= A =
accumulator n. obs.
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 never used of microprocessor registers, for example, though symbolic names for arithmetic registers beginning in `A’ derive from historical use of the term `accumulator’ (and not, actually, from `arithmetic’). Confusingly, though, an `A’ register name prefix may also stand for `address’, as for example on the Motorola 680×0 family. 2. A register being used for arithmetic or logic (as opposed to addressing or a loop index), especially one being used to accumulate a sum or count of many items. This use is in context of a particular routine or stretch of code. “The FOOBAZ routine uses A3 as an accumulator.” 3. One’s in-basket (esp. among old-timers who might use sense 1). “You want this reviewed? Sure, just put it in the accumulator.” (See [323]stack.) _________________________________________________________________
Node:ACK, Next:[324]Acme, Previous:[325]accumulator, Up:[326]= A =
ACK /ak/ interj.
1. [common; from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110] Acknowledge. Used to register one’s presence (compare mainstream Yo!). An appropriate response to [327]ping or [328]ENQ. 2. [from the comic strip “Bloom County”] An exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. in “Ack pffft!” Semi-humorous. Generally this sense is not spelled in caps (ACK) and is distinguished by a following exclamation point. 3. Used to politely interrupt someone to tell them you understand their point (see [329]NAK). Thus, for example, you might cut off an overly long explanation with “Ack. Ack. Ack. I get it now”. 4. An affirmative. “Think we ought to ditch that damn NT server for a Linux box?” “ACK!”
There is also a usage “ACK?” (from sense 1) meaning “Are you there?”, often used in email when earlier mail has produced no reply, or during a lull in [330]talk mode to see if the person has gone away (the standard humorous response is of course [331]NAK (sense 1), i.e., “I’m not here”).
_________________________________________________________________
Node:Acme, Next:[332]acolyte, Previous:[333]ACK, Up:[334]= A =
Acme n.
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 has been humorously expanded as A (or American) Company Making Everything. (In fact, Acme was a real brand sold from Sears Roebuck catalogs in the early 1900s.) Describing some X as an “Acme X” either means “This is [335]insanely great”, or, more likely, “This looks [336]insanely great on paper, but in practice it’s really easy to shoot yourself in the foot with it.” Compare [337]pistol.
This term, specially cherished by American hackers and explained here for the benefit of our overseas brethren, comes from the Warner Brothers’ series of “Roadrunner” cartoons. In these cartoons, the famished Wile E. Coyote was forever attempting to catch up with, trap, and eat the Roadrunner. His attempts usually involved one or more high-technology Rube Goldberg devices – rocket jetpacks, catapults, magnetic traps, high-powered slingshots, etc. These were usually delivered in large cardboard boxes, labeled prominently with the Acme name. These devices invariably malfunctioned in improbable and violent ways.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:acolyte, Next:[338]ad-hockery, Previous:[339]Acme, Up:[340]= A =
acolyte n. obs.
[TMRC] An [341]OSU privileged enough to submit data and programs to a member of the [342]priesthood.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ad-hockery, Next:[343]Ada, Previous:[344]acolyte, Up:[345]= A =
ad-hockery /ad-hok’*r-ee/ n.
[Purdue] 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 though a program knows how to spell. 2. Special-case code to cope with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to [346]choke, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner and more regular way. Also called `ad-hackery’, `ad-hocity’ (/ad-hos’*-tee/), `ad-crockery’. See also [347]ELIZA effect.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:Ada, Next:[348]address harvester, Previous:[349]ad-hockery, Up:[350]= A =
Ada n.
A [351]Pascal-descended language that was at one time made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description wss “The PL/I of the 1980s”). Hackers find Ada’s exception-handling and inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world’s first programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good small language screaming to get out from inside its vast, [352]elephantine bulk.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:address harvester, Next:[353]adger, Previous:[354]Ada, Up:[355]= A =
address harvester n.
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 [356]spam. Address harvesters can be foiled by a [357]teergrube.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:adger, Next:[358]admin, Previous:[359]address harvester, Up:[360]= A =
adger /aj’r/ vt.
[UCLA mutant of [361]nadger, poss. also from the middle name of an infamous [362]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 promptly adgered the whole project”. Compare [363]dumbass attack. _________________________________________________________________
Node:admin, Next:[364]ADVENT, Previous:[365]adger, Up:[366]= A =
admin /ad-min’/ n.
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 for email and news) or `newsadmin’ (focusing specifically on news). Compare [367]postmaster, [368]sysop, [369]system mangler.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ADVENT, Next:[370]AFAIK, Previous:[371]admin, Up:[372]= A =
ADVENT /ad’vent/ n.
The prototypical computer adventure game, first designed by Will Crowther on the [373]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 of the authors of [374]INTERCAL.) Now better known as Adventure or Colossal Cave Adventure, but the [375]TOPS-10 operating system permitted only six-letter filenames. See also [376]vadding, [377]Zork, and [378]Infocom.
This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style since expected in text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have become fixtures of hacker-speak: “A huge green fierce snake bars the way!” “I see no X here” (for some noun X). “You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.” “You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different.” The `magic words’ [379]xyzzy and [380]plugh also derive from this game.
Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually has a `Colossal Cave’ and a `Bedquilt’ as in the game, and the `Y2′ that also turns up is cavers’ jargon for a map reference to a secondary entrance.
ADVENT sources are available for FTP at [381]ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/doc/misc/if-archive/games/source/advent.tar.Z . There is a
[382]http://people.delphi.com/rickadams/adventure/index.php. _________________________________________________________________
Node:AFAIK, Next:[383]AFJ, Previous:[384]ADVENT, Up:[385]= A =
AFAIK // n.
[Usenet] Abbrev. for “As Far As I Know”. _________________________________________________________________
Node:AFJ, Next:[386]AFK, Previous:[387]AFAIK, Up:[388]= A =
AFJ // n.
Written-only abbreviation for “April Fool’s Joke”. Elaborate April Fool’s hoaxes are a long-established tradition on Usenet and Internet; see [389]kremvax for an example. In fact, April Fool’s Day is the only seasonal holiday consistently marked by customary observances on Internet and other hacker networks.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:AFK, Next:[390]AI, Previous:[391]AFJ, Up:[392]= A =
AFK
[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 your absence when they try to talk with you. The term is not restricted to MUDs, however, and has become common in many chat situations, from IRC to Unix talk.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:AI, Next:[393]AI-complete, Previous:[394]AFK, Up:[395]= A =
AI /A-I/ n.
Abbreviation for `Artificial Intelligence’, so common that the full form is almost never written or spoken among hackers. _________________________________________________________________
Node:AI-complete, Next:[396]AI koans, Previous:[397]AI, Up:[398]= A =
AI-complete /A-I k*m-pleet’/ adj.
[MIT, Stanford: by analogy with `NP-complete’ (see [399]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 AI-complete is, in other words, just too hard.
Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem’ (building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The Natural Language Problem’ (building a system that can understand and speak a natural language as well as a human). These may appear to be modular, but all attempts so far (1999) to solve them have foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence’ they seem to require. See also [400]gedanken.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:AI koans, Next:[401]AIDS, Previous:[402]AI-complete, Up:[403]= A =
AI koans /A-I koh’anz/ pl.n.
A series of pastiches of Zen teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around various major figures of the Lab’s culture (several are included under [404]Some AI Koans in Appendix A). See also [405]ha ha only serious, [406]mu, and [407]hacker humor. _________________________________________________________________
Node:AIDS, Next:[408]AIDX, Previous:[409]AI koans, Up:[410]= A =
AIDS /aydz/ n.
Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome (`A*’ is a [411]glob pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple or Amiga), this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe [412]SEX. See [413]virus, [414]worm, [415]Trojan horse, [416]virgin. _________________________________________________________________
Node:AIDX, Next:[417]airplane rule, Previous:[418]AIDS, Up:[419]= A =
AIDX /ayd’k*z/ n.
Derogatory term for IBM’s perverted version of Unix, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM RS/6000 series (some hackers think it is funnier just to pronounce “AIX” as “aches”). A victim of the dreaded “hybridism” disease, this attempt to combine the two main currents of the Unix stream ([420]BSD and [421]USG Unix) became a [422]monstrosity to haunt system administrators’ dreams. For example, if new accounts are created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases. For a quite similar disease, compare [423]HP-SUX. Also, compare [424]Macintrash, [425]Nominal Semidestructor, [426]ScumOS, [427]sun-stools.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:airplane rule, Next:[428]Alderson loop, Previous:[429]AIDX, Up:[430]= A =
airplane rule n.
“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 the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you’ve built a really good basket. See also [431]KISS Principle, [432]elegant. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Alderson loop, Next:[433]aliasing bug, Previous:[434]airplane rule, Up:[435]= A =
Alderson loop n.
[Intel] A special version of an [436]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, “Select 1-3 or 9 to quit” and 9 is not allowed by the function that takes the selection from the user.
This term received its name from a programmer who had coded a modal message box in MSAccess with no Ok or Cancel buttons, thereby disabling the entire program whenever the box came up. The message box had the proper code for dismissal and even was set up so that when the non-existent Ok button was pressed the proper code would be called. _________________________________________________________________
Node:aliasing bug, Next:[437]Alice and Bob, Previous:[438]Alderson loop, Up:[439]= A =
aliasing bug n.
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 (`aliases for’) a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the storage is freed or reallocated (and thus moved) through one alias and then referenced through another, which may lead to subtle (and possibly intermittent) lossage depending on the state and the allocation history of the malloc [440]arena. Avoidable by use of allocation strategies that never alias allocated core, or by use of higher-level languages, such as [441]LISP, which employ a garbage collector (see [442]GC). Also called a [443]stale pointer bug. See also [444]precedence lossage, [445]smash the stack, [446]fandango on core, [447]memory leak, [448]memory smash, [449]overrun screw, [450]spam.
Historical note: Though this term is nowadays associated with C programming, it was already in use in a very similar sense in the Algol-60 and FORTRAN communities in the 1960s. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Alice and Bob, Next:[451]all-elbows, Previous:[452]aliasing bug, Up:[453]= A =
Alice and Bob n.
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 then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to A” Because this sort of thing is is quite hard to follow, theorists stopped using the unadorned letters A and B to represent the main players and started calling them Alice and Bob. So now we say “Alice communicates with someone claiming to be Bob, and to be sure, So Alice tests that Bob knows a secret number K. Alice sends to Bob a random number X. Bob then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to Alice”. A whole mythology rapidly grew up around the metasyntactic names; see
[454]http://www.conceptlabs.co.uk/alicebob.php.
In Bruce Schneier’s definitive introductory text “Applied Cryptography” (2nd ed., 1996, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-11709-9) he introduces a table of dramatis personae headed by Alice and Bob. Others include Carol (a participant in three- and four-party protocols), Dave (a participant in four-party protocols), Eve (an eavesdropper), Mallory (a malicious active attacker), Trent (a trusted arbitrator), Walter (a warden), Peggy (a prover) and Victor (a verifier). These names for roles are either already standard or, given the wide popularity of the book, may be expected to quickly become so. _________________________________________________________________
Node:all-elbows, Next:[455]alpha geek, Previous:[456]Alice and Bob, Up:[457]= A =
all-elbows adj.
[MS-DOS] Of a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) IBM PC program, such as the N pop-up calendar and calculator utilities that circulate on [458]BBS systems: unsociable. Used to describe a program that rudely steals the resources that it needs without considering that other TSRs may also be resident. One particularly common form of rudeness is lock-up due to programs fighting over the keyboard interrupt. See [459]rude, also [460]mess-dos.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:alpha geek, Next:[461]alpha particles, Previous:[462]all-elbows, Up:[463]= A =
alpha geek n.
[from animal ethologists’ `alpha male’] The most technically accomplished or skillful person in some implied context. “Ask Larry, he’s the alpha geek here.”
_________________________________________________________________
Node:alpha particles, Next:[464]alt, Previous:[465]alpha geek, Up:[466]= A =
alpha particles n.
See [467]bit rot.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:alt, Next:[468]alt bit, Previous:[469]alpha particles, Up:[470]= A =
alt /awlt/
1. n. The alt shift key on an IBM PC or [471]clone keyboard; see [472]bucky bits, sense 2 (though typical PC usage does not simply set the 0200 bit). 2. n. The `option’ key on a Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to the Mac (see also [473]feature key, which is sometimes incorrectly called `alt’). 3. n.,obs. [PDP-10; often capitalized to ALT] Alternate name for the ASCII ESC character (ASCII 0011011), after the keycap labeling on some older terminals; also `altmode’ (/awlt’mohd/). This character was almost never pronounced `escape’ on an ITS system, in [474]TECO, or under TOPS-10 — always alt, as in “Type alt alt to end a TECO command” or “alt-U onto the system” (for “log onto the [ITS] system”). This usage probably arose because alt is more convenient to say than `escape’, especially when followed by another alt or a character (or another alt and a character, for that matter). 4. The alt hierarchy on Usenet, the tree of newsgroups created by users without a formal vote and approval procedure. There is a myth, not entirely implausible, that alt is acronymic for “anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists”; but in fact it is simply short for “alternative”. _________________________________________________________________
Node:alt bit, Next:[475]Aluminum Book, Previous:[476]alt, Up:[477]= A =
alt bit /awlt bit/ [from alternate] adj.
See [478]meta bit.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:Aluminum Book, Next:[479]ambimouseterous, Previous:[480]alt bit, Up:[481]= A =
Aluminum Book n.
[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 green”. See also [482]book titles.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ambimouseterous, Next:[483]Amiga, Previous:[484]Aluminum Book, Up:[485]= A =
ambimouseterous /am-b*-mows’ter-us/ or /am-b*-mows’trus/ adj.
[modeled on ambidextrous] Able to use a mouse with either hand. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Amiga, Next:[486]Amiga Persecution Complex, Previous:[487]ambimouseterous, Up:[488]= A =
Amiga n
A series of personal computer models originally sold by Commodore, based on 680×0 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 standardized on IBM-PC clones. This prevented it from gaining serious market share, despite the fact that the first Amigas had a substantial technological lead on the IBM XTs of the time. Instead, it acquired a small but zealous population of enthusiastic hackers who dreamt of one day unseating the clones (see [489]Amiga Persecution Complex). The traits of this culture are both spoofed and illuminated in [490]The BLAZE Humor Viewer. The strength of the Amiga platform seeded a small industry of companies building software and hardware for the platform, especially in graphics and video applications (see [491]video toaster).
Due to spectacular mismanagement, Commodore did hardly any R&D, allowing the competition to close Amiga’s technological lead. After Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 the technology passed through several hands, none of whom did much with it. However, the Amiga is still being produced in Europe under license and has a substantial number of fans, which will probably extend the platform’s life considerably. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Amiga Persecution Complex, Next:[492]amoeba, Previous:[493]Amiga, Up:[494]= A =
Amiga Persecution Complex n.
The disorder suffered by a particularly egregious variety of [495]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 of their beloved shining jewel of a platform would obviously win over all, market pressures be damned!) Those afflicted are prone to engaging in [496]flame wars and calling for boycotts and mailbombings. Amiga Persecution Complex is by no means limited to Amiga users; NeXT, [497]NeWS, [498]OS/2, Macintosh, [499]LISP, and [500]GNU users are also common victims. [501]Linux users used to display symptoms very frequently before Linux started winning; some still do. See also [502]newbie, [503]troll, [504]holy wars, [505]weenie, [506]Get a life!.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:amoeba, Next:[507]amp off, Previous:[508]Amiga Persecution Complex, Up:[509]= A =
amoeba n.
Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal computer. _________________________________________________________________
Node:amp off, Next:[510]amper, Previous:[511]amoeba, Up:[512]= A =
amp off vt.
[Purdue] To run in [513]background. From the Unix shell `&’ operator. _________________________________________________________________
Node:amper, Next:[514]Angband, Previous:[515]amp off, Up:[516]= A =
amper n.
Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&’, ASCII 0100110) character. See [517]ASCII for other synonyms. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Angband, Next:[518]angle brackets, Previous:[519]amper, Up:[520]= A =
Angband n. /ang’band/
Like [521]nethack, [522]moria, and [523]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 (compare [524]elder days, [525]elvish). Has been described as “Moria on steroids”; but, unlike Moria, many aspects of the game are customizable. This leads many hackers and would-be hackers into fooling with these instead of doing productive work. There are many Angband variants, of which the most notorious is probably the rather whimsical Zangband. In this game, when a key that does not correspond to a command is pressed, the game will display “Type ? for help” 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, random error messages including “An error has occurred because an error of type 42 has occurred” and “Windows 95 uninstalled successfully” will be displayed. Zangband also allows the player to kill Santa Claus (who has some really good stuff, but also has a lot of friends), “Bull Gates”, and Barney the Dinosaur (but be watchful; Barney has a nasty case of halitosis). There is an official angband home page at [526]http://www.phial.com/angband and a zangband one at [527]http://thangorodrim.angband.org. See also [528]Random Number God. _________________________________________________________________
Node:angle brackets, Next:[529]angry fruit salad, Previous:[530]Angband, Up:[531]= A =
angle brackets n.
Either of the characters < (ASCII 0111100) and > (ASCII 0111110)
(ASCII less-than or greater-than signs). Typographers in the [532]Real World use angle brackets which are either taller and slimmer (the ISO `Bra’ and `Ket’ characters), or significantly smaller (single or double guillemets) than the less-than and greater-than signs. See [533]broket, [534]ASCII.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:angry fruit salad, Next:[535]annoybot, Previous:[536]angle brackets, Up:[537]= A =
angry fruit salad n.
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 [538]X; there is a tendency to create displays that are flashy and attention-getting but uncomfortable for long-term use.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:annoybot, Next:[539]annoyware, Previous:[540]angry fruit salad, Up:[541]= A =
annoybot /*-noy-bot/ n.
[IRC] See [542]bot.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:annoyware, Next:[543]ANSI, Previous:[544]annoybot, Up:[545]= A =
annoyware n.
A type of [546]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 require user action to acknowledge the message before normal operation is resumed and are often tied to the most frequently used features of the software. See also [547]careware, [548]charityware, [549]crippleware, [550]freeware, [551]FRS, [552]guiltware, [553]postcardware, and [554]-ware; compare [555]payware.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ANSI, Next:[556]ANSI standard, Previous:[557]annoyware, Up:[558]= A =
ANSI /an’see/
1. n. [techspeak] The American National Standards Institute. ANSI, along with the International Organization for Standards (ISO), standardized the C programming language (see [559]K&R, [560]Classic C), and promulgates many other important software standards. 2. n. [techspeak] A terminal may be said to be `ANSI’ if it meets the ANSI X.364 standard for terminal control. Unfortunately, this standard was both over-complicated and too permissive. It has been retired and replaced by the ECMA-48 standard, which shares both flaws. 3. n. [BBS jargon] The set of screen-painting codes that most MS-DOS and Amiga computers accept. This comes from the ANSI.SYS device driver that must be loaded on an MS-DOS computer to view such codes. Unfortunately, neither DOS ANSI nor the BBS ANSIs derived from it exactly match the ANSI X.364 terminal standard. For example, the ESC-[1m code turns on the bold highlight on large machines, but in IBM PC/MS-DOS ANSI, it turns on `intense’ (bright) colors. Also, in BBS-land, the term `ANSI’ is often used to imply that a particular computer uses or can emulate the IBM high-half character set from MS-DOS. Particular use depends on context. Occasionally, the vanilla ASCII character set is used with the color codes, but on BBSs, ANSI and `IBM characters’ tend to go together.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ANSI standard, Next:[561]ANSI standard pizza, Previous:[562]ANSI, Up:[563]= A =
ANSI standard /an’see stan’d*rd/
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 printer cartridge to get extra life from it, or the ANSI standard word tripling in names of usenet alt groups.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ANSI standard pizza, Next:[564]AOL!, Previous:[565]ANSI standard, Up:[566]= A =
ANSI standard pizza /an’see stan’d*rd peet’z*/
[CMU] Pepperoni and mushroom pizza. Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of that flavor. See also [567]rotary debugger; compare [568]ISO standard cup of tea.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:AOL!, Next:[569]app, Previous:[570]ANSI standard pizza, Up:[571]= A =
AOL! n.
[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
is also frequently seen. See also [572]September that never ended. _________________________________________________________________
Node:app, Next:[573]arena, Previous:[574]AOL!, Up:[575]= A =
app /ap/ n.
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 parlance the term excludes compilers, program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a user would consider all those to be apps. (Broadly, an app is often a self-contained environment for performing some well-defined task such as `word processing’; hackers tend to prefer more general-purpose tools.) See [576]killer app; oppose [577]tool, [578]operating system.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:arena, Next:[579]arg, Previous:[580]app, Up:[581]= A =
arena n.
[common; Unix] The area of memory attached to a process by brk(2) and sbrk(2) and used by malloc(3) as dynamic storage. So named from a malloc: corrupt arena message emitted when some early versions detected an impossible value in the free block list. See [582]overrun screw, [583]aliasing bug, [584]memory leak, [585]memory smash, [586]smash the stack.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:arg, Next:[587]ARMM, Previous:[588]arena, Up:[589]= A =
arg /arg/ n.
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 [590]param, [591]parm, [592]var. _________________________________________________________________
Node:ARMM, Next:[593]armor-plated, Previous:[594]arg, Up:[595]= A =
ARMM n.
[acronym, `Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation’] A Usenet [596]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 anonymous postings triggered on its own automatically-generated control messages! Transformed by this stroke of programming ineptitude into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to [597]spam news.admin.policy with a recursive explosion of over 200 messages.
ARMM’s bug produced a recursive [598]cascade of messages each of which mechanically added text to the ID and Subject and some other headers of its parent. This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several screens and each message ID and subject line got longer and longer and longer.
Reactions varied from amusement to outrage. The pathological messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people paying line charges for their Usenet feeds. One poster described the ARMM debacle as “instant Usenet history” (also establishing the term [599]despew), and it has since been widely cited as a cautionary example of the havoc the combination of good intentions and incompetence can wreak on a network. Compare [600]Great Worm; [601]sorcerer’s apprentice mode. See also [602]software laser, [603]network meltdown. _________________________________________________________________
Node:armor-plated, Next:[604]asbestos, Previous:[605]ARMM, Up:[606]= A =
armor-plated n.
Syn. for [607]bulletproof.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:asbestos, Next:[608]asbestos cork award, Previous:[609]armor-plated, Up:[610]= A =
asbestos adj.
[common] Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect one from [611]flames; also in other highly [612]flame-suggestive usages. See, for example, [613]asbestos longjohns and [614]asbestos cork award. _________________________________________________________________
Node:asbestos cork award, Next:[615]asbestos longjohns, Previous:[616]asbestos, Up:[617]= A =
asbestos cork award n.
Once, long ago at MIT, there was a [618]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 doubt as to the intended application of the cork should consult the etymology under [619]flame.) Since then, it is agreed that only a select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn this dubious dignity — but there is no agreement on which few. _________________________________________________________________
Node:asbestos longjohns, Next:[620]ASCII, Previous:[621]asbestos cork award, Up:[622]= A =
asbestos longjohns n.
Notional garments donned by [623]Usenet posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit [624]flamage. This is the most common of the [625]asbestos coinages. Also `asbestos underwear’, `asbestos overcoat’, etc.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ASCII, Next:[626]ASCII art, Previous:[627]asbestos longjohns, Up:[628]= A =
ASCII /as’kee/ n.
[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 of ASCII prior to June 1961) used fewer. This change allowed the inclusion of lowercase letters — a major [629]win — but it did not provide for accented letters or any other letterforms not used in English (such as the German sharp-S or the ae-ligature which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian). It could be worse, though. It could be much worse. See [630]EBCDIC to understand how. A history of ASCII and its ancestors is at
[631]http://www.wps.com/texts/codes/index.php.
Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names — some formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII characters are collected here. See also individual entries for [632]bang, [633]excl, [634]open, [635]ques, [636]semi, [637]shriek, [638]splat, [639]twiddle, and [640]Yu-Shiang Whole Fish.
This list derives from revision 2.3 of the Usenet ASCII pronunciation guide. Single characters are listed in ASCII order; character pairs are sorted in by first member. For each character, common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names are surrounded by brokets: <>. Square brackets mark the particularly silly names introduced by [641]INTERCAL. The abbreviations “l/r” and “o/c” stand for left/right and “open/close” respectively. Ordinary parentheticals provide some usage information.
!
Common: [642]bang; pling; excl; shriek; ball-bat;
“
Common: double quote; quote. Rare: literal mark; double-glitch;
prime.
#
Common: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; [643]crunch; hex; [mesh]. Rare: grid; crosshatch; octothorpe; flash;
$
Common: dollar;
%
Common: percent;
[double-oh-seven].
&
Common:
‘
Common: single quote; quote;
tick; irk; pop; [spark];
( )
Common: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; open/close; paren/thesis; o/c paren; o/c parenthesis; l/r parenthesis; l/r banana. Rare: so/already; lparen/rparen;
*
Common: star; [[645]splat];
dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see [646]glob); [647]Nathan Hale.
+
Common:
,
Common:
–
Common: dash;
bithorpe.
.
Common: dot; point;
point; full stop; [spot].
/
Common: slash; stroke;
solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].
:
Common:
;
Common:
< >
Common:
=
Common:
?
Common: query;
@
Common: at sign; at; strudel. Rare: each; vortex; whorl; [whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage;
V
Rare: [book].
[ ]
Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket;
\
Common: backslash, hack, whack; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh; backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash;
^
Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret;
sign, chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of’); fang; pointer (in Pascal).
_
Common:
`
Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
{ }
Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace;
|
Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
~
Common:
The pronunciation of # as `pound’ is common in the U.S. but a bad idea; [650]Commonwealth Hackish has its own, rather more apposite use of `pound sign’ (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound graphic happens to replace #; thus Britishers sometimes call # on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound’, compounding the American error). The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of using a # suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced `hash’ outside the U.S. There are more culture wars over the correct pronunciation of this character than any other, which has led to the [651]ha ha only serious suggestion that it be pronounced `shibboleth’ (see Judges 12:6 in an Old Testament or Tanakh).
The `uparrow’ name for circumflex and `leftarrow’ name for underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963 version), which had these graphics in those character positions rather than the modern punctuation characters.
The `swung dash’ or `approximation’ sign is not quite the same as tilde in typeset material but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare [652]angle brackets).
Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The #, $, >, and & characters, for example, are all pronounced “hex” in different communities because various assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in particular, # in many assembler-programming cultures, $ in the 6502 world, > at Texas Instruments, and & on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See also [653]splat.
The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the world’s other major languages makes the designers’ choice of 7 bits look more and more like a serious [654]misfeature as the use of international networks continues to increase (see [655]software rot). Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set and that characters have 7 bits; this is a major irritant to people who want to use a character set suited to their own languages. Perversely, though, efforts to solve this problem by proliferating `national’ character sets produce an evolutionary pressure to use a smaller subset common to all those in use.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ASCII art, Next:[656]ASCIIbetical order, Previous:[657]ASCII, Up:[658]= A =
ASCII art n.
The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII character set (mainly |, -, /, \, and +). Also known as `character graphics’ or `ASCII graphics’; see also [659]boxology. Here is a serious example: o—-)||(–+–|<----+ +---------o + D O
L )||( | | | C U
A I )||( +–>|-+ | +-\/\/-+–o – T C N )||( | | | | P
E )||( +–>|-+–)—+–|(–+-o U )||( | | | GND T
o—-)||(–+–|<----+----------+
A power supply consisting of a full wave rectifier circuit feeding a capacitor input filter circuit
And here are some very silly examples: |\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___ | | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` ‘| _/ \ | | =(_)= THPHTH! / \/ \/ \
| (o)(o) U / \ C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/ | ,___| (oo) \/ \/
| / \/——-\ U (__) /____\ || | \ /—V `v’- oo ) / \ ||—W|| * * |–| || |`. |_/\
//-o-\\
____—=======—____
====___\ /.. ..\ /___==== Klingons rule OK! // —\__O__/— \\
\_\ /_/
There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the standard character names in the fashion of a rebus. +——————————————————–+ | ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | +——————————————————–+ ” A Bee in the Carrot Patch “
Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are reproduced in the examples above, here are three more: (__) (__) (__)
(\/) ($$) (**)
/——-\/ /——-\/ /——-\/ / | 666 || / |=====|| / | ||
* ||—-|| * ||—-|| * ||—-|| ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love
Finally, here’s a magnificent example of ASCII art depicting an Edwardian train station in Dunedin, New Zealand: .-.
/___\
|___|
|]_[|
/ I \
JL/ | \JL
.-. i () | () i .-. |_| .^. /_\ LJ=======LJ /_\ .^. |_| ._/___\._./___\_._._._._.L_J_/.-. .-.\_L_J._._._._._/___\._./___\._._._ ., |-,-| ., L_J |_| [I] |_| L_J ., |-,-| ., ., JL |-O-| JL L_J%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%L_J JL |-O-| JL JL IIIIII_HH_’-‘-‘_HH_IIIIII|_|=======H=======|_|IIIIII_HH_’-‘-‘_HH_IIIIII_HH_ ——-[]——-[]——-[_]—-\.=I=./—-[_]——-[]——-[]——–[]- _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ [_] []_/_L_J_\_[] [_] _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ ||\ |__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__|_|_| _L_L_J_J_ |_|_|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__| ||- |__| |||__|__||| |__[___]__–__===__–__[___]__| |||__|__||| |__| ||| IIIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIL___J__II__|_|__II__L___JIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIIII[_] \_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_[_]\II/[]\_\I/_/[]\II/[_]\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_/ [_] ./ \.L_J/ \L_J./ L_JI I[]/ \[]I IL_J \.L_J/ \L_J./ \.L_J | |L_J| |L_J| L_J| |[]| |[]| |L_J |L_J| |L_J| |L_J |_____JL_JL___JL_JL____|-|| |[]| |[]| ||-|_____JL_JL___JL_JL_____JL_J
There is a newsgroup, alt.ascii-art, devoted to this genre; however, see also [660]warlording.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:ASCIIbetical order, Next:[661]astroturfing, Previous:[662]ASCII art, Up:[663]= A =
ASCIIbetical order /as’kee-be’-t*-kl or’dr/ adj.,n.
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 end. “At my video store, they used their computer to sort the videos into ASCIIbetical order, so I couldn’t find `”Crocodile” Dundee’ until I thought to look before `2001′ and `48 HRS.’!”
_________________________________________________________________
Node:astroturfing, Next:[664]atomic, Previous:[665]ASCIIbetical order, Up:[666]= A =
astroturfing n.
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 (astroturf is fake grass; hence the term). This term became common among hackers after it came to light in early 1998 that Microsoft had attempted to use such tactics to forestall the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust action against the company.
This backfired horribly, angering a number of state attorneys-general enough to induce them to go public with plans to join the Federal suit. It also set anybody defending Microsoft on the net for the accusation “You’re just astroturfing!”. _________________________________________________________________
Node:atomic, Next:[667]attoparsec, Previous:[668]astroturfing, Up:[669]= A =
atomic adj.
[from Gk. `atomos’, indivisible] 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 an operation cannot be screwed up by interrupts. “This routine locks the file and increments the file’s semaphore atomically.” 2. [primarily techspeak] Guaranteed to complete successfully or not at all, usu. refers to database transactions. If an error prevents a partially-performed transaction from proceeding to completion, it must be “backed out,” as the database must not be left in an inconsistent state.
Computer usage, in either of the above senses, has none of the connotations that `atomic’ has in mainstream English (i.e. of particles of matter, nuclear explosions etc.). _________________________________________________________________
Node:attoparsec, Next:[670]AUP, Previous:[671]atomic, Up:[672]= A =
attoparsec n.
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 3.26 * 10^(-18) light years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1 attoparsec/[673]microfortnight equals about 1 inch/sec). This unit is reported to be in use (though probably not very seriously) among hackers in the U.K. See [674]micro-.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:AUP, Next:[675]autobogotiphobia, Previous:[676]attoparsec, Up:[677]= A =
AUP /A-U-P/
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.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:autobogotiphobia, Next:[678]automagically, Previous:[679]AUP, Up:[680]= A =
autobogotiphobia /aw’toh-boh-got`*-foh’bee-*/
n. See [681]bogotify.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:automagically, Next:[682]avatar, Previous:[683]autobogotiphobia, Up:[684]= A =
automagically /aw-toh-maj’i-klee/ adv.
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 [685]magic. “The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes cc(1) to produce an executable.”
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic’ occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:avatar, Next:[686]awk, Previous:[687]automagically, Up:[688]= A =
avatar n. Syn.
[in Hindu mythology, the incarnation of a god] 1. Among people working on virtual reality and [689]cyberspace interfaces, an avatar is an icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on [690]MUDs. 2. [CMU, Tektronix] [691]root, [692]superuser. There are quite a few Unix machines on which the name of the superuser account is `avatar’ rather than `root’. This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who found the terms `root’ and `superuser’ unimaginative, and thought `avatar’ might better impress people with the responsibility they were accepting. _________________________________________________________________
Node:awk, Next:[693]B5, Previous:[694]avatar, Up:[695]= A =
awk /awk/
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 typing and declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text processing. See also [696]Perl. 2. n. Editing term for an expression awkward to manipulate through normal [697]regexp facilities (for example, one containing a [698]newline). 3. vt. To process data using awk(1). _________________________________________________________________
Node:= B =, Next:[699]= C =, Previous:[700]= A =, Up:[701]The Jargon Lexicon
= B =
* [702]B5:
* [703]back door:
* [704]backbone cabal:
* [705]backbone site:
* [706]backgammon:
* [707]background:
* [708]backreference:
* [709]backronym:
* [710]backspace and overstrike: * [711]backward combatability:
* [712]BAD:
* [713]Bad and Wrong:
* [714]Bad Thing:
* [715]bag on the side:
* [716]bagbiter:
* [717]bagbiting:
* [718]baggy pantsing:
* [719]balloonian variable:
* [720]bamf:
* [721]banana label:
* [722]banana problem:
* [723]banner ad:
* [724]banner site:
* [725]barn:
* [726]batbelt:
* [727]Befunge:
* [728]BI:
* [729]binary four:
* [730]bandwidth:
* [731]bang:
* [732]bang on:
* [733]bang path:
* [734]banner:
* [735]bar:
* [736]bare metal:
* [737]barf:
* [738]barfmail:
* [739]barfulation:
* [740]barfulous:
* [741]barney:
* [742]baroque:
* [743]BASIC:
* [744]batch:
* [745]bathtub curve:
* [746]baud:
* [747]baud barf:
* [748]baz:
* [749]bazaar:
* [750]bboard:
* [751]BBS:
* [752]BCPL:
* [753]beam:
* [754]beanie key:
* [755]beep:
* [756]beige toaster:
* [757]bells and whistles:
* [758]bells whistles and gongs: * [759]benchmark:
* [760]Berkeley Quality Software: * [761]berklix:
* [762]Berzerkeley:
* [763]beta:
* [764]BFI:
* [765]bible:
* [766]BiCapitalization:
* [767]B1FF:
* [768]biff:
* [769]Big Gray Wall:
* [770]big iron:
* [771]Big Red Switch:
* [772]Big Room:
* [773]big win:
* [774]big-endian:
* [775]bignum:
* [776]bigot:
* [777]bit:
* [778]bit bang:
* [779]bit bashing:
* [780]bit bucket:
* [781]bit decay:
* [782]bit rot:
* [783]bit twiddling:
* [784]bit-paired keyboard:
* [785]bitblt:
* [786]BITNET:
* [787]bits:
* [788]bitty box:
* [789]bixen:
* [790]bixie:
* [791]black art:
* [792]black hole:
* [793]black magic:
* [794]Black Screen of Death:
* [795]Black Thursday:
* [796]blammo:
* [797]blargh:
* [798]blast:
* [799]blat:
* [800]bletch:
* [801]bletcherous:
* [802]blink:
* [803]blinkenlights:
* [804]blit:
* [805]blitter:
* [806]blivet:
* [807]bloatware:
* [808]BLOB:
* [809]block:
* [810]block transfer computations: * [811]Bloggs Family:
* [812]blow an EPROM:
* [813]blow away:
* [814]blow out:
* [815]blow past:
* [816]blow up:
* [817]BLT:
* [818]Blue Book:
* [819]blue box:
* [820]Blue Glue:
* [821]blue goo:
* [822]Blue Screen of Death:
* [823]blue wire:
* [824]blurgle:
* [825]BNF:
* [826]boa:
* [827]board:
* [828]boat anchor:
* [829]bob:
* [830]bodysurf code:
* [831]BOF:
* [832]BOFH:
* [833]bogo-sort:
* [834]bogometer:
* [835]BogoMIPS:
* [836]bogon:
* [837]bogon filter:
* [838]bogon flux:
* [839]bogosity:
* [840]bogotify:
* [841]bogue out:
* [842]bogus:
* [843]Bohr bug:
* [844]boink:
* [845]bomb:
* [846]bondage-and-discipline language: * [847]bonk/oif:
* [848]book titles:
* [849]boot:
* [850]Borg:
* [851]borken:
* [852]bot:
* [853]bot spot:
* [854]bottom feeder:
* [855]bottom-up implementation: * [856]bounce:
* [857]bounce message:
* [858]boustrophedon:
* [859]box:
* [860]boxed comments:
* [861]boxen:
* [862]boxology:
* [863]bozotic:
* [864]BQS:
* [865]brain dump:
* [866]brain fart:
* [867]brain-damaged:
* [868]brain-dead:
* [869]braino:
* [870]branch to Fishkill:
* [871]bread crumbs:
* [872]break:
* [873]break-even point:
* [874]breath-of-life packet:
* [875]breedle:
* [876]Breidbart Index:
* [877]bring X to its knees:
* [878]brittle:
* [879]broadcast storm:
* [880]brochureware:
* [881]broken:
* [882]broken arrow:
* [883]BrokenWindows:
* [884]broket:
* [885]Brooks’s Law:
* [886]brown-paper-bag bug:
* [887]browser:
* [888]BRS:
* [889]brute force:
* [890]brute force and ignorance: * [891]BSD:
* [892]BSOD:
* [893]BUAF:
* [894]BUAG:
* [895]bubble sort:
* [896]bucky bits:
* [897]buffer chuck:
* [898]buffer overflow:
* [899]bug:
* [900]bug-compatible:
* [901]bug-for-bug compatible:
* [902]bug-of-the-month club:
* [903]buglix:
* [904]bulletproof:
* [905]bullschildt:
* [906]bum:
* [907]bump:
* [908]burble:
* [909]buried treasure:
* [910]burn-in period:
* [911]burst page:
* [912]busy-wait:
* [913]buzz:
* [914]BWQ:
* [915]by hand:
* [916]byte:
* [917]byte sex:
* [918]bytesexual:
* [919]Bzzzt! Wrong.:
_________________________________________________________________
Node:B5, Next:[920]back door, Previous:[921]awk, Up:[922]= B =
B5 //
[common] Abbreviation for “Babylon 5”, a science-fiction TV series as revered among hackers as was the original Star Trek. _________________________________________________________________
Node:back door, Next:[923]backbone cabal, Previous:[924]B5, Up:[925]= B =
back door n.
[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 the vendor’s maintenance programmers. Syn. [926]trap door; may also be called a `wormhole’. See also [927]iron box, [928]cracker, [929]worm, [930]logic bomb.
Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known. Ken Thompson’s 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM admitted the existence of a back door in early Unix versions that may have qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time. In this scheme, the C compiler contained code that would recognize when the `login’ command was being recompiled and insert some code recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the system whether or not an account had been created for him.
Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to recompile the compiler, you have to use the compiler — so Thompson also arranged that the compiler would recognize when it was compiling a version of itself, and insert into the recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login’ the code to allow Thompson entry — and, of course, the code to recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around! And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the compiler from the original sources; the hack perpetuated itself invisibly, leaving the back door in place and active but with no trace in the sources.
The talk that suggested this truly moby hack was published as “Reflections on Trusting Trust”, “Communications of the ACM 27”, 8 (August 1984), pp. 761-763 (text available at [931]http://www.acm.org/classics). Ken Thompson has since confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed. Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by someone using the login name `kt’.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backbone cabal, Next:[932]backbone site, Previous:[933]back door, Up:[934]= B =
backbone cabal n.
A group of large-site administrators who pushed through the [935]Great Renaming and reined in the chaos of [936]Usenet during most of the 1980s. During most of its lifetime, the Cabal (as it was sometimes capitalized) steadfastly denied its own existence; it was almost obligatory for anyone privy to their secrets to respond “There is no Cabal” whenever the existence or activities of the group were speculated on in public.
The result of this policy was an attractive aura of mystery. Even a decade after the cabal [937]mailing list disbanded in late 1988 following a bitter internal catfight, many people believed (or claimed to believe) that it had not actually disbanded but only gone deeper underground with its power intact.
This belief became a model for various paranoid theories about various Cabals with dark nefarious objectives beginning with taking over the Usenet or Internet. These paranoias were later satirized in ways that took on a life of their own. See [938]Eric Conspiracy for one example.
See [939]NANA for the subsequent history of “the Cabal”. _________________________________________________________________
Node:backbone site, Next:[940]backgammon, Previous:[941]backbone cabal, Up:[942]= B =
backbone site n.,obs.
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 general use due to wide availability of cheap Internet connections, included uunet and the mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, [943]DEC’s Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of Texas. Compare [944]rib site, [945]leaf site.
[1996 update: This term is seldom heard any more. The UUCP network world that gave it meaning has nearly disappeared; everyone is on the Internet now and network traffic is distributed in very different patterns. Today one might see references to a `backbone router’ instead –ESR]
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backgammon, Next:[946]background, Previous:[947]backbone site, Up:[948]= B =
backgammon
See [949]bignum (sense 3), [950]moby (sense 4), and [951]pseudoprime. _________________________________________________________________
Node:background, Next:[952]backreference, Previous:[953]backgammon, Up:[954]= B =
background n.,adj.,vt.
[common] To do a task `in background’ is to do it whenever [955]foreground matters are not claiming your undivided attention, and `to background’ something means to relegate it to a lower priority. “For now, we’ll just print a list of nodes and links; I’m working on the graph-printing problem in background.” Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back burner’ (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work). Compare [956]amp off, [957]slopsucker.
Technically, a task running in background is detached from the terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower priority); oppose [958]foreground. Nowadays this term is primarily associated with [959]Unix, but it appears to have been first used in this sense on OS/360.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backreference, Next:[960]backronym, Previous:[961]background, Up:[962]= B =
backreference n.
1. In a regular expression or pattern match, the text which was matched within grouping parentheses 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 now, who were you backreferencing?”
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backronym, Next:[963]backspace and overstrike, Previous:[964]backreference, Up:[965]= B =
backronym n.
[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 [966]BASIC, [967]recursive acronym (Cygnus), [968]Acme, and [969]mung. Discovering backronyms is a common form of wordplay among hackers. Compare [970]retcon.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backspace and overstrike, Next:[971]backward combatability, Previous:[972]backronym, Up:[973]= B =
backspace and overstrike interj.
[rare] Whoa! Back up. Used to suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Once common among APL programmers; may now be obsolete.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:backward combatability, Next:[974]BAD, Previous:[975]backspace and overstrike, Up:[976]= B =
backward combatability /bak’w*rd k*m-bat’*-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, leaving the previous ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple “version mismatch” message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme [977]software bloat. See also [978]flag day. _________________________________________________________________
Node:BAD, Next:[979]Bad and Wrong, Previous:[980]backward combatability, Up:[981]= B =
BAD /B-A-D/ adj.
[IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed’] Said of a program that is [982]bogus because of bad design and misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See [983]working as designed. _________________________________________________________________
Node:Bad and Wrong, Next:[984]Bad Thing, Previous:[985]BAD, Up:[986]= B =
Bad and Wrong adj.
[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 attractive nuisance); and (rare praise) Good and Right. These terms entered common use at Durham c.1994 and may have been imported from elsewhere; they are also in use at Oxford, and the emphatic form “Evil, Bad and Wrong” (abbreviated EBW) is reported fromm there. There are standard abbreviations: they start with B&R, a typo for “Bad and Wrong”. Consequently, B&W is actually “Bad and Right”, G&R = “Good and Wrong”, and G&W = “Good and Right”. Compare [987]evil and rude, [988]Good Thing, [989]Bad Thing.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:Bad Thing, Next:[990]bag on the side, Previous:[991]Bad and Wrong, Up:[992]= B =
Bad Thing n.
[very common; from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody “1066 And All That”] Something that can’t possibly result in improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in “Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would be a Bad Thing”. Oppose [993]Good Thing. British correspondents confirm that [994]Bad Thing and [995]Good Thing (and prob. therefore [996]Right Thing and [997]Wrong Thing) come from the book referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad Things. This has apparently created a mainstream idiom on the British side of the pond. It is very common among American hackers, but not in mainstream usage here. Compare [998]Bad and Wrong.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:bag on the side, Next:[999]bagbiter, Previous:[1000]Bad Thing, Up:[1001]= B =
bag on the side n.
[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, inelegant, or bloated. Also v. phrase, `to hang a bag on the side [of]’. “C++? That’s just a bag on the side of C ….” “They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system.” _________________________________________________________________
Node:bagbiter, Next:[1002]bagbiting, Previous:[1003]bag on the side, Up:[1004]= B =
bagbiter /bag’bi:t-*r/ n.
1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. “This text editor won’t let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!” 2. A person who has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: [1005]loser, [1006]cretin, [1007]chomper. 3. `bite the bag’ vi. To fail in some manner. “The computer keeps crashing every five minutes.” “Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag.”
The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring to a douche bag or the scrotum (we have reports of “Bite the douche bag!” being used as a taunt at MIT 1970-1976, and we have another report that “Bite the bag!” was in common use at least as early as 1965), but in their current usage they have become almost completely sanitized.
ITS’s [1008]lexiphage program was the first and to date only known example of a program intended to be a bagbiter. _________________________________________________________________
Node:bagbiting, Next:[1009]baggy pantsing, Previous:[1010]bagbiter, Up:[1011]= B =
bagbiting adj.
Having the quality of a [1012]bagbiter. “This bagbiting system won’t let me compute the factorial of a negative number.” Compare [1013]losing, [1014]cretinous, [1015]bletcherous, `barfucious’ (under [1016]barfulous) and `chomping’ (under [1017]chomp). _________________________________________________________________
Node:baggy pantsing, Next:[1018]balloonian variable, Previous:[1019]bagbiting, Up:[1020]= B =
baggy pantsing v.
[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 “unattentive user who left their work unprotected in the clusters”. A properly-done baggy pantsing is highly mocking and humorous (see examples below). It is considered bad form to post a baggy pantsing to off-campus newsgroups or the more technical, serious groups. A particularly nice baggy pantsing may be “claimed” by immediately quoting the message in full, followed by your sig; this has the added benefit of keeping the embarassed victim from being able to delete the post. Interesting baggy-pantsings have been done involving adding commands to login scripts to repost the message every time the unlucky user logs in; Unix boxes on the residential network, when cracked, oftentimes have their homepages replaced (after being politely backedup to another file) with a baggy-pants message; .plan files are also occasionally targeted. Usage: “Prof. Greenlee fell asleep in the Solaris cluster again; we baggy-pantsed him to git.cc.class.2430.flame.”
_________________________________________________________________
Node:balloonian variable, Next:[1021]bamf, Previous:[1022]baggy pantsing, Up:[1023]= B =
balloonian variable n.
[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 never implemented. Compatibility concerns (or politics attached to same) may require that such a flag be treated as though it were [1024]live. _________________________________________________________________
Node:bamf, Next:[1025]banana label, Previous:[1026]balloonian variable, Up:[1027]= B =
bamf /bamf/
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 [1028]virtual reality (esp. [1029]MUD) electronic [1030]fora when a character wishes to make a dramatic entrance or exit. 2. The sound of magical transformation, used in virtual reality [1031]fora like MUDs. 3. In MUD circles, “bamf” is also used to refer to the act by which a MUD server sends a special notification to the MUD client to switch its connection to another server (“I’ll set up the old site to just bamf people over to our new location.”). 4. Used by MUDders on occasion in a more general sense related to sense 3, to refer to directing someone to another location or resource (“A user was asking about some technobabble so I bamfed them to [1032]http://www.tuxedo.org/jargon/”.) _________________________________________________________________
Node:banana label, Next:[1033]banana problem, Previous:[1034]bamf, Up:[1035]= B =
banana label n.
The labels often used on the sides of [1036]macrotape reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current but visibly headed for obsolescence.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:banana problem, Next:[1037]binary four, Previous:[1038]banana label, Up:[1039]= B =
banana problem n.
[from the story of the little girl who said “I know how to spell `banana’, but I don’t know when to stop”]. Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare [1040]fencepost error). One may say `there is a banana problem’ of an algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing to featuritis (see also [1041]creeping elegance, [1042]creeping featuritis). See item 176 under [1043]HAKMEM, which describes a banana problem in a [1044]Dissociated Press implementation. Also, see [1045]one-banana problem for a superficially similar but unrelated usage. _________________________________________________________________
Node:binary four, Next:[1046]bandwidth, Previous:[1047]banana problem, Up:[1048]= B =
binary four n.
[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 [1049]finger, sense 4. _________________________________________________________________
Node:bandwidth, Next:[1050]bang, Previous:[1051]binary four, Up:[1052]= B =
bandwidth n.
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 guess.” Compare [1053]low-bandwidth. This generalized usage began to go mainstream after the Internet population explosion of 1993-1994. 2. Attention span. 3. On [1054]Usenet, a measure of network capacity that is often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others are a waste of bandwidth.
_________________________________________________________________
Node:bang, Next:[1055]bang on, Previous:[1056]bandwidth, Up:[1057]= B =
bang
1. n. Common spoken name for ! (ASCII 0100001), especially when used in pronouncing a [1058]bang path in spoken hackish. In [1059]elder