The Jargon Lexicon
= [^A-Za-z] =
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: n. [Usenet: alt.folklore.urban and
elsewhere] Commonly used as a placeholder for omitted text in a
followup message. Refers, of course, to the celebrated mutilation
of John Bobbit.
4.2: n. Without a prefix, this almost invariably refers to
{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" and to earlier, less-widespread releases 4.1 and 2.9.,
and will doubtless apply to 4.4 in the near future.
'Snooze: /snooz/ [FidoNet] n. Fidonews, the weekly
official on-line newsletter of FidoNet. As the editorial policy of
Fidonews is "anything that arrives, we print", there are often
large articles completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend
to elicit {flamage} in subsequent issues.
(TM): // [Usenet] ASCII rendition of the
trademark-superscript symbol
appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for
posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes
used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of
software and algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See
also {UN*X}.
-oid: suff. [from `android'] 1. Used as in mainstream
English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or some
otherwise slightly bogus resemblance. Hackers will happily use it
with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wouldn't keep
company with it in mainstream English. For example, "He's a
nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't
make the grade; a `modemoid' might be a 300-baud box (Real Modems
run at 9600 or up); a `computeroid' might be any {bitty box}.
The word `keyboid' could be used to describe a {chiclet
keyboard}, but would have to be written; spoken, it would confuse
the listener as to the speaker's city of origin. 2. More
specifically, an indicator for `resembling an android' which in
the past has been confined to science-fiction fans and hackers. It
too has recently (in 1991) started to go mainstream (most notably
in the term `trendoid' for victims of terminal hipness). This is
probably traceable to the popularization of the term {droid} in
"Star Wars" and its sequels.
Coinages in both forms have been common in science fiction for at
least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have
probably been making `-oid' jargon for almost that long
[though GLS and I can personally confirm only that they were
already common in the mid-1970s -- ESR].
-ware: suff. [from `software'] Commonly used to form
jargon terms for classes of software. For examples, see
{careware}, {crippleware}, {crudware}, {freeware},
{fritterware}, {guiltware}, {liveware}, {meatware},
{payware}, {psychedelicware}, {shareware}, {shelfware},
{vaporware}, {wetware}.
/dev/null: /dev-nuhl/ n. [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 {bit bucket}.
0: 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 not, or if letter-O looks almost
rectangular but zero looks more like an American football stood on
end (or the reverse), you're probably looking at a modern character
display (though the dotted zero seems to have originated as an
option on IBM 3270 controllers). If your zero is slashed but
letter-O is not, you're probably looking at an old-style ASCII
graphic set descended from the default typewheel on the venerable
ASR-33 Teletype (Scandinavians, for whom Slashed-O is a letter,
curse this arrangement). If letter-O has a slash across it and the
zero does not, your display is tuned for a very old convention used
at IBM and a few other early mainframe makers (Scandinavians curse
*this* arrangement even more, because it means two of their
letters collide). Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero
with a *reversed* slash. And yet another convention common on
early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail or hook
to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive
capital letter-O (this was endorsed by a draft ANSI standard for
how to draw ASCII characters, but the final standard changed the
distinguisher to a tick-mark in the upper-left corner). Are we
sufficiently confused yet?
1TBS: // n. The "One True Brace Style"; see {indent
style}.
120 reset: /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ n. [from 120 volts,
U.S. wall voltage] To cycle power on a machine in order to reset or
unjam it. Compare {Big Red Switch}, {power cycle}.
2: infix. In translation software written by hackers, infix
2 often represents the syllable *to* with the connotation
`translate to': as in dvi2ps (DVI to PostScript), int2string
(integer to string), and texi2roff (Texinfo to [nt]roff).
@-party: /at'par`tee/ 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 Worldcon); one must have a
{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
{boink}.
@Begin: // See {\begin}.
\begin: // [from the LaTeX command] With \end, used
humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the
surrounded text. For example:
\begin{flame}
Predicate logic is the only good programming
language. Anyone who would use anything else
is an idiot. Also, all computers should be
tredecimal instead of binary.
\end{flame}
The Scribe users at CMU and elsewhere used to use @Begin/@End in
an identical way (LaTeX was built to resemble Scribe). On Usenet,
this construct would more frequently be rendered as `' and `', or `#ifdef FLAME' and `#endif FLAME''.