The Jargon Lexicon
= N =
=====
N: /N/ quant. 1. A large and indeterminate number of
objects: "There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in
its original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N
bugs, as N goes to infinity." (The true number of bugs is
always at least N + 1; see {Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic
Entomology}.) 2. A variable whose value is inherited from the
current context. For example, when a meal is being ordered at a
restaurant, N may be understood to mean however many people
there are at the table. From the remark "We'd like to order
N wonton soups and a family dinner for N - 1" you
can deduce that one person at the table wants to eat only soup,
even though you don't know how many people there are (see
{great-wall}). 3. `Nth': adj. The ordinal counterpart
of N, senses 1 and 2. "Now for the Nth and last
time..." In the specific context "Nth-year grad
student", N is generally assumed to be at least 4, and is
usually 5 or more (see {tenured graduate student}). See also
{{random numbers}}, {two-to-the-N}.
nadger: /nad'jr/ v. [UK] Of software or hardware (not
people), to twiddle some object in a hidden manner, generally so
that it conforms better to some format. For instance, string
printing routines on 8-bit processors often take the string text
from the instruction stream, thus a print call looks like `jsr
print:"Hello world"'. The print routine has to `nadger' the
saved instruction pointer so that the processor doesn't try to
execute the text as instructions when the subroutine returns.
Apparently this word originated on a now-legendary 1950s radio
comedy program called "The Goon Show". The Goon Show usage
of "nadger" was definitely in the sense of "jinxed"
"clobbered" "fouled up". The American mutation {adger}
seems to have preserved more of the original flavor.
nagware: /nag'weir/ n. [Usenet] The variety of {shareware}
that displays a large screen at the beginning or end reminding you
to register, typically requiring some sort of keystroke to continue
so that you can't use the software in batch mode. Compare
{crippleware}.
nailed to the wall: adj. [like a trophy] Said of a bug
finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.
nailing jelly: vi. See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.
naive: adj. Untutored in the perversities of some particular
program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive
way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these
coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the
appropriate sense). This trait is completely unrelated to general
maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific
program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of
computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed
to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical
user'.
naive user: n. A {luser}. Tends to imply someone who is
ignorant mainly owing to inexperience. When this is applied to
someone who *has* experience, there is a definite implication
of stupidity.
NAK: /nak/ interj. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0010101]
1. On-line joke answer to {ACK}?: "I'm not here." 2. On-line
answer to a request for chat: "I'm not available." 3. Used to
politely interrupt someone to tell them you don't understand their
point or that they have suddenly stopped making sense. See
{ACK}, sense 3. "And then, after we recode the project in
COBOL...." "Nak, Nak, Nak! I thought I heard you say
COBOL!"
nano: /nan'oh/ n. [CMU: from `nanosecond'] A brief
period of time. "Be with you in a nano" means you really will be
free shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by "in a
jiffy" (whereas the hackish use of `jiffy' is quite different
-- see {jiffy}).
nano-: pref. [SI: the next quantifier below {micro-};
meaning * 10^(-9)] Smaller than {micro-}, and used in
the same rather loose and connotative way. Thus, one has
{{nanotechnology}} (coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy
with `microtechnology'; and a few machine architectures have a
`nanocode' level below `microcode'. Tom Duff at Bell Labs has
also pointed out that "Pi seconds is a nanocentury".
See also {{quantifiers}}, {pico-}, {nanoacre}, {nanobot},
{nanocomputer}, {nanofortnight}.
nanoacre: /nan'oh-ay`kr/ n. A unit (about 2 mm square) of
real estate on a VLSI chip. The term gets its giggle value from
the fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real
acres once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.
nanobot: /nan'oh-bot/ n. A robot of microscopic
proportions, presumably built by means of {{nanotechnology}}. As
yet, only used informally (and speculatively!). Also called a
`nanoagent'.
nanocomputer: /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ n. A computer with
molecular-sized switching elements. Designs for mechanical
nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their
logic have been proposed. The controller for a {nanobot} would
be a nanocomputer.
nanofortnight: n. [Adelaide University] 1 fortnight *
10^-9, or about 1.2 msec. This unit was used largely by students
doing undergraduate practicals. See {microfortnight},
{attoparsec}, and {micro-}.
nanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-jee/ n. A hypothetical
fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with
the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.
The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in
1990, for example with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on
a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large
computer company. Nanotechnology has been a hot topic in the
hacker subculture ever since the term was coined by K. Eric Drexler
in his book "Engines of Creation", where he predicted that
nanotechnology could give rise to replicating assemblers,
permitting an exponential growth of productivity and personal
wealth. See also {blue goo}, {gray goo}, {nanobot}.
nasal demons: n. Recognized shorthand on the Usenet group
comp.std.c for any unexpected behavior of a C compiler on
encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on that
group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to make
demons fly out of your nose" (the implication is that the compiler
may choose any arbitrarily bizarre way to interpret the code
without violating the ANSI C standard). Someone else followed up
with a reference to "nasal demons", which quickly became
established.
nastygram: /nas'tee-gram/ n. 1. A protocol packet or item
of email (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes
advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to
do untoward things. 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a
{net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a
complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission
problem. Compare {shitogram}, {mailbomb}. 3. A status
report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What'd
Corporate say in today's nastygram?" 4. [deprecated] An error
reply by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce
message}.
Nathan Hale: n. An asterisk (see also {splat},
{{ASCII}}). Oh, you want an etymology? Notionally, from "I
regret that I have only one asterisk for my country!", a misquote
of the famous remark uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was
hanged. Hale was a (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War
of Independence.
nature: n. See {has the X nature}.
neat hack: n. 1. A clever technique. 2. A brilliant
practical joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness,
harmlessness, and surprise value. example: the Caltech Rose Bowl
card display switch (see "{The Meaning of `Hack'}",
Appendix A). See also {hack}.
neats vs. scruffies: n. The label used to refer to one of
the continuing {holy wars} in AI research. This conflict
tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship
between human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try to build
systems that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to the
way humans report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess
not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the
least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe
that logic is king, while scruffies favor looser, more ad-hoc
methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods
appear promiscuous, successful only by accident, and not productive
of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy,
neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to
the hard-to-capture `common sense' of living intelligences.
neep-neep: /neep neep/ n. [onomatopoeic, from New York SF
fandom] One who is fascinated by computers. Less specific than
{hacker}, as it need not imply more skill than is required to
boot games on a PC. The derived noun `neeping' applies
specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to
develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties (the term
`neepery' is also in wide use). Fandom has a related proverb to
the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!".
neophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-*/ n. The trait of being
excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF
fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge
subcultures, including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of
the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and
the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap
heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share
characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{music}}, and
{{oriental food}}. The opposite tendency is `neophobia'.
net.-: /net dot/ pref. [Usenet] Prefix used to describe
people and events related to Usenet. From the time before the
{Great Renaming}, when most non-local newsgroups had names
beginning `net.'. Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses'
(various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),
`net.lurkers' (see {lurker}), `net.person', `net.parties'
(a synonym for {boink}, sense 2), and many similar constructs.
See also {net.police}.
net.god: /net god/ n. Accolade referring to anyone who
satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been
visible on Usenet for more than 5 years, ran one of the original
backbone sites, moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news
software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg
personally. See {demigod}. Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the
Slime Sisters have (so far) been distinguished more by personality
than by authority.
net.personality: /net per`sn-al'-*-tee/ n. Someone who has
made a name for him or herself on {Usenet}, through either
longevity or attention-getting posts, but doesn't meet the other
requirements of {net.god}hood.
net.police: /net-p*-lees'/ n. (var. `net.cops') Those
Usenet readers who feel it is their responsibility to pounce on and
{flame} any posting which they regard as offensive or in
violation of their understanding of {netiquette}. Generally
used sarcastically or pejoratively. Also spelled `net police'.
See also {net.-}, {code police}.
NetBOLLIX: n. [from bollix: to bungle] {IBM}'s NetBIOS, an
extremely {brain-damaged} network protocol that, like {Blue
Glue}, is used at commercial shops that don't know any better.
netburp: n. [IRC] When {netlag} gets really bad, and
delays between servers exceed a certain threshhold, the {IRC}
network effectively becomes partitioned for a period of time, and
large numbers of people seem to be signing off at the same time and
then signing back on again when things get better. An instance of
this is called a `netburp' (or, sometimes, {netsplit}).
netdead: n. [IRC] The state of someone who signs off
{IRC}, perhaps during a {netburp}, and doesn't sign back on
until later. In the interim, he is "dead to the net".
nethack: /net'hak/ n. [UNIX] A dungeon game similar to
{rogue} but more elaborate, distributed in C source over
{Usenet} and very popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines
(nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware
dungeon games). The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and
later considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called
`hack'. The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a
group of hackers originally organized by Mike Stephenson; the
current contact address (as of mid-1993) is
nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu.
netiquette: /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ n. [portmanteau
from "network etiquette"] The conventions of politeness
recognized on {Usenet}, such as avoidance of cross-posting to
inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery
outside the biz groups.
netlag: n. [IRC, MUD] A condition that occurs when the
delays in the {IRC} network or on a {MUD} become severe
enough that servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact,
causing messages to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up
to a minute. (Note that this term has nothing to do with
mainstream "jet lag", a condition which hackers tend not to be
much bothered by.)
netnews: /net'n[y]ooz/ n. 1. The software that makes
{Usenet} run. 2. The content of Usenet. "I read netnews
right after my mail most mornings."
netrock: /net'rok/ n. [IBM] A {flame}; used esp. on
VNET, IBM's internal corporate network.
netsplit: n. Syn. {netburp}.
netter: n. 1. Loosely, anyone with a {network address}.
2. More specifically, a {Usenet} regular. Most often found in
the plural. "If you post *that* in a technical group, you're
going to be flamed by angry netters for the rest of time!"
network address: n. (also `net address') As used by
hackers, means an address on `the' network (see {network,
the}; this is almost always a {bang path} or {{Internet
address}}). Such an address is essential if one wants to be to be
taken seriously by hackers; in particular, persons or organizations
that claim to understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among
hackers but *don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed
to be clueless poseurs and mentally flushed (see {flush}, sense
4). Hackers often put their net addresses on their business cards
and wear them prominently in contexts where they expect to meet
other hackers face-to-face (see also {{science-fiction fandom}}).
This is mostly functional, but is also a signal that one identifies
with hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed T-shirts
among Grateful Dead fans). Net addresses are often used in email
text as a more concise substitute for personal names; indeed,
hackers may come to know each other quite well by network names
without ever learning each others' `legal' monikers. See also
{sitename}, {domainist}.
network meltdown: n. A state of complete network overload;
the network equivalent of {thrash}ing. This may be induced by a
{Chernobyl packet}. See also {broadcast storm}, {kamikaze
packet}.
Network meltdown is often a result of network designs that are
optimized for a steady state of moderate load and don't cope well
with the very jagged, bursty usage patterns of the real world. One
amusing instance of this is triggered by the the popular and very
bloody shoot-'em-up game Doom on the PC. When used in
multiplayer mode over a network, the game uses broadcast packets to
inform other machines when bullets are fired. This causes problems
with weapons like the chain gun which fire rapidly -- it can blast
the network into a meltdown state just as easily as it shreds
opposing monsters.
network, the: n. 1. The union of all the major
noncommercial, academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as
Internet, the old ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the virtual
UUCP and {Usenet} `networks', plus the corporate in-house
networks and commercial time-sharing services (such as CompuServe)
that gateway to them. A site is generally considered `on the
network' if it can be reached through some combination of
Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP (bang-path) addresses. See
{bang path}, {{Internet address}}, {network address}. 2. A
fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and
anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton
Wilson's novel "Schr"odinger's Cat", to which many hackers
have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example of {ha
ha only serious}).
In sense 1, `network' is often abbreviated to `net'. "Are
you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet
face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.
New Jersey: adj. [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley]
Brain-damaged or of poor design. This refers to the allegedly
wretched quality of such software as C, C++, and UNIX (which
originated at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey). "This
compiler bites the bag, but what can you expect from a compiler
designed in New Jersey?" Compare {Berkeley Quality Software}.
See also {UNIX conspiracy}.
New Testament: n. [C programmers] The second edition of
K&R's "The C Programming Language" (Prentice-Hall, 1988; ISBN
0-13-110362-8), describing ANSI Standard C. See {K&R}.
newbie: /n[y]oo'bee/ n. [orig. from British public-school
and military slang variant of `new boy'] A Usenet neophyte. This
term surfaced in the {newsgroup} talk.bizarre but is now in
wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a
person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a
respected regular in another. The label `newbie' is sometimes
applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet
for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a
clue. See {B1FF}.
newgroup wars: /n[y]oo'groop worz/ n. [Usenet] The salvos of
dueling `newgroup' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes
exchanged by persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a
{newsgroup} should be created net-wide, or (even more
frequently) whether an obsolete one should be removed. These
usually settle out within a week or two as it becomes clear whether
the group has a natural constituency (usually, it doesn't). At
times, especially in the completely anarchic alt hierarchy, the
names of newsgroups themselves become a form of comment or humor;
e.g., the spinoff of alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from
alt.tv.muppets in early 1990, or any number of specialized
abuse groups named after particularly notorious {flamer}s, e.g.,
alt.weemba.
newline: /n[y]oo'li:n/ n. 1. [techspeak, primarily UNIX]
The ASCII LF character (0001010), used under {{UNIX}} as a text
line terminator. A Bell-Labs-ism rather than a Berkeleyism;
interestingly (and unusually for UNIX jargon), it is said to have
originally been an IBM usage. (Though the term `newline'
appears in ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general
computing world before UNIX). 2. More generally, any magic
character, character sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln
procedure) required to terminate a text record or separate lines.
See {crlf}, {terpri}.
NeWS: /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ n. [acronym;
the `Network Window System'] The road not taken in window systems,
an elegant {{PostScript}}-based environment that would almost
certainly have won the standards war with {X} if it hadn't been
{proprietary} to Sun Microsystems. There is a lesson here that
too many software vendors haven't yet heeded. Many hackers insist
on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing
NeWS from {news} (the {netnews} software).
news: n. See {netnews}.
newsfroup: // n. [Usenet] Silly synonym for {newsgroup},
originally a typo but now in regular use on Usenet's talk.bizarre
and other lunatic-fringe groups. Compare {hing}, {grilf},
and {filk}.
newsgroup: n. [Usenet] One of {Usenet}'s huge collection of
topic groups or {fora}. Usenet groups can be `unmoderated'
(anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically
directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the
results). Some newsgroups have parallel {mailing list}s for
Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group
automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some
moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed
Internet mailing lists) are distributed as `digests', with groups
of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with
an index.
Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum),
comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.unix.wizards
(for UNIX wizards), rec.arts.sf.written and siblings (for
science-fiction fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous
political discussions and {flamage}).
nick: n. [IRC] Short for nickname. On {IRC}, every user must
pick a nick, which is sometimes the same as the user's real name or
login name, but is often more fanciful. Compare {handle}.
nickle: /ni'kl/ n. [from `nickel', common name for the
U.S. 5-cent coin] A {nybble} + 1; 5 bits. Reported among
developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games
processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. See
also {deckle}, and {nybble} for names of other bit units.
night mode: n. See {phase} (of people).
Nightmare File System: n. Pejorative hackerism for Sun's
Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns
where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down,
the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down
one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes
it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is
that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to
a higher {spl} level). Then another machine tries to reach
either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself
becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is
now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the
pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation
snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is
frozen -- worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access
that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by
partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which
is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great
{misfeature}). (ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of
UNIX's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file
system with none of these problems in the early 1970s.) See also
{broadcast storm}.
NIL: /nil/ No. Used in reply to a question, particularly
one asked using the `-P' convention. Most hackers assume this
derives simply from LISP terminology for `false' (see also
{T}), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among
radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical
connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was
strong enough that this may have been an influence.
Ninety-Ninety Rule: n. "The first 90% of the code accounts
for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of
the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time."
Attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs, and popularized by Jon
Bentley's September 1985 "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science"
column in "Communications of the ACM". It was there called
the "Rule of Credibility", a name which seems not to have stuck.
NMI: /N-M-I/ n. Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the
PDP-11 or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80[1234]86. In contrast
with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although
that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored. Except, that
is, on {clone} boxes, where NMI is often ignored on the
motherboard because flaky hardware can generate many spurious
ones.
no-op: /noh'op/ n,v. alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] 1.
A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in
assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or
to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). See also {JFCL}.
2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
going on upstairs, or both. As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any
operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting
money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into
the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to
go away. "Oh, well, that was a no-op." Hot-and-sour soup (see
{great-wall}) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup';
so is wonton soup if everybody else is having hot-and-sour.
noddy: /nod'ee/ adj. [UK: from the children's books]
1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs
are often written by people learning a new language or system. The
archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}. Noddy code may be
used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of
real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using.
"This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less
instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily
connote uselessness, but describes a {hack} sufficiently trivial
that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during
the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a
noddy {awk} script to dump all the first fields." In North
America this might be called a {mickey mouse program}. See
{toy program}.
NOMEX underwear: /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ n. [Usenet] Syn.
{asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists
and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on
the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance measure and
required in some racing series.
Nominal Semidestructor: n. Soundalike slang for `National
Semiconductor', found among other places in the Networking/2
networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this
company marketed a series of microprocessors including the NS16000
and NS32000 and several variants. At one point early in the great
microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like
serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0
series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and
never implemented the full instruction set promised in their
literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the
mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without
trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure
also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors. Compare
{HP-SUX}, {AIDX}, {buglix}, {Macintrash}, {Telerat},
{Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.
non-optimal solution: n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An
astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally
used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person
speaking looks completely serious. Compare {stunning}. See
also {Bad Thing}.
nonlinear: adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an
erratic and unpredictable fashion; unstable. When used to describe
the behavior of a machine or program, it suggests that said machine
or program is being forced to run far outside of design
specifications. This behavior may be induced by unreasonable
inputs, or may be triggered when a more mundane bug sends the
computation far off from its expected course. 2. When describing
the behavior of a person, suggests a tantrum or a {flame}.
"When you talk to Bob, don't mention the drug problem or he'll go
nonlinear for hours." In this context, `go nonlinear' connotes
`blow up out of proportion' (proportion connotes linearity).
nontrivial: adj. Requiring real thought or significant
computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a
problem is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely
unsolvable ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial"). The preferred
emphatic form is `decidedly nontrivial'. See {trivial},
{uninteresting}, {interesting}.
not ready for prime time: adj. Usable, but only just so; not
very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device.
Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid {Real Soon
Now}. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast
of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time
Players". It has extra flavor for hackers because of the special
(though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of {prime time}. Compare
{beta}.
notwork: /not'werk/ n. A network, when it is acting
{flaky} or is {down}. Compare {nyetwork}. Said at IBM to
have originally referred to a particular period of flakiness on
IBM's VNET corporate network ca. 1988; but there are independent
reports of the term from elsewhere.
NP-: /N-P/ pref. Extremely. Used to modify adjectives
describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is
often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem
to be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a priori
reason that they should be.) "Coding a BitBlt implementation to
perform correctly in every case is NP-annoying." This is
generalized from the computer-science terms `NP-hard' and
`NP-complete'. NP is the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial
algorithms, those that can be completed by a nondeterministic
Turing machine in an amount of time that is a polynomial function
of the size of the input; a solution for one NP-complete problem
would solve all the others. Note, however, that the NP- prefix is,
from a complexity theorist's point of view, the wrong part of
`NP-complete' to connote extreme difficulty; it is the
completeness, not the NP-ness, that puts any problem it describes
in the `hard' category.
nroff:: /N'rof/ n. [UNIX, from "new roff" (see
{{troff}})] A companion program to the UNIX typesetter {{troff}},
accepting identical input but preparing output for terminals and
line printers.
NSA line eater: n. The National Security Agency trawling
program sometimes assumed to be reading the net for the
U.S. Government's spooks. Most hackers describe it as a mythical
beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and
many believe in acting as though it exists just in case. Some
netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear
materials', `Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in
their {sig block}s in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and
overload the creature. The {GNU} version of {EMACS} actually
has a command that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious
anarcho-verbiage into your edited text.
There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line
Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words
from telephone trunks. This one was making the rounds in the
late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current
technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition
needs of such a project. On the basis of mass-storage costs alone
it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just
let them listen in. Speech-recognition technology can't do this
job even now (1993), and almost certainly won't in this millennium,
either. The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative
paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this
Big Brotherly affair. The letter writer then revealed his actual
agenda by offering -- at an amazing low price, just this once, we
take VISA and MasterCard -- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the
Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof
gangs of the world to get on with their business.
nude: adj. Said of machines delivered without an operating
system (compare {bare metal}). "We ordered 50 systems, but
they all arrived nude, so we had to spend a an extra weekend with
the installation tapes." This usage is a recent innovation
reflecting the fact that most PC clones are now delivered with DOS
or Microsoft Windows pre-installed at the factory. Other kinds of
hardware are still normally delivered without OS, so this term is
particular to PC support groups.
nuke: /n[y]ook/ vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire
contents of a given directory or storage volume. "On UNIX,
`rm -r /usr' will nuke everything in the usr filesystem."
Never used for accidental deletion. Oppose {blow away}.
2. Syn. for {dike}, applied to smaller things such as files,
features, or code sections. Often used to express a final verdict.
"What do you want me to do with that 80-meg {wallpaper} file?"
"Nuke it." 3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a
frequent verbal alias for `kill -9' on UNIX. 4. On IBM PCs,
a bug that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating
system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block
chaining information). This can utterly scramble attached disks,
which are then said to have been `nuked'. This term is also used
of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other micros without
memory protection.
number-crunching: n. Computations of a numerical nature,
esp. those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers.
The only thing {Fortrash} is good for. This term is in
widespread informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream
slang, but has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the
computations are mindless and involve massive use of {brute
force}. This is not always {evil}, esp. if it involves ray
tracing or fractals or some other use that makes {pretty
pictures}, esp. if such pictures can be used as {wallpaper}.
See also {crunch}.
numbers: n. [scientific computation] Output of a computation
that may not be significant results but at least indicate that the
program is running. May be used to placate management, grant
sponsors, etc. `Making numbers' means running a program because
output -- any output, not necessarily meaningful output -- is
needed as a demonstration of progress. See {pretty pictures},
{math-out}, {social science number}.
NUXI problem: /nuk'see pro'bl*m/ n. Refers to the problem
of transferring data between machines with differing byte-order.
The string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a
different `byte sex' (e.g., when transferring data from a
{little-endian} to a {big-endian}, or vice-versa). See also
{middle-endian}, {swab}, and {bytesexual}.
nybble: /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') n. [from
v. `nibble' by analogy with `bite' => `byte'] Four
bits; one {hex} digit; a half-byte. Though `byte' is now
techspeak, this useful relative is still jargon. Compare
{{byte}}; see also {bit}, Apparently this spelling is uncommon
in Commonwealth Hackish, as British orthography suggests the
pronunciation /ni:'bl/.
Following `bit', `byte' and `nybble' there have been quite a few
analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks
of other sizes. All of these are strictly jargon, not techspeak,
and not very common jargon at that (most hackers would recognize
them in context but not use them spontaneously). We collect them
here for reference together with the ambiguous techspeak terms
`word', `half-word' and `quadwords'; some (indicated) have
substantial information separate entries.
2 bits:
o{crumb}, {quad} {quarter}, tayste
4 bits:
nybble
5 bits:
{nickle}
10 bits:
{deckle}
16 bits:
playte, {chawmp} (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 16-bit
machine), half-word (on a 32-bit machine).
18 bits:
{chawmp} (on a 36-bit machine), half-word (on a 36-bit machine)
32 bits:
dynner, {gawble} (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 32-bit
machine), longword (on a 16-bit machine).
36:
word (on a 36-bit machine)
48 bits:
{gawble} (under circumstances that remain obscure)
The fundamental motivation for most of these jargon terms (aside
from the normal hackerly enjoyment of punning wordplay) is the
extreme ambiguity of the term `word' and its derivatives.
nyetwork: /nyet'werk/ n. [from Russian `nyet' = no] A
network, when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}. Compare
{notwork}.