Family Fun/Family Fun.iso/joke6/jf281b/jarg281e.cap

Text File | 1991-03-23 | 156KB | 2,933 lines

Article #8717 (8725 is last):
From: [e-mail] (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
Subject: The Jargon File v2.8.1, 22 MAR 1991, part 12 of 19
Date: Fri Mar 22 18:42:20 1991

Submitted-by: [e-mail]
Archive-name: jargon/part12

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X
Xnanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-ji/ n. A hypothetical
X   fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with
X   the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.
X   The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments are taking place
X   now (1990), for example with the deposition of individual xenon
X   atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very
X   large computer company by two of its physicists.  Nanotechnology
X   has been a hot topic in the hacker subculture ever since the term
X   was coined by K. Eric Drexler in his book `Engines of Creation',
X   where he predicted that nanotechnology could give rise to
X   replicating assemblers, permitting an exponential growth of
X   productivity and personal wealth.  See also {blue goo}, {gray goo},
X   {nanobot}.
X
Xnastygram: n. 1. A protocol packet or item of email (the latter is
X   also called a `letterbomb') that takes advantage of misfeatures
X   or security holes on the target system to do untoward things.
X   2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a {net.god}, pursuant to a
X   violation of {netiquette}.  Compare {shitogram}.  3. A status
X   report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer.  "What'd the
X   Germans say in today's nastygram?"  4. [deprecated] An error reply
X   by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce message}.
X
XNathan Hale: n. An asterisk (See also {splat}, {{ASCII}}).  Oh,
X   you want an etymology?  Notionally, from "I regret that I have only
X   one asterisk for my country!", a misquote of the famous remark
X   uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was hanged.  Hale was a
X   (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War of Independence.
X
Xnature: n. See {has the X nature}.
X
Xneat hack: n. A clever technique.  Also, a brilliant practical
X   joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness, harmlessness,
X   and surprise value.  Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display
X   switch (see Appendix A).  See {hack}.
X
Xneep-neep: /neep neep/ [onomatopoeic, from New York SF fandom] n.
X   One who is fascinated by computers.  More general than {hacker},
X   as it need not imply more skill than is required to boot games on a
X   PC.  The derived noun `neep-neeping' applies specifically to
X   the long conversations about computers that tend to develop in the
X   corners at most SF-convention parties.  Fandom has a related
X   proverb to the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black
X   hole!".
X
Xneophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-uh/ n. The trait of being excited and
X   pleased by novelty.  Common trait of most hackers, SF fans, and
X   members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures,
X   including the pro-technology `Whole-Earth' wing of the ecology
X   movement, space activists, many members of MENSA, and the
X   Discordian/neo-pagan underground.  All these groups overlap heavily
X   and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic
X   hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{Music}}, and {{Oriental
X   Food}}.
X
Xnet.-: /net dot/ pref. [USENET] Prefix used to describe people and
X   events related to USENET.  From the time before the {Great
X   Renaming}, when all non-local newsgroups had names beginning
X   `net.'.  Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses' (various
X   charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),
X   `net.lurkers', (see {lurker}), `net.person',
X   `net.parties' (a synonym for {boink} sense #2 (q.v.)) and
X   many similar constructs.  See also {net.police}.
X
Xnet.god: /net god/ n. Used to refer to anyone who satisfies some
X   combination of the following conditions: has been visible on USENET
X   for more than five years, ran one of the original backbone sites,
X   moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows
X   Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally.  See
X   {demigod}.
X
Xnet.police: n. (var. `net.cops') Those USENET readers who feel it is
X   their responsibility to pounce on and {flame} any posting which
X   they regard as offensive, or in violation of their understanding of
X   {netiquette}.  Generally used sarcastically or pejoratively.
X   Also spelled `net police'.  See also {net.-}, {code police}.
X
Xnethack: /net'hak/ n. See {hack}, sense #8.
X
Xnetiquette: /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ [portmanteau from "network
X   etiquette"] n. Conventions of politeness recognized on {USENET},
X   such as: avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups, or
X   refraining from commercial pluggery on the net.
X
Xnetnews: n. 1. The software that makes {USENET} run.  2. The
X   content of USENET.  "I read netnews right after my mail most
X   mornings".
X
Xnetrock: [IBM] n. A {flame}; used esp. on VNET, IBM's internal
X   corporate network.
X
Xnetwork address: n. (also `net address') As used by hackers,
X   means an address on `the' network (see {network, the}; this is
X   almost always a {bang path} or {{Internet address}}).  Such an
X   address is essential if one wants to be to be taken seriously by
X   hackers; in particular, persons or organizations that claim to
X   understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among hackers but
X   *don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed to be
X   clueless poseurs and mentally flushed (see {flush}, sense #4).
X   Hackers often put their net addresses on their business cards and
X   wear them prominently in contexts where they expect to meet other
X   hackers face-to-face (see also {{Science-Fiction Fandom}}).  This
X   is mostly functional, but is also a connotative signal that one
X   identifies with hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed
X   T-shirts among Grateful Dead fans).  Net addresses are often used
X   in email text as a more concise substitute for personal names;
X   indeed, hackers may come to know each other quite well by network
X   names without ever learning each others' `legal' monikers.  See
X   also {sitename}, {domainist}.
X
Xnetwork meltdown: n. A state of complete network overload; the
X   network equivalent of {thrash}ing.  This may be induced by a
X   {Chernobyl packet}, See also {broadcast storm}, {kamikaze
X   packet}.
X
Xnetwork, the: n. 1. The union of all the major noncommercial,
X   academic, and hacker-oriented networks such as Internet, the old
X   ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the virtual UUCP and {USENET}
X   `networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
X   time-sharing services (such as CompuServe) that gateway to them.  A
X   site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached
X   through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
X   (bang-path) addresses.  See {bang path}, {{Internet address}},
X   {network address}.  2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian
X   hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described
X   in Robert Anton Wilson's novel `Schrodinger's Cat', to which
X   many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an
X   example of {ha ha only serious}).
X
X   In sense #1, `network' is frequently abbreviated to `net'.  "Are
X   you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet
X   face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.
X
XNew Jersey: [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley] adj. Generically,
X   brain-damaged or of poor design.  This refers to the allegedly
X   wretched quality of such software as C, C++, and UNIX (which
X   originated at Bell Labs in New Jersey).  "This compiler bites the
X   bag, but what can you expect from a compiler designed in New
X   Jersey?"  See also {UNIX conspiracy}.
X
XNew Testament: n. [C programmers] The second edition of K&R's `The C
X   Programming Language' (Prentice-Hall 1988, ISBN 0-13-110362-8),
X   describing ANSI Standard C.  See {K&R}.
X
Xnewbie: /n[y]oo'bee/ n. [orig. from British public-school &
X   military slang contraction of `new boy'] A USENET neophyte.
X   This term originated in the {newsgroup} `talk.bizarre' but is
X   now in wide use.  Criteria for being considered a newbie vary
X   wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while
X   remaining a respected regular in another.  The label `newbie'
X   is sometimes applied as a serious insult, to a person who has been
X   around USENET for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence
X   of having a clue.  See {BIFF}.
X
Xnewgroup wars: /n[y]oo'grp wohrz/ [USENET] n. Salvos of dueling
X   `newgroup' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes exchanged by
X   persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a {newsgroup}
X   should be created net-wide.  These usually settle out within a week
X   or two as it becomes clear whether the group has a natural
X   constituency (usually, it doesn't).  At times, especially in the
X   completely anarchic `alt' hierarchy, the names of newsgroups
X   themselves become a form of comment or humor; e.g. the spinoff of
X   `alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork' from `alt.tv.muppets' in
X   early 1990, or any number of specialized abuse groups named after
X   particularly notorious {flamer}s, e.g. `alt.weemba'.
X
Xnewline: /n[y]oo'lien/ n. 1. [techspeak, primarily UNIX] The
X   ASCII LF character (#b0001010), used under {UNIX} as a text line
X   terminator.  A Bell-Labs-ism rather than a Berkeleyism;
X   interestingly (and unusually for UNIX jargon) it is said originally
X   to have been an IBM usage (though the term `newline' appears in
X   ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general computing world
X   before UNIX).  2. More generally, any magic character, character
X   sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln procedure) required
X   to terminate a text record or separate lines.  See {crlf},
X   {terpri}.
X
XNeWS: /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ [acronym; the
X   Network Window System] n. The road not taken in window systems, an
X   elegant PostScript-based environment that would almost certainly
X   have won the standards war with {X} if it hadn't been
X   {proprietary} to Sun Microsystems.  There is a lesson here that
X   to many software vendors haven't yet heeded.  Many hackers insist
X   on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing
X   NeWS from `news' (the {netnews} software).
X
Xnewsfroup: // [USENET] n. Silly synonym for
X   {newsgroup}, originated as a typo but now in regular use on
X   USENET's talk.bizarre and other lunatic-fringe groups.
X
Xnewsgroup: [USENET] n. One of {USENET}'s huge collection of topic
X   groups.  Among the best-known are `comp.lang.c' (the C-language
X   forum), `comp.unix.wizards', `rec.arts.sf-lovers' (for
X   science-fiction fans), and `talk.politics.misc' (miscellaneous
X   political discussions and {flamage}).
X
Xnickle: [From `nickel', common name for the US 5-cent coin] n. A
X   {nybble} + 1; 5 bits.  Reported among developers for Mattel's GI
X   1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide
X   RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM.  See also {deckle}.
X
Xnight mode: n. See {phase} (of people).
X
XNightmare File System: n. Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network
X   File System (NFS).  In any nontrivial network of Suns where there
X   is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others
X   often freeze up.  Some machine tries to access the down one, and
X   (getting no response) repeats indefinitely.  This causes it to
X   appear dead to some messages.  Then another machine tries to reach
X   either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself
X   becomes pseudo-down.  The first machine to discover the down one is
X   now trying both to access the down one and respond to the
X   pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach.  This snowballs
X   very fast and soon the entire network of machines is frozen --- the
X   user can't even abort the file access that started the problem!
X   (ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of UNIX's alleged
X   bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none
X   of these problems in the early 1970s.  Of course, ITS only had
X   6-character filenames and no subdirectories, so it was solving a
X   simpler problem.)  See also {broadcast storm}.
X
XNIL: [from LISP terminology for `false'] No.  Usage: used in reply
X   to a question, particularly one asked using the `-P' convention.
X   See {T}.
X
XNMI: n. Non-Maskable Interrupt.  An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or
X   680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80{88|[1234]86}.  Unlike a
X   {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although unlikely),
X   an NMI is *never* ignored.
X
Xno-op: /noh-op/ alt. NOP (nop) [no operation] n. 1. (also v.) A
X   machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in
X   assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or
X   to overwrite code to be removed in binaries).  See also {JFCL}.
X   2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
X   going on upstairs, or both.  As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any
X   operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
X   circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting
X   money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into
X   the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to
X   go away.  "Oh well, that was a no-op."
X
Xnoddy: [Great Britain; from the children's books] adj. 1. Small
X   and unuseful, but demonstrating a point.  Noddy programs are often
X   written when learning a new language or system.  The archetypal
X   noddy program is {hello, world}.  Noddy code may be used to
X   demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler.  May be used of real
X   hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using.  "This
X   editor's a bit noddy."  2. A program that is more or less
X   instant to produce.  In this use, the term does not necessarily
X   connote uselessness, but describes a {hack} sufficiently trivial
X   that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during
X   the space of) a normal conversation.  "I'll just throw
X   together a noddy {awk} script to convert {crlf}s into
X   {newline}s."  See {toy program}.
X
XNOMEX underwear: [USENET] n. Syn. {asbestos longjohns}, used
X   mostly in auto-related mailing lists and newsgroups.  NOMEX
X   underwear is an actual product available on the racing equipment
X   market, used as a fire resistance measure and required in some
X   racing series.
X
Xnon-optimal solution: n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An
X   astoundingly stupid way to do something.  This term is generally
X   used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person
X   speaking looks completely serious.  Compare {stunning}.  See also
X   {Bad Thing}.
X
Xnonlinear: adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic and
X   unpredictable fashion.  When used to describe the behavior of a
X   machine or program, it suggests that said machine or program is
X   being forced to run far outside of design specifications.  This
X   behavior may be induced by unreasonable inputs, or may be triggered
X   when a more mundane bug sends the computation far off from its
X   expected course.  2. When describing the behavior of a person,
X   suggests a tantrum or a {flame}.  "When you talk to Bob, don't
X   mention the drug problem or he'll go nonlinear for hours."  In
X   this context, `go nonlinear' connotes `blow up out of proportion'
X   (proportion connotes linearity).
X
Xnontrivial: adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing
X   power.  Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem
X   is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable
X   ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial.").  The preferred emphatic form is
X   `decidedly nontrivial'.  See {trivial}, {uninteresting},
X   {interesting}.
X
Xnotwork: n. A network, when it's acting {flaky} or is {down}.
X   Compare {nyetwork}.  Orig. referred to a particular period of
X   flakiness on IBM's VNET corporate network, ca.1988.
X
XNP-: /en pee/ pref. Extremely.  Used to modify adjectives
X   describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is
X   often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem to
X   be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a-priori reason
X   that they should be.)  "Getting this algorithm to perform
X   correctly in every case is NP-annoying."  This is generalized from
X   the computer science terms `NP-hard' and `NP-complete'.  NP
X   is the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those that
X   can be completed by a nondeterministic finite state machine in an
X   amount of time that is a polynomial function of the size of the
X   input.
X
XNSA line eater: n. The NSA (National Security Agency) trawling
X   program sometimes assumed to be reading {USENET} for the U.S.
X   Government's spooks.  Most hackers describe it as a mythical beast,
X   but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and many
X   believe in acting as though it exists just in case.  Some netters
X   put loaded phrases like `Uzi', `nuclear materials', `Palestine',
X   `cocaine', and `assassination' in their {sig block}s in an
X   attempt to confuse and overload the creature.  The {GNU} version
X   of {EMACS} actually has a command that randomly inserts a bunch
X   of insidious anarcho-verbiage into your edited text.
X
X   There's a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line
X   Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words
X   from telephone trunks.  This one was making the rounds in the late
X   1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current technology
X   or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition needs of
X   such a project.  On the basis of mass-storage costs alone it would
X   have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just let them
X   listen in.  Speech recognition technology can't do this job even
X   now (1991), and almost certainly won't in this millennium, either.
X   The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative paper in
X   New Haven, laying out the factoids of this Big Brotherly affair.
X   The letter writer then revealed his actual agenda by offering ---
X   at an amazing low price, just this once, we take VISA and
X   MasterCard --- a scrambler, guaranteed to daunt the Trunk Trawler,
X   and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof gangs of the
X   world to get on with their business.
X
Xnuke: vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a
X   given directory or storage volume.  "On UNIX, `rm -r /usr'
X   will nuke everything in the usr filesystem."  Never used for
X   accidental deletion.  Oppose {blow away}.  2. Syn. for
X   {dike}, applied to smaller things such as files, features, or
X   code sections.  Often used to express a final verdict.  "What do
X   you want me to do with that 80-meg {wallpaper} file?"  "Nuke
X   it."  3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a frequent
X   verbal alias for `kill -9' on UNIX.  4. On IBM PCs, a bug
X   that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating
X   system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block
X   chaining information).  This can utterly scramble attached disks,
X   which are then said to have been `nuked'.  This term is also
X   used of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other micros without
X   memory protection.
X
Xnull device: [techspeak] n. A {logical} input/output device
X   connected to the {bit bucket}; when you write to it nothing
X   happens, when you read from it you see an end-of-file condition.
X   Useful for discarding unwanted output or using interactive programs
X   in a {batch} mode.  See {/dev/null}.
X
Xnumber-crunching: n. Computations of a numerical nature, esp.
X   those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers.  The only
X   thing {Fortrash} is good for.  This term is in widespread
X   informal use outside hackerom and even in mainstream slang, but is
X   cited here to record some additional hackish connotations: namely,
X   that the computations are mindless and involve massive use of
X   {brute force}.  This is not always {evil}, esp. if it involves
X   ray tracing or fractals or some other use that makes {pretty
X   pictures}, esp. if such pictures can be used as {wallpaper}.  See
X   also {crunch}.
X
Xnumbers: [scientific computation] n. Output of a computation that
X   may not be significant results, but at least indicate that the
X   program is running.  May be used to placate management, grant
X   sponsors, etc.  `Making numbers' means running a program
X   because output --- any output, not necessarily meaningful output
X   --- is needed as a demonstration of progress.  See {pretty
X   pictures}, {math-out}, {social science number}.
X
XNUXI problem: /nuk'see pro'blm/ n. This refers to the problem of
X   transferring data between machines with differing byte-order.  The
X   string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a
X   different `byte sex' (e.g. when transferring data from a
X   {little-endian} to a {big-endian}, or vice-versa).  See also
X   {middle-endian}, {swab}, and {bytesexual}.
X
Xnybble: /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') [from v. `nibble' by
X   analogy with `bite' => `byte'] n. Four bits; one
X   {hex} digit; a half-byte.  Though `byte' is now accepted
X   technical jargon found in dictionaries, this useful relative is
X   still jargon.  Compare {{byte}}, {crumb}, {tayste},
X   {dynner}, see also {bit}, {nickle}, {deckle}.  Apparently
X   this spelling is uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British
X   orthography suggests the pronunciation /nie'bl/.
X
Xnyetwork: [from Russian `nyet' = no] n. A network, when it's
X   acting {flaky} or is {down}.  Compare {notwork}.
X
X= O =
X=====
X
XOb-: /ob/ pref. Obligatory.  A piece of {netiquette} that
X   acknowledges the author has been straying from the newsgroup's
X   charter topic.  For example, if a posting in alt.sex has nothing
X   particularly to do with sex, the author may append `ObSex' (or
X   `Obsex') and toss off a question or vignette about some unusual
X   erotic act.  It is a sign of great winnitude when your Obs are more
X   interesting than most other peoples' whole postings.
X
XObfuscated C Contest: n. Annual contest run since 1984 over USENET
X   by Landon Curt Noll and friends.  The overall winner is whoever
X   produces the most unreadable, creative, and bizarre (but working) C
X   program; various other prizes are awarded at the judges' whim.
X   Given C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor facilities, this
X   gives contestants a lot of maneuvering room.  The winning programs
X   often manage to be simultaneously (a) funny, (b) breathtaking works
X   of art, and (c) horrible examples of how *not* to code in C.
X
X   This relatively short and sweet entry might help convey the flavor
X   of obfuscated C:
X
X     /*
X      * HELLO WORLD program
X      * by Jack Applin and Robert Heckendorn, 1985
X      */
X     main(v,c)char**c;{for(v[c++]="Hello, world!\n)";
X     (!!c)[*c]&&(v--||--c&&execlp(*c,*c,c[!!c]+!!c,!c));
X     **c=!c)write(!!*c,*c,!!**c);}
X
X   Here's another good one:
X
X     /*
X      * Program to compute an approximation of pi
X      *  by Brian Westley, 1988
X      */
X
X     #define _ -F<00||--F-OO--;
X     int F=00,OO=00;
X     main(){F_OO();printf("%1.3f\n",4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
X     {
X                 _-_-_-_
X            _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X             _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
X                 _-_-_-_
X     }
X
X   See also {hello, world}.
X
XObjectionable-C: n. Hackish take on "Objective-C", the name of an
X   object-oriented dialect of C in competition with the more
X   well-known C++ (it is used to write native applications on the NeXT
X   machine).  Objectionable-C uses a Smalltalk-like syntax, but lacks
X   the flexibility of Smalltalk method calls, and (like many such
X   efforts) comes frustratingly close to attaining the {Right Thing}
X   without actually doing so.
X
Xobscure: adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning, to
X   imply total incomprehensibility.  "The reason for that last crash
X   is obscure."  "The `find(1)' command's syntax is obscure!"
X   The phrase `moderately obscure' implies that it could be
X   figured out but probably isn't worth the trouble.  The construction
X   `obscure in the extreme' is the preferred emphatic form.
X
Xoctal forty: /ok'tl for'tee/ n. Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing
X   a blank."  Octal 40 is the {{ASCII}} space character, #b0100000; by
X   an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (#b01000000) is the {{EBCDIC}} space
X   character.  See {wall}.
X
Xoff the trolley: adj. Describes the behavior of a program that
X   malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually {crash} or
X   abort.  See {glitch}, {bug}, {deep space}.
X
Xoff-by-one error: n. Exceedingly common error induced in many ways,
X   such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at 1 or vice
X   versa, or by writing < N instead of <= N or vice-versa.  Also
X   applied to giving something to the person next to the one who
X   should have gotten it.  Often confounded with {fencepost error},
X   which is properly a particular subtype of it.
X
Xoffline: adv. Not now or not here.  Example: "Let's take this
X   discussion offline."  Specifically used on {USENET} to suggest
X   that a discussion be taken off a public newsgroup to email.
X
Xold fart: n. Tribal elder.  A title self-assumed with remarkable
X   frequency by (esp.) USENETters who have been programming for more
X   than about 25 years; frequently appears in {sig block}s attached
X   to Jargon File contributions of great archeological significance.
X   This is a term of insult in second or third person but pride in
X   first person.
X
XOld Testament: n. [C programmers] The first edition of {K&R}, the
X   sacred text describing {Classic C}.
X
Xone bell system (it works): This was the output from the old UNIX
X   V6 `1' command.  The `1' command then did a random number roll that
X   gave it a one-in-ten chance of recursively executing itself.
X
Xone-line fix: n. Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a
X   program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to
X   the moment it crashes the system.  Usually `cured' by another
X   one-line fix.  See also {I didn't change anything!}.
X
Xone-liner wars: n. Popular game among hackers who code in the
X   language APL (see {write-only language}).  The objective is to
X   see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one
X   line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly {hairy} primitive
X   set.  A similar amusement was practiced among {TECO} hackers.
X
X   Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with the
X   following one-liner: given a number N, it produces a list of the
X   prime numbers from 1 to N.  It looks like this:
X
X       (2 = 0 +.= T o.| T) / T <- iN
X
X   where `o' is the APL null character, the assignment arrow is a
X   single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.
X
Xooblick: /oo'blik/ [from Dr. Seuss's `Bartholomew and the
X   Oobleck'] n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and
X   water.  Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at
X   parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; it
X   pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will
X   even crack when hit by a hammer.  Often found near lasers.
X
X   Here's a field-tested ooblick recipe contributed by GLS:
X
X     1 cup cornstarch
X     1 cup baking soda
X     3/4 cup water
X     N drops of food coloring
X
X   This recipe isn't quite as non-Newtonian as a pure cornstarch
X   ooblick, but has an appropriately slimy feel.
X
Xopen: n. Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' --- used when
X   necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  To read aloud the LISP form
X   (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open defun foo, open
X   eks close, open, plus eks one, close close."
X
Xopen switch: [IBM, prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved
X   question, issue, or problem.
X
Xoperating system:: [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The
X   foundation software of a machine, of course; that which schedules
X   tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the
X   user between applications.  The facilities an operating system
X   provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely
X   strong influence on programming style and the technical cultures
X   that grows up around its host machines.  Hacker folklore has been
X   shaped primarily by the UNIX, ITS, TOPS-10, TOPS-20/TWENEX, WAITS,
X   CP/M, MS-DOS, and Multics operating systems (most importantly by
X   ITS and UNIX). Each of these has its own entry, which see.
X
XOrange Book: n. The U.S. Government's standards document (Trusted
X   Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard 5200.28-STD,
X   December, 1985) characterizing secure computing architectures,
X   defining levels A1 (most secure) through D (least).  Stock UNIXes
X   are roughly C2.  See also {{book titles}}.
X
XOriental Food:: n. Hackers display an intense tropism towards
X   Oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier
X   varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan.  This phenomenon (which has
X   also been observed in subcultures which overlap heavily with
X   hackerdom, most notably science-fiction fandom) has never been
X   satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can
X   assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best
X   local Chinese place and be right at least 3 times out of 4. See
X   also {ravs}, {great-wall}, {stir-fried random}, {laser
X   chicken}, {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.  Thai, Indian, Korean, and
X   Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.
X
Xorphan: [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by
X   `init(1)'.  Compare {zombie}.
X
Xorthogonal: [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent; well
X   separated; sometimes, irrelevant to.  Used in a generalization of
X   its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or
X   capabilities which, like a vector basis in geometry, span the
X   entire `capability space' of the system and are in some sense
X   non-overlapping or mutually independent.  For example, in
X   architectures such as the PDP-11 or VAX where all or nearly all
X   registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respect to
X   any instruction, the register set is said to be orthogonal.  Or, in
X   logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal,
X   but the set `nand', `or', and `not' is not (because any
X   one of these can be expressed in terms of the others).  Also used
X   in comments on human discourse: "This may be orthogonal to the
X   discussion, but...".
X
XOS: /oh ess/ 1. [Operating System] n. Acronym heavily used in email,
X   occasionally in speech. 2. n. obs. On ITS, an output spy.  See
X   Appendix A.
X
XOS/2: /oh ess too/ n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for
X   Intel-286 and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't
X   get it right the second time, either.  Cited here because
X   mentioning it is usually good for a cheap laugh among hackers ---
X   the design was so {baroque}, and the implementation of 1.x so
X   bad, that three years after introduction you could still count the
X   major {app}s shipping for it on the fingers of two hands --- in
X   unary.  Often called `Half-an-OS'.  On 28 January 1991, Microsoft
X   announced that it was dropping its OS/2 development to concentrate
X   on Windows, leaving the OS entirely in the hands of IBM; on 29
X   January they claimed the media had got the story wrong, but were
X   vague about how.  It looks as though OS/2 is dead.  See
X   {vaporware}, {monstrosity}, {cretinous}, {second-system
X   effect}.
X
Xout-of-band: [from telecommunications and network theory] adj. In
X   software, describes values of a function which are not in its
X   `natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that some
X   kind of exception has occurred.  Many C functions, for example,
X   return either a nonnegative integral value or an out-of-band `-1' to
X   indicate failure.  Compare {hidden flag}.
X
Xoverflow bit: n. 1. [techspeak] On some processors, an attempt to
X   calculate a result too large for a register to hold causes a
X   particular {flag} called an {overflow bit} to be set.
X   2. Hackers use the term of human thought too.  "Well, the {{Ada}}
X   description was {baroque} all right, but I could hack it OK until
X   they got to the exception handling...that set my overflow bit."
X   3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to
X   make a trip to the Room Of Porcelain Fixtures: "I'd better process
X   an internal interrupt before the overflow bit gets set".
X
Xoverrun: n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data
X   arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line
X   communications.  For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly
X   one character per millisecond, so if your {silo} can hold only
X   two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 ms to get to
X   service the interrupt at least one character will be lost.  2. Also
X   applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay my
X   electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I got four phone
X   calls in three minutes last night and lost your message to
X   overrun."  When {thrash}ing at tasks, the next person to make a
X   request might be told "Overrun!"  3. More loosely, may refer to a
X   {buffer overflow} not necessarily related to processing time (as
X   in {overrun screw}).
X
Xoverrun screw: [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on core}
X   produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks
X   for this).  This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array
X   is static; if it is auto, the result may be to {smash the stack}
X   --- often resulting in {heisenbug}s of the most diabolical
X   subtlety.  The term `overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles
X   beyond the end of arrays allocated with `malloc(3)'; this
X   typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the
X   {arena}, producing massive lossage within malloc and often
X   a core dump on the next operation to use `stdio(3)' or
X   `malloc(3)' itself.  See {spam}, {overrun}; see also
X   {memory leak}, {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage},
X   {fandango on core}, {secondary damage}.
X
X= P =
X=====
X
XP.O.D.: /pee-oh-dee/ Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a
X   code section). Usage: pedantic and rare.  See also {pod}.
X
Xpadded cell: n. Where you put {luser}s so they can't hurt anything.
X   A program that limits a luser to a carefully restricted subset
X   of the capabilities of the host system (for example, the
X   `rsh(1)' utility on UNIX).  Note that this is different from
X   an {iron box} because it's overt and not aimed at enforcing
X   security so much as protecting others (and the luser him/herself!)
X   from the consequences of the luser's boundless naivete (see
X   {naive}).  Also `padded cell environment'.
X
Xpage in: [MIT] vi. 1. To become aware of one's surroundings again after
X   having paged out (see {page out}).  Usually confined to the sarcastic
X   comment, "So-and-so pages in.  Film at 11."  See {film at 11}.
X   2. Syn. `swap in'; see {swap}.
X
Xpage out: [MIT] vi. 1. To become unaware of one's surroundings
X   temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation.  "Can you repeat
X   that?  I paged out for a minute."  See {page in}.  Compare
X   {glitch}, {thinko}.  2. Syn. `swap out'; see {swap}.
X
Xpain in the net: n. A {flamer}.
X
Xpaper-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service,
X   analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network.  USENET
X   {sig block}s not uncommonly include a "Paper-Net:" header just
X   before the sender's postal address; common variants of this are
X   "Papernet" and "P-Net".  Compare {voice-net}, {snail-mail}.
X
Xparam: /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'.  See also
X   {parm}; Compare {arg}, {var}.
X
Xparent message: n. See {followup}.
X
Xparity errors: pl.n. Those little lapses of attention or (in more
X   severe cases) consciousness, usually brought on by having spent all
X   night and most of the next day hacking.  "I need to go home and
X   crash; I'm starting to get a lot of parity errors."  Derives from a
X   relatively common but nearly always correctable transient error in
X   RAM hardware.
X
Xparse: [from linguistic terminology] vt. 1. To determine the
X   syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the
X   standard English meaning).  Example: "That was the one I saw
X   you."  "I can't parse that."  2. More generally, to understand
X   or comprehend.  "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and
X   then aos the zotz."  "I can't parse that."  3. Of fish, to
X   have to remove the bones yourself (usually at a Chinese
X   restaurant).  "I object to parsing fish", means "I don't want to
X   get a whole fish, but a sliced one is okay."  A `parsed fish'
X   has been deboned.  There is some controversy over whether
X   `unparsed' should mean `bony', or also mean `deboned'.
X
XParkinson's Law of Data: prov. "Data expands to fill the space
X   available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of
X   more memory-intensive techniques.  It has been observed over the
X   last ten years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to
X   double roughly once every 18 months.  Fortunately, memory density
X   available for constant dollars tends to double about once every
X   twelve months (see {Moore's Law}); unfortunately, the laws of
X   physics guarantee that this cannot be expected to continue
X   indefinitely.
X
Xparm: /parm/ n. Further-compressed form of {param}.  This term
X   is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown outside IBM shops;
X   spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but the synonym {arg}
X   is favored among hackers.  Compare {arg}, {var}.
X
XPascal:: n. An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on
X   the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary
X   programming.  This language, designed primarily to keep students
X   from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive
X   from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later
X   promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor
X   of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and {{Ada}} (see also
X   {bondage-and-discipline language}).  The hackish point of view on
X   Pascal was perhaps best summed up by a devastating (and, in its
X   deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of
X   {K&R} fame) entitled `Why Pascal is Not My Favorite
X   Programming Language'.  Part of his discussion is worth repeating
X   here, because its criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself
X   after ten years of improvement and could also stand as an
X   indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages.  At
X   the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, he wrote:
X
X     9. There is no escape
X
X     This last point is perhaps the most important.  The language is
X     inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its
X     limitations.  There are no casts to disable the type-checking when
X     necessary.  There is no way to replace the defective run-time
X     environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that
X     defines the "standard procedures".  The language is closed.
X
X     People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap.
X     Because the language is impotent, it must be extended.  But each group
X     extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever
X     language they really want.  Extensions for separate compilation,
X     Fortran-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables,
X     initialization, octal numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the
X     utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to
X     others.
X
X     I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its
X     original target.  In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable
X     for teaching but not for real programming.
X
X   Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the
X   niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems
X   programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in
X   the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds.
X
Xpatch: 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as
X   a {quick and dirty} remedy to an existing bug or misfeature.  A
X   patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be
X   incorporated permanently into the program.  Compare {one-line
X   fix}.  2. vt. To insert a patch into a piece of code.  3. [in
X   the UNIX world] n. A {diff} (sense #2).  4. A set of
X   modifications to binaries to be applied by a patching program.  IBM
X   operating systems often receive updates to the operating system in
X   the form of absolute hexadecimal patches.  If you have modified
X   your OS, you have to disassemble these back to the source.  The
X   patches might later be corrected by other patches on top of them
X   (it was said that the patches "grow scar tissue").  The result
X   was often a convoluted {patch space} and headaches galore.
X
X   There is a classic story of a {tiger team} penetrating a secure
X   military computer which illustrates the danger inherent in binary
X   patches (or, indeed, any that you can't inspect and examine
X   beforehand).  They couldn't find any trapdoors or way to penetrate
X   security of IBM's OS, so they made a site visit to an IBM office
X   (remember, these were official military types who were purportedly
X   on official business), swiped some IBM stationery, and created a
X   fake patch.  The patch was actually the trapdoor they needed.  The
X   patch was distributed at about the right time for an IBM patch, had
X   official stationery and all accompanying documentation, and was
X   dutifully installed.  The installation manager very shortly
X   thereafter learned something about proper procedures....
X
Xpatch space: n. An unused block of bits left in a binary so that it
X   can later be modified by insertion of machine-language instructions
X   there (typically, the superseded code is replaced by a jump or call
X   to the patched area).  In 1991, widening use of HLLs has made this
X   term rare and now primarily historical outside IBM shops.  See
X   {patch} (sense #4), {zap} (sense #4).
X
Xpath: n. 1. A {bang path} or explicitly routed {{Internet
X   address}}; a node-by-node specification of a link between two
X   machines.  2. [UNIX] A filename, fully specified relative to the
X   root directory (as opposed to relative to the current directory;
X   the latter is sometimes called a `relative path'). This is also
X   called a `pathname'.  3. [UNIX & MS-DOS] The `search
X   path', an environment variable specifying the directories in which
X   the {shell} (COMMAND.COM, under MS-DOS) should look for commands.
X   Other, similar constructs abound under UNIX (for example, the C
X   preprocessor has a `search path' it uses in looking for
X   `#include' files.
X
Xpathological: adj. 1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set
X   that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, esp. one which
X   exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using.  An
X   algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may still be
X   useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in practice.
X   2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
X   engineered as a worst case.  The implication in both senses is that
X   the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone had to
X   explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order to come up with
X   such a crazy example.  2. Also said of an unlikely collection of
X   circumstances.  "If the network is down and comes up halfway
X   through the execution of that command by root, the system might
X   just crash."  "Yes, but that's a pathological case."  Often used
X   to dismiss the case from discussion, with the implication that the
X   consequences are acceptable given they will happen so infrequently
X   (or not at all) that their is no justification for going to extra
X   work to handle that case (see sense #1).
X
Xpayware: n. Commercial software.  Oppose {shareware} or
X   {freeware}.
X
XPBD: [abbrev. of `Programmer Brain Damage'] n. Applied to bug reports
X   revealing places where the program was obviously broken due to an
X   incompetent or short-sighted programmer.  Compare {UBD}; see also
X   {brain-damaged}.
X
XPC-ism: n. A piece of code or coding technique that takes advantage
X   of the unprotected single-tasking environment in IBM PCs and the
X   like, e.g., by busy-waiting on a hardware register, direct diddling
X   of screen memory, or using hard timing loops.  Compare
X   {ill-behaved}, {vaxism}, {unixism}.  Also, `pc-ware' n., a program
X   full of PC-isms on a machine with a more capable operating system.
X   Pejorative.
X
XPD: /pee-dee/ adj. Common abbreviation for "public domain", applied
X   to software distributed over {USENET} and from Internet archive
X   sites.  Much of this software is not in fact "public domain" in
X   the legal sense but travels under various copyrights granting
X   reproduction and use rights to anyone who can {snarf} a copy.  See
X   {copyleft}.
X
Xpdl: /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ [acronym for Push Down List] 1. In ITS
X   days, the preferred MITism for {stack}.  2. Dave Lebling, one
X   of the co-authors of {Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS
X   machines was at one time pdl@dms).  3. Program Design Language.
X   Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless
X   pseudo-languages in which {management} forces one to design
X   programs.  {Management} often expects it to be maintained in
X   parallel with the code.  See also {{flowchart}}.
X
XPDP-10: [Programmed Data Processor model 10] n. The machine that
X   made timesharing real.  Looms large in hacker folklore due to early
X   adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing facilities and
X   research labs including the MIT AI lab, Stanford, and CMU.  Some
X   aspects of the instruction set (most notably the bit-field
X   instructions) are still considered unsurpassed.  Later editions
X   were labelled `DECsystem-10' as a way of differentiating them from
X   the PDP-11.  The '10 was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines
X   (descendants of the PDP-11) and dropped from DEC's line in the
X   early 1980s, and in mid-1991 to have cut one's teeth on one is
X   considered something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood among
X   hackers.  See {TOPS-10}, {ITS}, {AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT},
X   {DPB}, {EXCH}, {HAKMEM}, {JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop},
X   {push}, Appendix A.
X
Xpeek: n.,vt. (and {poke}) The commands in most microcomputer
X   BASICs for directly accessing memory contents at an absolute
X   address; often extended to mean the corresponding constructs in any
X   {HLL}.  Much hacking on small, non-MMU micros consists of
X   {peek}ing around memory, more or less at random, to find the
X   location where the system keeps interesting stuff.  Long (and
X   variably accurate) lists of such addresses for various computers
X   circulate (see {{interrupt list, the}}).  The results of {poke}s
X   at these addresses may be highly useful, mildly amusing, useless
X   but neat, or (most likely) total {lossage} (see {killer poke}).
X
Xpencil and paper: n. An archaic information-storage and
X   transmission device that works by depositing smears of graphite on
X   bleached wood pulp.  More recent developments in paper-based
X   technology include improved `write-once' update devices which use
X   tiny rolling heads similar to mouse balls to deposit colored
X   pigment.  These devices require an operator skilled at so-called
X   `handwriting' technique.  These technologies are ubiquitous outside
X   hackerdom, but nearly forgotten inside it.  Most hackers had
X   terrible handwriting to begin with, and years of keyboarding tend
X   if anything to have encouraged it to degrade further.  Perhaps for
X   this reason hackers deprecate pencil and paper technology and
X   often resist using it in any but the most trivial contexts.  See
X   also Appendix B.
X
Xpeon: n. A person with no special ({root} or {wheel})
X   privileges on a computer system.  "I can't create an account on
X   foovax for you; I'm only a peon there."
X
Xpercent-s: /per-sent' ess/ [From "%s", the formatting sequence in
X   C's `printf(3)' library function used to insert an arbitrary
X   string argument] n. An unspecified person or object.  "I was just
X   talking to some percent-s in administration."  Compare {random}.
X
Xperf: /perf/ n. See {chad} (sense #1).  The term `perfory'
X   /per'f*-ree/ is also heard.
X
Xperfect programmer syndrome: n. Arrogance; the egotistical
X   conviction that one is above normal human error.  Most frequently
X   found among programmers of some native ability but relatively
X   little experience (especially new graduates; their perceptions may
X   be distorted by a history of excellent performance bashing toy
X   problems).  "Of course my program is correct, there is no need to
X   test it."  Or "Yes, I can see there may be a problem here, but
X   *I'll* never type `rm -r /' while in {root}."
X
XPerl: [Practical Extraction and Report Language, aka Pathologically
X   Eclectic Rubbish Lister] n. An interpreted language developed by
X   Larry Wall ([e-mail], author of `patch(1)' and
X   `rn(1)') and distributed over USENET.  Superficially resembles
X   `awk(1)', but is much hairier (see {awk}).  UNIX sysadmins,
X   who are almost always incorrigible hackers, increasingly consider
SHAR_EOF
true || echo 'restore of jargon.ascii failed'
fi
echo 'End of part 12, continue with part 13'
echo 13 > _shar_seq_.tmp
exit 0



Article #8718 (8725 is last):
From: [e-mail] (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
Subject: The Jargon File v2.8.1, 22 MAR 1991, part 13 of 19
Date: Fri Mar 22 18:42:46 1991

Submitted-by: [e-mail]
Archive-name: jargon/part13

---- Cut Here and feed the following to sh ----
#!/bin/sh
# this is jargon.13 (part 13 of jargon)
# do not concatenate these parts, unpack them in order with /bin/sh
# file jargon.ascii continued
#
if test ! -r _shar_seq_.tmp; then
        echo 'Please unpack part 1 first!'
        exit 1
fi
(read Scheck
 if test "$Scheck" != 13; then
        echo Please unpack part "$Scheck" next!
        exit 1
 else
        exit 0
 fi
) < _shar_seq_.tmp || exit 1
if test -f _shar_wnt_.tmp; then
sed 's/^X//' << 'SHAR_EOF' >> 'jargon.ascii' &&
X   it one of the {languages of choice}.  Perl has been described, in
X   a parody of a famous remark about `lex(1)', as the "Swiss-army
X   chainsaw" of UNIX programming.
X
Xpessimal: /pes'i-ml/ [Latin-based antonym for `optimal'] adj.
X   Maximally bad.  "This is a pessimal situation."  Also `pessimize'
X   vt. To make as bad as possible.  These words are the obvious
X   Latin-based antonyms for `optimal' and `optimize', but for some
X   reason they do not appear in most English dictionaries, although
X   `pessimize' is listed in the OED.
X
Xpessimizing compiler: /pes'i-miez-ing kuhm-pie'lr/ [antonym of
X   `optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that
X   is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation.  The
X   implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimize the
X   program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite.  A
X   few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as
X   pranks or burlesques.
X
Xpeta-: /pe't*/ pref. See {{quantifiers}}.
X
XPETSCII: /pet'skee/ [abbreviation of PET ASCII] n. The variation
X   (many would say perversion) of the {{ASCII}} character set used by
X   the Commodore Business Machines PET series of personal computers
X   and the later Commodore C64, C16, and C128 machines.  The PETSCII
X   set used left-arrow and up-arrow (as in old-style ASCII) instead of
X   underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at positions
X   65--90, and put the shifted alphabet at positions
X   193--218, and also added graphics characters.
X
Xphase: 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule with
X   respect to the standard 24-hour cycle.  This is a useful concept
X   among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed
X   schedule.  It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as
X   six hours/day on a regular basis.  "What's your phase?"  "I've
X   been getting in about 8 PM lately, but I'm going to {wrap around}
X   to the day schedule by Friday."  A person who is roughly 12 hours
X   out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'.  (The
X   term `day mode' is also (but less frequently) used, meaning
X   you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6)).  The act of
X   altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase
X   shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech.
X   2. `change phase the hard way': to stay awake for a very long
X   time in order to get into a different phase.  3. `change phase
X   the easy way': To stay asleep etc.  However, some claim that either
X   staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it's
X   *shortening* your day or night that's hard (see {wrap
X   around}).  The phenomenon of `jet lag' that afflicts travelers who
X   cross many time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct
X   causes: the strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing
X   phase.  Hackers who suddenly find that they must change phase
X   drastically in a short period of time, particularly the hard way,
X   experience something very like jet lag without travelling.
X
Xphase of the moon: n. Used humorously as a random parameter on which
X   something is said to depend.  Sometimes implies unreliability of
X   whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on
X   conditions nobody has been able to determine.  "This feature
X   depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo
X   switch set, and on the phase of the moon."
X
X   True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend
X   on the phase of the moon!  There is a little subroutine that had
X   traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an
X   approximation to the moon's true phase.  GLS incorporated this
X   routine into a LISP program that, when it wrote out a file, would
X   print a `timestamp' line almost 80 characters long.  Very
X   occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and
X   would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read
X   back in the program would {barf}.  The length of the first line
X   depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the
X   phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug
X   literally depended on the phase of the moon!
X
X   The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included
X   an example one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but
X   the typesetter `corrected' it.  This has since been described as
X   the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.
X
Xphreaking: [from "phone phreak"] n. 1. The art and science of
X   cracking the phone network (so as, for example, to make free
X   long-distance calls).  2. By extension, security-cracking in any
X   other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communications
X   networks).
X
X   At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among
X   hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an
X   intellectual game and a form of exploration was O.K., but serious
X   theft of services was taboo.  There was significant crossover
X   between the hacker community and the hard-core phone phreaks who
X   ran semi-underground networks of their own like the legendary `TAP
X   Newsletter'.  This ethos began to break down in the mid-1980s as
X   wider dissemination of the techniques put them in the hands of less
X   responsible phreaks.  Around the same time, changes in the phone
X   network made old-style technical ingenuity less effective as a way
X   of hacking it, so phreaking came to depend more on overtly criminal
X   acts like stealing phone-card numbers.  The crimes and punishments
X   of gangs like the `414 group' turned that game very ugly.  A few
X   old-time hackers still phreak casually just to keep their hand in,
X   but most these days have hardly even heard of `blue boxes' or any
X   of the other paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.
X
Xpico-: [in measurement, a quantifier meaning `* 10 ^ -12']
X   pref.  Smaller than {nano-}; used in the same rather loose and
X   connotative way as {nano-} and {micro-}.  This usage is not yet
X   common in the way {nano-} and {micro-} are, but should be
X   instantly recognizable to any hacker.  See also {{quantifiers}},
X   {micro-}.
X
Xpig, run like a: v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of
X   software.  Distinct from {hog}.
X
Xpilot error: [Sun; from aviation] n. A user's misconfiguration or
X   misuse of a piece of software, producing apparently buglike results
X   (compare {UBD}).  "Joe Luser reported a bug in sendmail that
X   causes it to generate bogus headers."  "That's not a bug, that's
X   pilot error.  His sendmail.cf is hosed."
X
Xping: /ping/ [from TCP/IP terminology, prob. originally contrived
X   to match the submariners' term for a sonar pulse.]  1. n.
X   Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a
X   computer to check for the presence and aliveness of another.
X   Occasionally used as a phone greeting.  See {ACK}, also {ENQ}.
X   2. vt. To verify the presence of.  3. vt. To get the attention of.
X   From the UNIX command by the same name (an acronym of `Packet
X   INternet Groper') that sends an ICMP ECHO packet to another host.
X   4. vt. To send a message to all members of a {mailing list}
X   requesting an {ACK} (in order to verify that everybody's
X   addresses are reachable).  "We haven't heard much of anything from
X   Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged
X   jargon-friends."
X
X   The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by
X   Steve Hayman on the USENET group comp.sys.next.  He was trying to
X   isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a
X   NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console
X   after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting
X   through.  So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then
X   wrote a script that repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo,
X   and played back the recording on each returned packet.  Result?  A
X   program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping
X   ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up.
X   He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with
X   one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time.
X
XPink-Shirt Book: `The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM
X   PC'.  The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a
X   silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt.  Perhaps in
X   recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different
X   picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt.  See also {{book titles}}.
X
XPIP: /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from
X   the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E and OS/8 (derived from a
X   utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8
X   and RT-11 for just about every other file operation you might want
X   to do).  It is said that when the program was originated during the
X   development of the PDP-6 in 1963 it was called ATLATL (`Anything,
X   Lord, to Anything, Lord').
X
Xpipeline: [UNIX, orig. by Doug McIlroy; now also used under MS-DOS
X   and elsewhere] n. A chain of {filter} programs connected
X   `head-to-tail' so that the output of one becomes the input of the
X   next.  Under UNIX, user utilities can often be implemented or at
X   least prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines and
X   temp-file grinding encapsulated in a shell script (this is called
X   {plumbing}); this is much less effort than writing C every time,
X   and the capability is considered one of UNIX's major winning
X   features.
X
Xpistol: [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to
X   shoot yourself in the foot.  "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice
X   pistol!"
X
Xpizza box: [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics
X   in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its
X   size and shape, and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes.
X
X   2 meg single-platter removable disk packs used to be called pizzas,
X   and the huge drive they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza
X   oven.  It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk
X   was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.
X
Xpizza, ANSI standard: /an'see stan'd*rd peet'z*/ [CMU] Pepperoni
X   and mushroom pizza.  Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered
X   by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of
X   that flavor.  See also {rotary debugger}; compare {tea, ISO
X   standard cup of}.
X
Xplain-ASCII: Syn. {flat-ASCII}.
X
Xplan file: [UNIX] n. On systems that support {finger}, the
X   `.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when he or she
X   is fingered.  This feature was originally intended to be used to
X   keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near-future
X   plans, but has been turned almost universally to humorous and
X   self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}).  See {Hacking X
X   for Y}.
X
Xplatinum-iridium: adj. Standard, against which all others of the
X   same category are measured.  Usage: silly.  The notion is that one
X   of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy
X   and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the
X   International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris.  (From
X   1889 to 1960, the meter was defined to be the distance between two
X   scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in the same place.  From
X   1960 to 1984 it was defined to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the
X   orange-red line of krypton-86 propagating in a vacuum, but it is
X   now defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum
X   in the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.  The kilogram is
X   now the only unit of measure officially defined in terms of a
X   unique artifact.)  "This garbage-collection algorithm has been
X   tested against the platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris."  Compare
X   {golden}.
X
Xplaypen: [IBM] n. A room where programmers work.  Compare {salt
X   mines}.
X
Xplayte: /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and {{byte}}.  Usage:
X   rare and extremely silly.  See also {dynner} and {crumb}.
X
Xplingnet: /pling'net/ n. Syn. {UUCPNET}.  Also see
X   {{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for `bang' (as in
X   {bang path}).
X
Xplokta: /plok'tuh/ [Acronym for "Press Lots Of Keys To Abort"] v.
X   To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the
X   system.  One might plokta when the abort procedure for a program is
X   not known, or after the system hangs to figure out if the system is
X   just sluggish or really hung.  Plokta can also be used while trying
X   to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation.
X   When someone goes into `plokta mode' they usualy place both hands
X   flat on the keyboard and press down hoping for some useful
X   response.
X
Xplonk: [USENET; possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for
X   cheap booze] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the bottom
X   of a {kill file}.  Almost exclusively used in the {newsgroup}
X   `talk.bizarre', this term (usually written "*plonk*") is a
X   form of public ridicule.
X
Xplugh: /ploogh/ [from the {ADVENT} game] v. See {xyzzy}.
X
Xplumbing: [UNIX] n. Term used for {shell} code, so called
X   because of the prevalence of {pipeline}s that feed the output
X   of one program to the input of another.  Esp. used in the
X   construction `hairy plumbing' (see {hairy}).  "You can kluge
X   together a basic spell-checker out of `sort(1)',
X   `comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with a little plumbing."
X
XPM: /pee em/ 1. v. (from `preventive maintenance') To bring
X   down a machine for inspection or test purposes; see {scratch
X   monkey}.  2. n. Abbrev. for `Presentation Manager', an
X   {elephantine} OS/2 graphical user interface.  See also
X   {provocative maintenance}.
X
Xpod: [allegedly from acronym POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A
X   Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer).  From
X   the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to same.
X   See also {P.O.D.}
X
Xpoke: n.,vt. See {peek}.
X
Xpoll: v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of
X   an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular
X   external event has been registered.  2. To repeatedly call or
X   check with someone, e.g., "I keep polling him, but he's not
X   answering his phone; he must be swapped out."  3. To ask.
X   "Lunch?  I poll for a takeout order daily."
X
Xpolygon pusher: n. A chip designer who spends most of his/her time at
X   the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of
X   multi-colored polygons).  Also `rectangle slinger'.
X
XPOM: /pee-oh-em/ n. Common acronym for {phase of the moon}.
X   Usage: usually used in the phrase `POM-dependent' which means
X   {flaky}.
X
Xpop: /pop/ [from the operation that removes the top of a stack,
X   and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the
X   stack] (also capitalized `POP') 1. vt. To remove something from a
X   {stack} or {pdl}.  If a person says he has popped something
X   from his stack, he means he has finally finished working on it and
X   can now remove it from the list of things hanging over his head.
X   2. When a discussion gets to too deep a level of detail such that
X   the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone will shout
X   "Pop!" meaning "Get back up to a higher level!".  The shout is
X   frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a finger pointing to
X   the ceiling.
X
XPOPJ: /pop'jay/ [from a {PDP-10} return-from-subroutine
X   instruction] n.v. To return from a digression.  By verb doubling,
X   "Popj, popj" means roughly, "Now let's see, where were we?"
X   See {RTI}.
X
Xposing: n. On a {MUD}, the use of `:' or an equivalent
X   command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain
X   physical action, which however has no effect on the game.  For
X   example, if one's character name is Firechild, one might type `:
X   begins hacking on the nearest terminal' to broadcast a message that
X   says `Firechild begins hacking on the nearest terminal'.
X
Xpost: v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}.
X   Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for
X   example, "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known
X   users?"
X
Xposting: n. Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that the
X   {post} can be nouned).  Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary
X   {email} message by the fact that it's broadcast rather than
X   point-to-point.  It is unclear whether messages sent to a small
X   mailing list are postings or email; perhaps the best dividing line
X   is that if you don't know the names of all the potential
X   recipients, it's a posting.
X
Xpostmaster: n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site
X   connected to the Internet or UUCPNET.  Often, but not always, the
X   same as the {admin}.  It is conventional for each machine to have
X   a `postmaster' address that is aliased to this person.
X
Xpound on: vt.  Syn. {bang on}.
X
Xpower cycle: vt. (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle') To
X   power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the
X   intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.
X   Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}.  Compare {vulcan
X   nerve pinch}, {bounce}, {boot}, and see the AI Koan in Appendix
X   A about Tom Knight and the novice.
X
XPPN: /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A user-ID under
X   {TOPS-10} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL, BBN,
X   CompuServe, and elsewhere.  Old-time hackers from the PDP-10 era
X   sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on other systems as well.
X
Xprecedence lossage: /pre's*-dens los'j/ [C programmers] n. Coding
X   error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or
X   logical operators by the compiler.  Used esp. of certain common
X   coding errors in C due to the nonintuitively low precedence levels
X   of `&', `|', `^', `<<', and `>>' (for this
X   reason, experienced C programmers deliberately forget the
X   language's {baroque} precedence hierarchy and parenthesize
X   defensively).  Can always be avoided by suitable use of
X   parentheses.  {LISP} fans enjoy pointing out that this can't
X   happen in *their* favorite language, which eschews precedence
X   entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
X   See {aliasing bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack},
X   {fandango on core}, {overrun screw}.
X
Xprepend: /pree`pend'/ [by analogy with `append'] vt. To prefix.
X   Like `append', but (unlike `prefix' or `suffix' as a
X   verb) the direct object is always the thing being added and not the
X   original word (character string, etc).  No, this is *not*
X   standard English, yet!
X
Xpretty pictures: n. [scientific computation] The next step up from
X   {numbers}.  Interesting graphical output from a program which may
X   not have any sensible relationship to the system the program is
X   intended to model.  Good for showing to {management}.
X
Xprettyprint: /prit'ee-print/ (alt. `pretty-print') v. 1. To
X   generate `pretty' human-readable output from a {hairy} internal
X   representation; esp. used for the process of {grind}ing (sense
X   #2) LISP code.  2. To format in some particularly slick and
X   nontrivial way.
X
Xprime time: [from TV programming] n. Normal high-usage hours on a
X   timesharing system; the day shift.  Avoidance of prime time is a
X   major reason for {night mode} hacking.
X
Xpriority interrupt: [from the hardware term] n. Describes any
X   stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack mode}.
X   Classically used to describe being dragged away by an {SO} for
X   immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions
X   such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity.  Also called
X   an {NMI} (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land.
X
Xprofile: [UNIX] n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text
X   file automatically read from each user's home directory and
X   intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customize
X   the program's behavior.  Used to avoid {hardcoded} choices.
X   2. [techspeak] A report on the amounts of time spent in each
X   routine of a program, used to find and {tune} away the {hot
X   spot}s in it.  This sense is often verbed.  Some profiling modes
X   report units other than time (such as call counts) and/or at
X   granularities other than per-routine, but the idea is similar.
X
Xproglet: [Britain] n. A short extempore program written to
X   meet an immediate, transient need.  Often written in BASIC,
X   rarely more than a dozen lines long, and contains no subroutines.
X   The largest amount of code that can be written off the top of one's
X   head that does not need any editing and that runs correctly the
X   first time.  Compare {toy program}, {one-liner wars}.
X
Xprogram: n. 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to
X   turn one's input into error messages.  2. An exercise in
X   experimental epistemology.  3. A form of art, ostensibly intended
X   for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost
X   inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.
X
XProgrammer's Cheer: "Shift to the left!  Shift to the right!  Pop
X   up, push down!  Byte!  Byte!  Byte!"  A joke so old it has hair on
X   it....
X
Xprogramming: n. 1. In folklore, this was classically defined as
X   "the art of debugging a blank sheet of paper".  Following the
X   rise of on-line editing this should probably be recast as "The art
X   of debugging an empty source file."  2. n. A pastime similar to
X   banging one's head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for
X   reward.  3. n. The most fun you can have with your clothes on
X   (although clothes are not mandatory).
X
Xpropeller head: n. Used by hackers, this is syn. with {computer
X   geek}.  Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies.
X   Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (originally invented by
X   old-time fan Ray Faraday Nelson) of propeller beanies as fannish
X   insignia (though nobody actually wears them except as a joke).
X
Xproprietary: adj. 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior; implies a
X   product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of
X   their employer's hardware or software designers.  2. In the
X   language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not
X   conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one which puts the
X   customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service
X   and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer
X   in (that's assuming it wasn't too expensive in the first place).
X
Xprotocol: n. As used by hackers, this never refers to niceties
X   about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal Nuncio or
X   the order in which one should use the forks in a Russian-style
X   place setting; hackers don't care about such things.  It is used
X   instead to describe any set of rules that allow different machines
X   or pieces of software to coordinate with each other without
X   ambiguity.  So for example, it does include niceties about the
X   proper form for addressing packets on a network or the order in
X   which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers Problem.
X   It implies that there's some common message format and accepted set
X   of primitives or commands that all parties involved understand, and
X   that transactions among them follow predictable logical sequences.
X   See also {handshaking}, {do protocol}.
X
Xprovocative maintenance: [common ironic mutation of `preventive
X   maintenance'] n. Actions performed upon a machine at regularly
X   scheduled intervals to insure that the system remains in a usable
X   state.  So called because its all too frequently performed by a
X   {field servoid} who doesn't know what he is doing; this results
X   in the machine remaining in an *un*usable state for an
X   indeterminate amount of time.
X
Xprowler: [UNIX] n. A {daemon} that is run periodically (typically once
X   a week) to seek out and erase core files (see {core}), truncate
X   administrative logfiles, nuke `lost+found' directories, and otherwise
X   clean up the {cruft} that tends to pile up in the corners of a file
X   system.  See also {GFR}, {reaper}, {skulker}.
X
Xpseudo: /soo'doh/ [USENET] n. 1. An electronic-mail or {USENET}
X   persona adopted by a human for amusement value or as a means of
X   avoiding negative repercussions of his/her net.behavior; a `nom de
X   USENET', often associated with forged postings designed to conceal
X   message origins.  Perhaps the best-known and funniest hoax of this
X   type is {BIFF}.  2. Notionally, a {flamage}-generating AI
X   program simulating a USENET user.  Many flamers have been accused
X   of actually being such entities, despite the fact that no AI
X   program of the required sophistication exists.  However, in 1989
X   there was a famous series of forged postings that used a
X   phrase-frequency-based travesty generator to simulate the styles of
X   several well-known flamers based on large samples of their back
X   postings (compare {Dissociated Press}).  A significant number of
X   people were fooled by these, and the debate over their authenticity
X   was only settled when the perpetrator of the hoax came forward to
X   publicly admit the deed.
X
Xpseudoprime: n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied
X   points) with one point missing.  This term is an esoteric pun
X   derived from a mathematical method which, rather than determining
X   precisely whether a number is prime (has no divisors), uses a
X   statistical technique to decide whether the number is `probably'
X   prime.  A number that passes this test is called a pseudoprime.
X   The hacker backgammon usage stems from the idea that a pseudoprime
X   is almost as good as a prime: it does the job of a prime until
X   proven otherwise, and that probably won't happen.
X
Xpseudosuit: n. A {suit} wannabee; a hacker who's decided that he
X   wants to be in management or administration and begins wearing
X   ties, sport coats, and (shudder!) suits voluntarily.  It's his
X   funeral....  See also {lobotomy}.
X
Xpsychedelicware: /sie`k*-del'-ik-weir/ [Great Britain] n. Syn.
X   {display hack}.  See also {smoking clover}.
X
Xpsyton: [TMRC] n. Elementary particle carrying the sinister force.
X   The probability of a process losing is proportional to the number
X   of psytons falling on it.  [This term appears to have been largely
X   superseded by {bogon} -- ESR]
X
Xpubic directory: [NYU] (also `pube directory' /pyoob/) n. The
X   `pub' (public) directory on a machine that allows {FTP}
X   access.  So called because it is the default location for {SEX}
X   (sense #1).  "I'll have the source in the /pyoob/ directory by
X   Friday."
X
Xpuff: vt. To decompress data that has been crunched by Huffman
X   coding.  At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder program
X   was actually *named* `PUFF', but these days it is usually
X   packaged with the encoder.  Oppose {huff}.
X
Xpunched card:: alt. `punch card' [techspeak] n.obs. The
X   signature medium of computing's {Stone Age}, now obsolescent
X   outside of some IBM shops.  The punched card actually predated
X   computers considerably, originating as a control device for
X   mechanical looms.  The version patented by Hollerith and used with
X   mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 U.S. Census was a piece
X   of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm, designed to fit exactly in the
X   currency trays used for that era's larger dollar bills.
X
X   IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married
X   the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as
X   patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column, 80
X   columns per card.  Later, other coding schemes, sizes of card, and
X   hole shape were tried.
X
X   The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the
X   punched card; so is the size of the quick reference cards
X   distributed with many varieties of computers even today.  See
X   {chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card},
X   {dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}.
X
Xpunt: [from the punch line of an old joke referring to American
X   football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt"] vt. 1. To give up,
X   typically without any intention of retrying.  "Let's punt the
X   movie tonight."  "I was going to hack all night to get this
X   feature in, but I decided to punt." may mean that you've decided
X   not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even
X   going to put in the feature.  2. More specifically, to give up on
X   figuring out what the {Right Thing} is and resort to an
X   inefficient hack.  3. A design decision to defer solving a
X   problem, typically because one cannot define what is desirable
X   sufficiently well to frame an algorithmic solution.  "No way to
X   know what the right form to to dump the graph in is --- we'll punt
X   that for now."  4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off
X   to some other section of the design.  "It's too hard to get the
X   compiler to do that; let's punt to the runtime system."
X
XPurple Book: n. The `System V Interface Definition'.  The covers
X   of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of
X   off-lavender.  See also {{book titles}}.
X
Xpush: [from the operation that puts the current information on a
X   stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on
X   the stack] Also PUSH or PUSHJ /push-jay/ (the latter based on the
X   PDP-10 procedure call instruction).  1. To put something onto a
X   {stack} or {pdl}.  If a person says something has been pushed
X   onto his stack, it means the Damoclean list lof things hanging over
X   his head has grown longer and heavier yet.  This may also imply
X   that he will deal with it *before* other pending items;
X   otherwise he might say the thing was "added to his queue".
X   2. vi. To enter upon a digression, to save the current discussion
X   for later.  Antonym of {pop}; see also {stack}, {pdl}.
X
X= Q =
X=====
X
Xquad: n. 1. Two bits; syn. for {quarter}, {crumb},
X   {tayste}.  2. A four-pack of anything (compare {hex}, sense
X   #2).  3. The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for
X   various arcane purposes mostly related to I/O.  Ex-Ivy-Leaguers and
X   Oxbridge types are said to associate it with nostalgic memories of
X   dear old University.
X
Xquadruple bucky: n., obs. 1. On an MIT {space-cadet keyboard},
X   use of all four of the shifting keys control, meta, hyper, and
X   super while typing a character key.  2. On a Stanford or MIT
X   keyboard in {raw mode}, use of four shift keys while typing a
X   fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control and meta
X   keys on *both* sides of the keyboard.  This was very difficult
X   to do!  One accepted technique was to press the left-control and
X   left-meta keys with your left hand, the right-control and
X   right-meta keys with your right hand, and the fifth key with your
X   nose.
X
X   Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice,
X   because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to
X   some character that was easier to type.  If you want to imply that
X   a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say
X   something like "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes while
X   whistling Beethoven's 5th Symphony is quadruple-bucky-cokebottle."
X   See {double bucky}, {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}.
X
Xquantifiers:: n. In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric
X   prefixes used in scientific measurement have dual uses.  With units
X   of time or things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they
X   retain their usual meanings of multiplication by powers of
X   `1000 = 10 ^ 3'.  But when used with bytes or other things
X   that naturally come in powers of 2, they usually denote
X   multiplication by powers of `1024 = 2 ^ 10'.  Here are the
X   magnifying prefixes in jargon use:
X
X     prefix  decimal           binary
X     kilo-   1000^1   1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024
X     mega-   1000^2   1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576
X     giga-   1000^3   1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824
X     tera-   1000^4   1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
X     peta-   1000^5   1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
X     exa-    1000^6   1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
X
X   Here are the fractional prefixes:
X
X     {prefix  decimal     jargon usage}
X     milli-  1000^-1     (not used in jargon)
X     micro-    1000^-2     small or human-scale (see {micro-})
X     nano-   1000^-3     even smaller (see {nano-})
X     pico-   1000^-4     even smaller yet (see {pico-})
X     femto-  1000^-5     (not used in jargon -- yet)
X     femto-  1000^-6     (not used in jargon -- yet)
X
X   The binary peta- and exa- loadings are not yet in common use, and
X   the prefix milli- denoting multiplication by `1000^-1' has
X   always been rare.  See the entries on {micro-}, {pico-}, and
X   {nano-} for more information on connotative jargon use of these
X   terms.  The remaining standard quantifiers are `femto'
X   (`10 ^ -15') and `atto' (`10 ^ -18'); these,
X   interestingly, derive not from Greek but from Danish.  They have
X   not yet acquired jargon loadings, though it is easy to predict what
X   those will be once computing technology enters the required realms
X   of magnitude (however, see {attoparsec}).
X
X   There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of ten.  In
X   the following table, the `decimal prefix' column is the
X   international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the
X   second column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the
X   corresponding power of 2.  The B-suffixed forms are commonly used
X   for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns which may
X   (but do not always) pluralize with `s'.
X
X
X     prefix   decimal   binary suffixes & words    pronunciation
X     kilo-       k              K, KB,                 /kay/
X     mega-       M              M, MB, meg             /meg/
X     giga-       G              G, GB, gig           /gig/,/jig/
X
X   Confusingly, hackers often use K as though it were a suffix or
X   numeric multiplier rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars".
X
X   K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is
X   64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of `a
X   G' as short for `a grand', that is $1000).  Whether one pronounces
X   `gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks the proper
X   pronunciation of `giga-' is.
X
X   Confusion of 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in
X   magnitude), for example, describing memory in units of 500K or 524K
X   instead of 512K, is a sure sign of the {marketroid}.
X
Xquantum bogodynamics: /kwon'tm boh`goh-die-nam'iks/ n. A theory
X   that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as
X   politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and {suit}s in
X   general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and
X   bogosity potential fields.  Bogon absorption, of course, causes
X   human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may
X   also cause them to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise
X   mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood
X   and remain to be elucidated.  Quantum bogodynamics is most
X   frequently invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and
X   software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons
X   which the former absorb.  See {bogon}, {computron}, {suit}.
X
Xquarter: n. Two bits.  This in turn comes from the `pieces of
X   eight' famed in pirate movies --- Spanish gold pieces that could be
X   broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make change.  Early in
X   the U.S.'s history the coin was considered equal to a dollar, so
X   each of these `bits' was considered worth 12.5 cents.  Syn.
X   {tayste}, {crumb}, {quad}.  Usage: rare.  See also
X   {nickle}, {nybble}, {{byte}}, {dynner}.
X
Xques: /kwess/ 1. n. The question mark character (`?', ASCII
X   #b0111111).  2. interj.  What?  Also frequently verb-doubled as
X   "Ques ques?"  See {wall}.
X
Xquick and dirty: adj. Describes a {crock} put together under time
X   or user pressure.  Used esp. when you want to convey that you think
X   the fast way might lead to trouble further down the road.  "I can
X   have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but I'll have to
X   rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying design problem."
X   See also {kluge}.
X
Xquote chapter and verse: [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] v.
X   To reproduce a relevant excerpt from an appropriate {bible}.
X   "I don't care if rn gets it wrong; `Followup-To: poster' is
X   explicitly permitted by RFC1036.  I'll quote chapter and
X   verse if you don't believe me."
X
Xquux: /kwuhks/ Mythically, from the Latin semi-deponent verb quuxo,
X   quuxare, quuxandum iri; noun form variously `quux' (plural
X   `quuces', anglicized to `quuxes') and `quuxu' (genitive plural is
X   `quuxuum', for four u-letters out of seven total, using up all the
X   `u' letters in Scrabble in one swell foop).] 1. Originally, a
X   metasyntactic variable like {foo} and {foobar}.  Invented by
X   Guy Steele for precisely this purpose when he was young and naive
X   and not yet interacting with the real computing community.  Many
X   people invent such words; this one seems simply to have been lucky
X   enough to have spread a little.  In an eloquent display of poetic
X   justice, it has returned to the originator in the form of a
X   nickname.  2. interj. See {foo}; however, denotes very little
X   disgust, and is uttered mostly for the sake of the sound of it.
X   3. Guy Steele in his persona as `The Great Quux', which is
X   somewhat infamous for light verse and for the `Crunchly' cartoons.
X   4. In some circles, quux is used as a punning opposite of `crux'.
X   "Ah, that's the quux of the matter!" implies that the point is
X   *not* crucial (compare {tip of the ice-cube}).  5. quuxy:
X   adj. Of or pertaining to a quux.
X
Xqux: /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard metasyntactic variables,
X   after {baz} and before the quu(u...)x series.  See {foo},
X   {bar}, {baz}, {quux}.  Note that this appears to be a recent
X   mutation from {quux}, and that many versions of the standard
X   series just run {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}, ....
X
XQWERTY: /kwer'tee/ [from the keycaps at the upper left] adj.
X   Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard
X   (sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as
X   opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts or a {space-cadet
X   keyboard} or APL keyboard.
X
X   Historical note: the QWERTY layout was designed to be deliberately
X   slow, because fast typing jammed up early mechanical typewriters.
X
X= R =
X=====
X
Xrain dance: n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware
X   problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished.
X   This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards,
X   reconnecting cables, etc.  "I can't boot up the machine.  We'll
X   have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance."  2. Any arcane
X   sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order
X   to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals
X   that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity
X   or motion.  Compare {magic}, {voodoo programming}, {black
X   art}.
X
Xrandom: adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition);
X   weird.  "The system's been behaving pretty randomly."
X   2. Assorted; undistinguished.  "Who was at the conference?"
X   "Just a bunch of random business types."  3. (pejorative)
X   Frivolous; unproductive; undirected.  "He's just a random loser."
X   4. Incoherent or inelegant; not well organized.  "The program has
X   a random set of misfeatures."  "That's a random name for that
X   function."  "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly."
X   5. In no particular order, though deterministic.  "The I/O
X   channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen
X   randomly."  6. Arbitrary.  "It generates a random name for the
X   scratch file."  7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for
X   no good apparent reason.  For example, a program that handles file
X   name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler
X   routine that could easily have been coded using only three
X   registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with
X   non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
X   without first saving four extra registers.  What {randomness}!
X   8. n. A random hacker; used particularly of high school students
X   who soak up computer time and generally get in the way.  9. n.
X   Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the
X   hacker speaking); the noun form of sense #2.  "I went to the talk,
X   but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".
X   10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall.  See
X   also {J. Random}, {some random X}.
X
Xrandom numbers:: n. When one wishes to specify a large but random
X   number of things, and the context is inappropriate for {N}, certain
X   numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily
X   recognized as placeholders).  These include
X
X     17
X          Long described at MIT as `the least random number', see 23.
X     23
X          Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and 5).
X     42
X          The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and
X          Everything. (Note that this answer is completely fortuitous.)
X     69
X          From the sexual act.  This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture.
X     105
X          69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.
X     666
X          The Number of the Beast.
X
X   For further enlightenment, consult the `Principia Discordia',
X   `The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy', `The Joy of Sex',
X   and the Christian Bible's `Book Of Revelations' (chapter 13,
X   verse 18).  See also {Discordianism} or consult your pineal
X   gland.
X
X   One common rhetorical maneuver uses any of the canonical random
X   numbers as placeholders for variables.  One might hear "The max
X   function takes 42 arguments, for arbitrary values of 42." or
X   "There are 69 ways to leave your lover, for 69 = 50."  This is
X   especially likely when the speaker has uttered a random number and
X   realizes that it was not recognized as such, but even `non-random'
X   numbers are occasionally used in this fashion.  A related joke is
X   that "Pi equals 3 --- for small values of pi and large values of
X   3."
X
Xrandomness: n. An unexplainable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.
X   Also, a {hack} or {crock} which depends on a complex combination of
X   coincidences (or possibly, the combination upon which the crock
X   depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).  "This hack
X   can output characters 40--57 by putting the character in the
X   accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting 6 bits --- the low
X   two bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing."  "What
X   randomness!"
X
Xrape: vt. 1. To {screw} someone or something, violently; in
X   particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably.
X   Usage: often used in describing file-system damage.  "So-and-so
X   was running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up
X   raping the master directory."  2. To strip a piece of hardware
X   for parts.
X
Xrare: [UNIX] adj. CBREAK mode (character-by-character with
X   interrupts enabled).  Distinguished from {raw mode} and
X   `cooked mode'; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?)
X   mode" is used in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode.  Usage:
X   rare.
X
Xraster blaster: n. [Cambridge] Specialized hardware for {bitblt}
X   operations (a {blitter}).  Allegedly inspired by analogy with
X   `Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable
X   stereo/radio/tapedeck Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto
X   blaster'.
X
Xraster burn: n. Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of looking at
X   low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp. graphics
X   monitors.  See {terminal illness}.
X
Xrat belt: n. A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed, self-locking plastic
X   kind that you can only remove by cutting (as opposed to a random
X   twist of wire or a baggie tie or one of those humongous metal clip
X   frobs).  Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.
X
Xrave: [WPI] vi. 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.
X   2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows
X   very little.  3. To complain to a person who is not in a position
X   to correct the difficulty.  4. To purposely annoy another person
X   verbally.  5. To evangelize.  See {flame}.  6. Also used to
X   describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly
X   bullshitting.  `Rave' differs slightly from {flame} in that
X   `rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the
X   person speaking that is annoying, while {flame} implies somewhat
X   more strongly that the tone is offensive as well.
X
Xrave on!: imp. Sarcastic invitation to continue a {rave}, often by
X   someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes this is
X   unlikely.
X
Xravs: /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' n.  Jiao-zi (steamed or
X   boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried).  A Chinese appetizer, known
X   variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal
X   translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'.  The
X   term `rav' is short for `ravioli', which among hackers always
X   means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind.  Both consist
X   of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no
X   cheese, uses a thinner pasta, a pork-vegetable filling (good ones
X   include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by
X   steaming or frying.  A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a
X   potsticker is always the fried kind (so called because it sticks to
X   the frying pot and has to be scraped off).  "Let's get
X   hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs."  See also
X   {{Oriental Food}}.
X
Xraw mode: n. A mode that allows a program to transfer bits directly
X   to or from an I/O device without any processing, abstraction, or
X   interpretation by the operating system.  Compare {rare}.  This is
X   techspeak under UNIX, jargon elsewhere.
X
XRE: /ar-ee/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for {regexp}.
X
Xread-only user: n. Describes a {luser} who uses computers almost
X   exclusively for reading USENET, bulletin boards, and/or email, as
X   opposed to writing code or purveying useful information.  See
X   {twink}, {terminal junkie}, {lurker}.
X
XREADME file: n. By convention, the top-level directory of a UNIX
X   source distribution always contains a file named `README' (or
X   READ.ME, or (rarely) ReadMe or some other variant) which is a
X   hacker's-eye introduction containing a pointer to more detailed
X   documentation, credits, miscellaneous revision history notes, etc.
X   When asked, hackers invariably relate this to the famous scene in
X   Lewis Carroll's `Alice's Adventures In Wonderland' in which
X   Alice confronts magic munchies labelled "Eat Me" and "Drink
X   Me".
X
Xreal estate: n. May be used for any critical resource measured in
X   units of area.  Most frequently used of `chip real estate', the
X   area available for logic on the surface of an integrated circuit
X   (see also {nanoacre}).  May also be used of floor space in a
X   {dinosaur pen} or even space on a crowded desktop (whether
X   physical or electronic).
X
Xreal hack: n. A {crock}.  This is sometimes used affectionately;
X   see {hack}.
X
Xreal operating system: n. An OS sharing characteristics of
X   whichever one a given user is accustomed to, and subject to wild
X   variation.  People from the academic community are likely to issue
X   comments like "System V?  Why don't you use a *real*
X   operating system?", people from the commercial/industrial UNIX
X   sector are known to complain, "BSD?  Why don't you use a
X   *real* operating system?", and people from IBM probably
X   think, "UNIX?  Why don't you use a *real* operating system?"
X   See {holy wars}, {religious issues}, {proprietary}, {Get a
X   real computer!}.
X
Xreal programmer: [indirectly, from the book `Real Men Don't
X   Eat Quiche'] n. A particular sub-variety of hacker, one possessed
X   of a flippant attitude towards complexity that is arrogant even
X   when justified by experience.  The archetypal `real programmer'
X   likes to program on the {bare metal} and is very good at same,
X   remembers the binary opcodes for every machine he's ever
X   programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a debugger to edit
X   his code because full-screen editors are for wimps.  Real
X   Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been {bum}med
X   into a state of {tense}ness just short of rupture.  Real
X   Programmers never use comments or write documentation: "If it was
X   hard to write", says the Real Programmer, "it should be hard to
X   understand."  Real Programmers can make machines do things that
X   were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they're seldom really
X   happy unless doing so.  A Real Programmer's code can awe with its
X   fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appalls.  Real
X   Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on
X   their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers ---
X   because someday, somebody else might have to try to understand
X   their code in order to change it.  Their successors generally
X   consider it a {Good Thing} that there aren't many Real
X   Programmers around any more.  For a famous (and somewhat more
X   positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see `The Story of
SHAR_EOF
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echo 'End of part 13, continue with part 14'
echo 14 > _shar_seq_.tmp
exit 0



Article #8719 (8725 is last):
From: [e-mail] (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.misc
Subject: The Jargon File v2.8.1, 22 MAR 1991, part 14 of 19
Date: Fri Mar 22 18:43:13 1991

Submitted-by: [e-mail]
Archive-name: jargon/part14

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X   Mel' in Appendix A.
X
XReal Soon Now: [orig. from SF's fanzine community, popularized by
X   Jerry Pournelle's BYTE column] adj. 1. Supposed to be available
X   (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now according to
X   somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical.  2. When one's
X   gods/fates/other time commitments permit one to get to it (in other
X   words don't hold your breath).  Often abbreviated RSN.
X
Xreal time: adv. Doing something while people are watching or waiting.
X   "I asked her how to find the calling procedure's program counter
X   on the stack and she came up with an algorithm in real time."
X
Xreal user: n. 1. A commercial user.  One who is paying `real' money
X   for his computer usage.  2. A non-hacker.  Someone using the system
X   for an explicit purpose (research project, course, etc.).  See
X   {user}.  Hackers who are also students may also be real users.  "I
X   need this fixed so I can do a problem set.  I'm not complaining out
X   of randomness, but as a real user."  See also {luser}.
X
XReal World: n. 1. In programming, those institutions at which
X   programming may be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, {COBOL},
X   RPG, {IBM}, DBASE, etc.  Places where programs do such
X   commercially necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as
X   compute payroll checks and invoices.  2. To programmers, the
X   location of non-programmers and activities not related to
X   programming.  3. A bizarre dimension in which the standard dress
X   is shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined
X   as 9 to 5 (see {code grinder}).  4. The location of the status
X   quo.  5. Anywhere outside a university.  "Poor fellow, he's left
X   MIT and gone into the real world."  Used pejoratively by those not
X   in residence there.  In conversation, talking of someone who has
X   entered the real world is not unlike speaking of a deceased
X   person.  See also {fear and loathing}, {mundane}, and
X   {uninteresting}.
X
Xreality check: n. 1. The simplest kind of test of software or
X   hardware; doing the equivalent of asking it what `2 + 2'
X   is and seeing if you get `4'.  The software equivalent of a
X   {smoke test}.  2. The act of letting a {real user} try out
X   prototype software.  Compare {sanity check}.
X
Xreaper: n. A {prowler} that {GFR}s files.  A file removed in
X   this way is said to have been `reaped'.
X
Xrectangle slinger: n. See {polygon pusher}.
X
Xrecursion: n. See {recursion}.  See also {tail recursion}.
X
Xrecursive acronyms:: pl.n. A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition
X   is to choose acronyms that refer humorously to themselves or to
X   other acronyms.  The classic examples were two MIT editors called
X   EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE
X   Initially").  More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called
X   LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and {GNU} (q.v., sense
X   #1) is said to stand for "GNU's Not UNIX!"  See also {mung},
X   {EMACS}.
X
XRed Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
X   references on PostScript (`PostScript Language Reference
X   Manual', Adobe Systems, Addison-Wesley 1985 QA76.73.P67P67, ISBN
X   0-201-10174-2); the others are known as the {Green Book} and {Blue
X   Book}.  2. Informal name for one of the three standard references
X   on Smalltalk (`Smalltalk-80: The Interactive Programming
X   Environment', Adele Goldberg, Addison-Wesley 1984, QA76.8.S635G638,
X   ISBN 0-201-11372-4; this is also associated with blue and green
X   books).  3. Any of the 1984 standards issued by the CCITT 8th
X   plenary assembly.  Until now, these have changed color each review
X   cycle (1988 was {Blue Book}, 1992 will be {Green Book}); however,
X   it is rumored that this convention is going to be dropped before
X   1992.  These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and
X   the Group 1 through 4 fax standards.  4. The new version of the
X   {Green Book} (sense #4), IEEE 1003.1-1990, aka ISO 9945-1,
X   is (because of the color and the fact that it is printed on A4
X   paper), known in the USA as "The Ugly Red Book That Won't Fit On
X   The Shelf", and in Europe as "The Ugly Red Book That's A Sensible
X   Size".  See also {{book titles}}.
X
Xregexp: /reg'eksp/ [UNIX] n. (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')
X   1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular
X   expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by UNIX
X   utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.
X   These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those
X   described under {glob}.  For purposes of this lexicon, it is
X   sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character
X   sets using `^'; thus, one can specify any non-alphabetic
X   character with `[^A-Za-z]'.  2. Name of a well-known PD
X   regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered USENETter
X   Henry Spencer ([e-mail]).
X
Xreincarnation, cycle of: n. See {cycle of reincarnation}.
X
Xreinvent the wheel: v. To design or implement a tool equivalent to
X   an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so
X   is silly or a waste of time.  This is frequently a valid criticism;
X   however, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some kinds of
X   wheel have to be re-invented many times before you get it right. On
X   the other hand, it has often been pointed out that people
X   reinventing the wheel tend to come up with the moral equivalent of
X   a trapezoid with an offset axle....
X
Xreligious issues: n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised
X   without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the best
X   operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail
X   reader, news reader)?" and "What about that Heinlein guy, eh?".
X   See {holy wars}; see also {theology}, {bigot}.
X
X   This term is an example of {ha ha only serious}.  People
X   actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense
X   attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.
X   The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the
X   crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave --- unless of course
X   one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct
X   choices are being slammed....
X
Xreplicator: n. Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself;
X   this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a program
X   (see {worm}, {wabbit}, and {virus}), a pattern in a cellular
X   automaton (see {life}, sense #1), or (speculatively) a robot or
X   {nanobot}.  It is even claimed by some that {UNIX} and {C}
X   are the symbiotic halves of an extremely successful replicator; see
X   {UNIX conspiracy}.
X
Xreply: n. See {followup}.
X
Xrestriction: n. A {bug} or design error that limits a program's
X   capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can
X   quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a {feature}.  Often
X   used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make it sound as though
X   some crippling bogosity had been intended by the designers all
X   along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical constraints of a
X   nature no mere user could possibly comprehend (these claims are
X   almost invariably false).
X
X   Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer ([e-mail]) passes
X   along this wisdom: "Whenever choosing a quantifiable restriction,
X   make it either a power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1.  If you impose
X   a limit of 17 items in a list, everyone knows it is a random
X   number.  If the limit is 15 or 16, there is clearly some deep
X   reason and you will get less {flamage}."  It has been further
X   observed that this is especially true if 17 = 20 (see {{random
X   numbers}}) or some other `round' number in base 10.
X
Xretcon: /ret'kon/ [`retroactive continuity', from USENET's
X   rec.arts.comics] 1. n. The common situation in pulp fiction
X   (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story `reveals' things
X   about events in previous stories, usually leaving the `facts' the
X   same (thus preserving continuity) while completely changing their
X   interpretation.  E.g., revealing that a whole season of Dallas was
X   a dream was a retcon.  2. vt. To write such a story about (a
X   character or fictitious object).  "Byrne has retconned Superman's
X   cape so that it is no longer unbreakable."  "Marvelman's old
X   adventures were retconned into synthetic dreams."  "Swamp Thing
X   was retconned from a transformed person into a sentient
X   vegetable."
X
X   [This is included because it's a good example of hackish linguistic
X   innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.  The word
X   `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and lose its
X   association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for the
X   record, it started here. --- ESR]
X
Xretrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ n. Refers to emulations
X   of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software, or
X   implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such
X   implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies of
X   more `serious' designs.  Perhaps the most widely distributed
X   retrocomputing utility was the `pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)'
X   program on V7 and other early UNIX versions, which would accept up
X   to 80 characters of text argument and display the corresponding
X   pattern in {{punched card}} code.  Other well-known retrocomputing
X   hacks have included the programming language {INTERCAL}, a
X   {JCL}-emulating shell for UNIX, the card-punch-emulating editor named
X   029, and various elaborate PDP-11 hardware emulators and RT-11 OS
X   emulators written just to keep an old, sourceless {Zork} binary
X   running.
X
XRFC: /ahr ef see/ [Request For Comment] n. One of a
X   long-established series of numbered Internet standards widely
X   followed by commercial and PD software in the Internet and UNIX
X   communities.  Perhaps the single most influential one has been
X   RFC-822 (the Internet mail-format standard).  The RFCs are unusual
X   in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own
X   initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than
X   formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI.  For this
X   reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted.
X
XRFE: n. 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement.  2. [from
X   `Radio Free Europe' Bellcore and Sun] Radio Free Ethernet, a system
X   (originated by Peter Langston) for broadcasting audio among Sun
X   SPARCstations over the ethernet.
X
Xrib site: [by analogy with {backbone site}] n. A machine which
X   has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and serves
X   as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party traffic in
X   email and USENET news.  Compare {leaf site}, {backbone site}.
X
Xrice box: [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-made commodity
X   computer, esp. an 80*86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible
X   ISA or EISA-bus standards.
X
XRight Thing: n. That which is *compellingly* the correct or
X   appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc.  Often capitalized, always
X   emphasized in speech as though capitalized.  Use of this term often
X   implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree.  "What's the
X   right thing for LISP to do when it sees `(mod a 0)'?  Should
X   it return `a', or give a divide-by-zero error?"  Antonym:
X   {Wrong Thing}.
X
XRL: [MUD community] n. Real Life.  "Firiss laughs in RL." means
X   Firiss's player is laughing.  Oppose {VR}.
X
Xroach: [Bell Labs] vt. To destroy, esp. of a data structure.  Hardware
X   gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets roached.
X
Xrobust: adj. Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to
X   recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and
X   situations in a given environment.  One step below {bulletproof}.
X   Compare {smart}, oppose {brittle}.
X
Xrococo: adj. {Baroque} in the extreme.  Used to imply that a
X   program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of
X   gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the
X   underlying design.  Called after the later and more extreme forms
X   of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the
X   mid-1700s in Europe.
X
Xrogue: [UNIX] n. Dungeons-And-Dragons-like game using character
X   graphics, written under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other
X   UNIX systems.  The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling
X   package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support
X   `rogue(6)' and has since become one of UNIX's most important
X   and heavily used application libraries.  Nethack, Omega, Larn, and
X   an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the
X   inspiration provided by `rogue(6)'.  See {nethack}.
X
Xroom-temperature IQ: [IBM] quant. 80 or below.  Used in describing the
X   expected intelligence range of the {luser}.  As in "Well, but
X   how's this interface gonna play with the room-temperature IQ
X   crowd?"  See {drool-proof paper}.  This is a much more insulting
X   phrase in countries that use Celsius thermometers.
X
Xroot: [UNIX] n. 1. The {superuser} account that ignores
X   permission bits, user number zero on a UNIX system.  This account
X   has the user name `root'.  The term {avatar} is also used.
X   2. The top node of the system directory structure (home directory
X   of the root user).  3. By extension, the privileged
X   system-maintenance login on any OS.  See {root mode}.
X
Xroot mode: n. Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'.  Like
X   these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in
X   systems other than OSes.
X
Xrot13: /rot ther'teen/ [USENET, from `rotate alphabet 13 places']
X   n.,v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces each
X   English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along the
X   alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre qvq
X   vg!"  Most USENET news reading and posting programs include a
X   rot13 feature.  It is used to enclose the text in a sealed wrapper
X   that the reader must choose to open, e.g. for posting things that
X   might offend some readers or answers to puzzles and the like.  A
X   major advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is that it is
X   self-inverse --- thus the same code can be used for encoding and
X   decoding.
X
Xrotary debugger: [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those late
X   night or early morning debugging sessions.  Mainly used as
X   sustenance for the hacker.  Comes in many decorator colors such as
X   Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage.  See {pizza, ANSI standard}.
X
XRSN: adj. See {Real Soon Now}.
X
XRTFAQ: /ahr-tee-ef-ay-kyoo/ [USENET; primarily written, by analogy
X   with {RTFM}] imp. Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation
X   that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ
X   list} before posting questions.
X
XRTFM: /ahr-tee-ef-em/ [UNIX] imp. Abbrev. for `Read The Fucking Manual'.
X   1. Used by GURUs to brush off questions they consider trivial or
X   annoying.  Compare {Don't do that, then!}.  2. Used when reporting
X   a problem to indicate that you aren't just asking out of
X   {randomness}.  "No, I can't figure out how to interface UNIX to my
X   toaster, and yes, I have RTFM."  Unlike sense #1, this use is
X   considered polite.  See also {RTFAQ}, {RTM}.
X
XRTI: /ahr-tee-ie/ interj. The mnemonic for the `return from
X   interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and
X   Z80.  Equivalent to "Now, where was I?" or used to end a
X   conversational digression.  See {pop}; see also {POPJ}.
X
XRTM: /ahr-tee-em/ [USENET, acronym for `Read The Manual']
X   1. Politer variant of {RTFM}.  2. Robert T. Morris, perpetrator
X   of the great Internet worm of 1988; villain to many, naive hacker
X   gone wrong to a few.  Morris claimed that the worm which brought
X   the Internet to its knees was a benign experiment that got out of
X   control due to a coding error.  After the storm of negative
X   publicity that followed this blunder Morris's name on ITS was
X   hacked from RTM to {RTFM}.
X
Xrude: [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written.  2. Functionally
X   poor, e.g. a program which is very difficult to use because of
X   gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions.  See {cuspy}.
X
Xrunes: pl.n. 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry} or
X   {black art} to {parse}; core dumps, JCL commands, or even code
X   in a language you hacen't a clue how to {parse}.  Compare
X   {casting the runes}, {Great Runes}.  2. Special display
X   characters (for example, the high-half graphics on an IBM PC).
X
Xrunic: adj. Syn. {obscure}.  VMS fans sometimes refer to UNIX as
X   `Runix'; UNIX fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very
X   Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Systeme' (French, lit.
X   "Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System").
X
Xrusty iron: n. Syn. {tired iron}.  It has been claimed that this
X   is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.
X
Xrusty memory: n. Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic
X   media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used
X   in {washing machine}s).  Compare {donuts}.
X
X= S =
X=====
X
Xs/n ratio: n. (also `s:n ratio').  Syn. {signal-to-noise
X   ratio}.  Often abbreviated `SNR'.
X
Xsacred: adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an
X   extension of the standard meaning).  Often means that anyone may
X   look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it
X   is sacred to.  Example: The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the
X   interrupt handler." appearing in a program would be interpreted by
X   a hacker to mean if any *other* part of the program changes
X   the contents of register 7 dire consequences are likely to ensue.
X
Xsaga: [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story dealing with N random
X   broken people.
X
X   Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L. Steele:
X
X   Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at MIT
X   for many years.  One April we both flew from Boston to California
X   for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some
X   people at Stanford, particularly our mutual friend Richard P.
X   Gabriel (RPG; see {Gabriel}).
X
X   RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to
X   Palo Alto (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to {El
X   Camino Bignum}).  Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University, and
X   about forty miles south of San Francisco.  We ate at The Good
X   Earth, a `health food' restaurant, very popular, the sort whose
X   milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder.  JONL ordered such
X   a shake --- the waitress claimed the flavor of the day was
X   "lalaberry".  I still have no idea what that might be, but it
X   became a running joke.  It was the color of raspberry, and JONL
X   said it tasted rather bitter.  I ate a better tostada there than I
X   have ever had in a Mexican restaurant.
X
X   After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice
X   Cream Parlor.  They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of
X   intriguing flavors.  It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you
X   don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's --- MOVE!"  Also, Uncle Gaylord (a
X   real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name ice cream
X   makers to print their ingredients on the package (like air and
X   plastic and other non-natural garbage).  JONL and I had first
X   discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had flown
X   to a computer science conference in Berkeley, California, the first
X   time either of us had been on the West Coast.  When not in the
X   conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length of
X   Telegraph Street, which, like Harvard Square in Cambridge,
X   Massachusetts, in summer was lined with picturesque street vendors
X   and interesting little shops.  On that street we discovered Uncle
X   Gaylord's Berkeley store.  The ice cream there was very good.
X   During that August visit JONL went absolutely bananas (so to
X   speak) over one particular flavor, ginger honey.
X
X   Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth --- indeed, after every
X   lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip
X   to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory.  We had
X   arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there
X   at least four times.  Each time JONL would get ginger honey ice
X   cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice
X   that drove the Europeans mad!  That's why they sought a route to
X   the East!  They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste
X   meat."  After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were
X   getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him:
X   "Wow!  Ginger!  The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!"
X   "Say!  Why don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in
X   the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!"
X   "Right!  With a lalaberry shake!"  And so on.  This failed to
X   faze JONL; he took it in good humor, as long as we kept returning
X   to Uncle Gaylord's.  He loves ginger honey ice cream.
X
X   Now RPG and his wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up (putting
X   up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them JONL and
X   I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their choosing.  I
X   unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had `je ne sais
X   quoi du jour', but RPG and JONL had `lapin' (rabbit).
X   (Waitress: "`Oui', we have fresh rabbit, fresh today."  RPG:
X   "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any *ginger*!")
X
X   We finished the meal late, about 11 PM, which is 2 AM Boston time,
X   so JONL and I were rather droopy.  But it wasn't yet midnight.  Off
X   to Uncle Gaylord's!
X
X   Now the French resturant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.
X   In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north
X   instead of south.  JONL and I woudln't have known the difference
X   had RPG not mentioned it.  We still knew very little of the local
X   geography.  I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the
X   direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue
X   north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.
X
X   RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked.  I was
X   drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for five minutes.
X   When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the
X   way over the bridge!" referring to the one spanning San Francisco
X   Bay.  Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue".
X   I mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Street;
X   RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more.  Eventually we pulled
X   up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.
X
X   Now I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy,
X   and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me
X   in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice
X   that we had somehow some to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after
X   all.
X
X   JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't
X   caught on.  (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night,
X   and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.)  He
X   said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley!  It
X   looked like a barn!  But this place looks *just like* the one
X   back in Palo Alto!"
X
X   RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* alwasy come to
X   when I'm in Berkeley.  They've got two in San Francisco, too.
X   Remember, they're a chain."
X
X   JONL accepted this bit of wisdom.  And he was not totally ignorant
X   --- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,
X   not far from Telegraph Street.  What he didn't know was that there
X   is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.
X
X   JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey.  The guy at
X   the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,
X   evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too
X   many people like it.
X
X   JONL said, "I'm sure I like it.  Just give me a cone."  The guy
X   behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first.
X   "Some people think it tastes like soap."  JONL insisted, "Look,
X   I /love/ ginger.  I eat Chinese food.  I eat raw ginger roots.  I
X   already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto.  I
X   *know* I like that flavor!"
X
X   At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a
X   very strange look on his face, but said nothing.  KBT caught his
X   eye and winked.  Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped
X   what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor
X   laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched
X   into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the
X   forty-third time.  At this point RPG clued me in fully.
X
X   RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our
X   chuckles.  JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream
X   with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream
X   shops and generally having a good old time.
X
X   At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?"  JONL
X   said, "Fine!  I wonder what exactly is in it?"  Now Uncle Gaylord
X   publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make
X   his ice cream at home.  So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he
X   and JONL pored over it for a while.  But the g.b.t.c. could
X   contain his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like
X   that stuff, huh?"  JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it
X   constantly back in Palo Alto for the past two days.  In fact, I
X   think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo
X   Alto!"
X
X   G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're
X   *in* Palo Alto!"
X
X   JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a
X   fit of giggles.  He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed,
X   "I've been {hack}ed!"
X
Xsagan: /say'gn/ [from Carl Sagan's TV series `Cosmos'; think
X   `Billions and Billions'] n. A large quantity of anything.
X   "There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS."  "The US
X   Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --- hard to say which
X   is more destructive."
X
XSAIL: /sayl/, not /ess ay ie el/ n. 1. Stanford Artificial
X   Intelligence Lab.  An important site in the early development of
X   LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, and the UNIX community, one of
X   the major wellsprings of technical innovation and hacker-culture
X   traditions (see the {WAITS} entry for details).  The SAIL
X   machines were shut down in late May 1990, scant weeks after the MIT
X   AI lab's ITS cluster were officially decommissioned.  2. The
X   Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used at SAIL (sense #1).
X   It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining facility and some
X   new data types intended for building search trees and association
X   lists.
X
Xsalescritter: /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer
X   salesperson.  Hackers tell the following joke:
X
X     Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a computer
X        salesman?
X     A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying.
X
X   This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are
X   self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the
X   inclination to use them, they'd be in programming).  The terms
X   `salesthing' and `salesdroid' are also common.  Compare
X   {marketroid}, {suit}, {droid}.
X
Xsalt mines: n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers
X   working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the
X   end of the tunnel in N years.  Noted for their absence of sunshine.
X   Compare {playpen}, {sandbox}.
X
Xsalt substrate: [MIT] n. Collective noun used to refer to potato
X   chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food
X   designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride.  From the
X   technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the
X   top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.
X
Xsame-day-service: n. Ironic term is used to describe slow response
X   time, particularly with respect to {MS-DOS} system calls.  Such
X   response time is a major incentive for programmers to write
X   programs that are not {well-behaved}.  See also {PC-ism}.
X
Xsandbender: [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and
X   the physical design of chips.  Compare {ironmonger}, {polygon
X   pusher}.
X
Xsandbox: n. (or `sandbox, the') Common term for the R&D
X   department at many software and computer companies (where hackers
X   in commercial environments are likely to be found).  Half-derisive,
X   but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative play.
X   Compare {playpen}.
X
Xsanity check: n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code for
X   completely stupid mistakes.  Implies that the check is to make sure
X   the author was sane when it was written; e.g., if a piece of
X   scientific software relied on a particular formula and was giving
X   unexpected results, one might first look at the nesting of
X   parentheses or the coding of the formula, as a {sanity check},
X   before looking at the more complex I/O or data structure
X   manipulation routines, much less the algorithm itself.  Compare
X   {reality check}.  2. A run-time test, either validating input
X   or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed up internally
X   (producing an inconsistent value or state).
X
XSaturday night special: [from police slang for a cheap handgun] n.
X   A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a
X   deadline, and in response to pressure from a {salescritter}.
X   Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too frequently sneak
X   into a production release after insufficient review.
X
Xsay: vt. In some contexts, to type to a terminal.  "To list a
X   directory verbosely, you have to say `ls -l'."  Tends to
X   imply a {newline}-terminated command (a `sentence').  A computer
X   may also be said to `say' things to you even if it doesn't have a
X   speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a terminal in response to
X   your commands.  Hackers find it odd that this usage confuses
X   {mundane}s.
X
XScience-Fiction Fandom:: n. Another voluntary subculture having a
X   very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or
X   fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or
X   are involved in fandom-connected activities like the Society for
X   Creative Anachronism.  Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom;
X   see {defenestration}, {great-wall}, {cyberpunk}, {h}, {ha
X   ha only serious}, {IMHO}, {mundane}, {neep-neep}, {Real
X   Soon Now}.  Additionally, the jargon terms {cowboy},
X   {cyberspace}, {de-rezz}, {go flatline}, {ice}, {virus},
X   {wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm} originated in SF
X   stories.
X
Xscram switch: [from the nuclear power industry] n. An
X   emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one
X   positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel.  In general,
X   this is *not* something you {frob} lightly; these often
X   initiate expensive events like Halon dumps and are installed in a
X   {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in case some
X   luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across himself
X   while {Easter egging}.
X
Xscratch: 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data
X   structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or
X   temporary-use purposes; one that can be {scribble}d on without
X   loss.  Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory',
X   `scratch register', `scratch disk', `scratch tape',
X   `scratch volume'.  See {scratch monkey}.  2. [primarily
X   IBM] vt. To delete (as in a file).
X
Xscratch monkey: n. As in, "Before testing or reconfiguring, always
X   mount a scratch monkey.", a proverb used to advise caution when
X   dealing with irreplaceable data or devices.  Used to refer to any
X   non-expendable device or scratch volume hooked to a computer, in
X   memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey who expired when a
X   computer vendor {PM}ed a machine which was regulating the gas
X   mixture that the monkey was breathing at the time.  See Appendix A.
X   See {scratch}.
X
Xscrew: [MIT] n. A {lose}, usually in software.  Especially used for
X   user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature.  This use
X   has become quite widespread outside MIT.
X
Xscrewage: /skroo'*j/ n. Like {lossage} but connotes that the
X   failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple
X   inadequacy or mere bug.
X
Xscribble: n. To modify a data structure in a random and
X   unintentionally destructive way.  "Bletch! Somebody's
X   disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node
X   table."  "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines
X   scribbled on low core."  Synonymous with {trash}; compare {mung},
X   which conveys a bit more intention, and {mangle}, which is more
X   violent and final.
X
Xscrog: /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a data
X   structure.  "The cblock got scrogged."  Also reported as
X   `skrog', and ascribed to `The Wizard of Id' comix.  Equivalent
X   to {scribble} or {mangle}
X
Xscrozzle: /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs
X   incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data.  "The
X   damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"
X
XSCSI: [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent
X   standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and
X   intelligent devices.  Typically annotated in literature with `sexy'
X   (/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/) and `scuzzy' (/skuhz'zee/) as
X   pronunciation guides --- the last being the overwhelmingly
X   predominant form, much to the dismay of the designers and their
X   marketing people.  One can usually assume that a person who
X   pronounces it /ess see ess eye/ is clueless.
X
Xsearch-and-destroy mode: n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace
X   facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen
X   match pattern can cause {infinite} damage.
X
Xsecond-system effect: n. (sometimes, more euphoniously,
X   `second-system syndrome'.)  When designing the successor to a
X   relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a
X   tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an
X   {elephantine} feature-laden monstrosity.  The term was first used
X   by Fred Brooks in his classic book `The Mythical Man-Month'.
X   It described the jump from a set of nice, simple, operating
X   monitors on the IBM 70xx series to OS/360 on the 360 series.  A
X   similar effect can also happen in an evolving system; see
X   {creeping elegance}, {creeping featurism}.  See also
X   {Multics}, {OS/2}, {X}, {software bloat}.
X
X   This version of the jargon lexicon has been described (with
X   altogether too much truth for comfort) as an example of
X   second-system effect run amok on jargon-1....
X
Xsecondary damage: n. When a fatal error occurs (esp. a
X   {segfault}) the immediate cause may be that a pointer is damaged
X   due to a {fandango on core}.  However, this fandango may have
X   been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no amount of analysis
X   will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.  "The data
X   structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."
X
X   This generalizes.  The corruption resulting from N cascaded
X   fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'.  There is at least one
X   case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with `adb'
X   actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of 7th-level
X   damage!  The hacker who accomplished this near-superhuman feat was
X   presented with an award by his fellows.
X
Xsecurity through obscurity: n. A name applied by hackers to most OS
X   vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes --- namely,
X   ignoring them and not documenting them and trusting that nobody
X   will find out about them and that people who do find out about them
X   won't exploit them.  This never works for long and occasionally
X   sets the world up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988, but once
X   the brief moments of panic created by such events subside most
X   vendors are all too willing to turn over and go back to sleep.
X   After all, actually fixing the bugs would siphon off the resources
X   needed to implement the next user-interface frill on Marketing's
X   wish list --- besides, if they started fixing security bugs
X   customers might begin to *expect* it and imagine that their
X   warranties of merchantability gave them some sort of *right*
X   to a system with fewer holes in it than a shotgunned Swiss cheese,
X   and then where would we be?
X
X   Historical note: this term was first used in the USENET newsgroup
X   in `comp.sys.apollo' during a campaign to get HP/Apollo to fix
X   rampant security problems in its UNIX-lookalike Aegis/DomainOS.
X   They didn't change a thing.
X
XSED: [TMRC] /ess-ee-dee/ n. Smoke emitting diode.  A {friode}
X   that lost the war.
X
Xsegfault: n.,vi. Syn. {segment}, {seggie}.
X
Xseggie: /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault}
X   reported from Britain.
X
Xsegment: /seg'ment/ vi. To experience a {segmentation fault}.
X   Confusingly, this is often prnounced more like the noun `segment'
X   than like mainstream v. segment; this is because it's actually a
X   noun shorthand that has been verbed.
X
Xsegmentation fault: n. [UNIX] 1. Error in which a running program
X   attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s
X   with a segmentation violation error.  2. To lose a train of
X   thought or a line of reasoning.  Also uttered as an exclamation at
X   the point of befuddlement.
X
Xsegv: /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation fault}.
X
Xself-reference: n. See {self-reference}.
X
Xselvage: /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense #1).
X
Xsemi: /se'mee/ or /se'mie/ 1. n. Abbreviation for `semicolon', when
X   speaking.  "Commands to {grind} are prefixed by semi-semi-star."
X   means that the prefix is `;;*', not 1/4 of a star.  2. Prefix with
X   words such as `immediately', as a qualifier.  "When is the system
X   coming up?"  "Semi-immediately." (that is, maybe not for an
X   hour).  "We did consider that possibility semi-seriously."  See
X   also {infinite}.
X
Xsenior bit: [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.
X
Xserver: n. A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the
X   requester, which often runs on a computer other than the one on
X   which the server runs.  A particularly common term on the Internet,
X   which is rife with `name servers', `domain servers', `news
X   servers', `finger servers', and the like.
X
XSEX: [Sun User's Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software EXchange.  A
X   technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of
X   years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow
X   up until then.  Today, SEX parties are popular among hackers and
X   others (of course, these are no longer limited to exchanges of
X   genetic software).  2. The rather Freudian mnemonic often used
X   for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the PDP-11 and many
X   architectures.
X
X   DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the `SEX'
X   mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once) marketing wasn't
X   asleep and forced a change.  That wasn't the last time this
X   happened, either.  The author of `The Intel 8086 Primer', who
X   was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted that there was
X   originally a `SEX' instruction on that processor, too.  He says
X   that Intel management got cold feet and decreed that it be changed,
X   and thus the instruction was renamed `CBW' and `CWD' (depending on
X   what was being extended).  Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the
X   microcontroller used in IBM PC keyboards) is also missing straight
X   `SEX' but has logical-or and logical-and instructions `ORL' and
X   `ANL'.
X
Xsex changer: n. Syn. {gender mender}.
X
Xshareware: n. {Freeware} (sense #1) for which the author requests
X   some payment, usually in the accompanying documentation files or in
X   an announcement made by the software itself.  Such payment may or
X   may not buy additional support or functionality.  See
X   {guiltware}, {crippleware}.
X
Xshelfware: n. Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or
X   in accordance with policy (by a corporation or government), but not
X   actually required for any particular use.  Therefore, it often ends
X   up on some shelf.
X
Xshell: [UNIX, now used elsewhere] n. 1. [techspeak] The command
X   interpreter used to pass commands to an operating system; so called
X   because it's the part of the operating system that interfaces to
X   the outside world.  2. More generally, any interface program
X   which mediates access to a special resource or {server} for
X   convenience, efficiency, or security reasons; for this meaning, the
X   usage is usually `a shell around' whatever.  This sort of
X   program is also called a `wrapper'.
X
Xshell out: [UNIX] n. To spawn an interactive {subshell} from
X   within a program (e.g. a mailer or editor).  "Bang foo runs foo in
X   a subshell, while bang alone shells out."
X
Xshift left (or right) logical: [from any of various machines'
X   instruction sets] 1. vi. To move oneself to the left (right).  To
X   move out of the way.  2. imper. "Get out of that (my) seat!  You
X   can shift to that empty one to the left (right)."  Usage: often
X   used without the `logical', or as `left shift' instead of
X   `shift left'.  Sometimes heard as LSH /l*sh/, from the PDP-10
X   instruction set.  See {Programmer's Cheer}.
X
Xshitogram: /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email.
X   Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.
X
Xshort card: n. A half-length IBM PC expansion card or adapter that
X   will fit in one of the two short slots located towards the right
X   rear of a standard chassis (tucked behind the floppy disk drives).
X   See also {tall card}.
X
Xshotgun debugging: n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging};
X   the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope
X   that a bug will be perturbed out of existence.  This almost never
X   works, and usually introduces more bugs.
X
Xshowstopper: n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes
X   an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to
X   be fixed before development can go on.  Opposite in connotation
X   from its original theatrical use, which refers to something
X   stunningly *good*.
X
Xshriek: n. See {excl}.  Occasional CMU usage, also in common use
X   among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.
X
XShub-Internet: [MUD; from H. P. Lovecraft's evil fictional deity
X   `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a Thousand Young] pn.
X   The harsh personification of the Internet, Beast of a Thousand
X   Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line Noise, and Imp of
X   Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity formed of all the
X   manifold connections of the net.  A sect of MUDders worships
X   Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for good
X   connections.  To no avail -- its purpose is malign and evil, and is
X   the cause of all network slowdown.  Often heard as in, "Freela
X   casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down."  (A
X   forged message often follows, "Shub-Internet gulps down the tac
X   nuke and burps happily.")  Also cursed by users of {FTP} and
X   {telnet} when the system slows down.  The dread name of
X   Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that repeating
X   it three times will cause the being to wake, deep within its lair
X   beneath the Pentagon.
X
Xsidecar: n. 1. Syn. {slap on the side}.  Esp. used of add-ons for
X   the late and unlamented IBM PCjr.  2. The IBM PC compatibility box
X   that could be bolted on to the side of an Amiga.  Designed and
X   produced by Commodore and broke all of their design rules.  If it
X   worked with any other peripherals, it was by {magic}.
X
Xsig block: /sig blok/ [UNIX; often written ".sig" there] n. Short
X   for `signature', used specifically to refer to the electronic
X   signature block that most UNIX mail- and news-posting software
X   will allow you to automatically append to outgoing mail and news.
X   The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an
X   ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote}); but
X   many consider large sigs a waste of {bandwidth}, and it has been
X   observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely
X   proportional to one's longevity and level of prestige on the net.
X
Xsig quote: /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke,
X   or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey
X   something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of
X   humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."
X
Xsignal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers
X   in a generalization of its technical meaning.  `Signal' refers to
X   useful information conveyed by some communications medium and
X   `noise' to anything else on that medium.  Hence a low ratio implies
X   that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
X   Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given.  The term is
X   most often applied to {USENET} newsgroups during {flame war}s.
X   Compare {bandwidth}.  See also {coefficient of x}, {lost in
X   the noise}.
X
Xsilicon: n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer
X   systems (compare {iron}).  Contrasted with software.  See also
X   {sandbender}.
X
Xsilicon foundry: n. A company that {fab}s chips to the designs of
X   others.  As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon foundries
X   and good computer-aided design software made it much easier for
X   hardware-designing startup companies to come into being.  The
X   downside of using a silicon foundry is that the distance from the
X   actual chip fabrication processes reduces designers' leverage.
X   This is somewhat analogous to the use of a {HLL} versus coding in
X   assembler.
X
Xsilly walk: [from Monty Python's Flying Circus] vi. A ridiculous
X   procedure required to accomplish a task.  Like {grovel}, but more
X   {random} and humorous.  "I had to silly-walk through half the
X   /usr directories to find the maps file."
X
Xsilo: n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card.  So
X   called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the
X   VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for
X   fungible stuff that you put in the top and took out the bottom.
X
XSilver Book: n. Jensen & Wirth's infamous `Pascal User Manual
X   and Report', so called because of the silver cover of the
X   widely distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of 1978 (ISBN
X   0-387-90144-2).  See {{book titles}}.
X
Xsince time T equals minus infinity: adj. A long time ago; for as
X   long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob
X   was first designed.  Usually the word `time' is omitted.  See also
X   {time T}.
X
Xsitename: [UNIX/Internet] n. The unique electronic name of a
X   computer system, used to identify it in UUCP mail, USENET, or other
X   forms of electronic information interchange.  The folklore interest
X   of sitenames stems from the creativity and humor they often
X   display.  Interpreting a sitename is not unlike interpreting a
X   vanity license plate; one has to mentally unpack it, allowing for
X   mono-case and length restrictions and the lack of whitespace.
X   Hacker tradition deprecates dull, institutional-sounding names in
X   favor of punchy, humorous, and clever coinages (except that it is
X   considered appropriate for the official public gateway machine of
X   an organization to bear the organization's name or acronym).
X   Mythological references, cartoon characters, animal names, and
X   allusions to SF or fantasy literature are probably the most popular
X   sources for sitenames (in roughly descending order).  The
X   obligatory comment when discussing these is Harris's Lament: "All
X   the good ones are taken!"  See also {network address}.
X
Xskulker: n. Syn. {prowler}.
X
Xslap on the side: n. (also called a {sidecar}, or abbreviated
X   `SOTS'.)  A type of external expansion hardware marketed by
X   computer manufacturers (e.g.  Commodore for their Amiga 500/1000
X   series and IBM for the hideous failure they called `PCjr').
X   Various SOTS boxes provided necessities such as memory, hard drive
X   controllers, and conventional expansion slots.
X
Xsleep: vi. 1. [techspeak] On a timesharing system, a process that
X   relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until some given event
X   occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go to
X   sleep'.  2. In jargon, used very similarly to v. {block}; also
X   in `sleep on', syn. with `block on'.  Often used to
X   indicate that the speaker has relinquished a demand for resources
X   until some (possibly unspecified) external event: "They can't get
X   the fix I've been asking for into the next release, so I'm going to
X   sleep on it until the release, then start hassling them again."
X
Xslim: n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).
X
Xslop: n. 1. A one-sided {fudge factor}, that is, an allowance
X   for error but only in one of two directions.  For example, if you
X   need a piece of wire ten feet long and have to guess when you cut
X   it, you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if
X   necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you
X   can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on again.
X   When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to
X   avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a {fencepost
X   error}.  2. The percentage of `extra' code code generated by a
SHAR_EOF
true || echo 'restore of jargon.ascii failed'
fi
echo 'End of part 14, continue with part 15'
echo 15 > _shar_seq_.tmp
exit 0