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CUSPY (kuhs'pee) [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System
   Program, i.e., a utility program used by many people] [WPI] adj. 1.
   (of a program) Well-written.  2. Functionally excellent.  A program
   which performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.  See
   RUDE.

CYBERPUNK (sie'ber-puhnk) [orig. by SF critic Gardner Dozois] n.,adj.
   A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making
   novel _Neuromancer_. Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and
   the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the
   role of computers and hackers in futures in ways hackers have since
   found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating.
   Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
   but innovative ``Max Headroom'' TV series. See CYBERSPACE, ICE, GO
   FLATLINE.

CYBERSPACE (sie'ber-spays) n. Notional ``information-space'' loaded
   with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces
   called ``cyberspace decks''; a characteristic prop of CYBERPUNK SF.
   At time of writing (1990) serious efforts to construct VIRTUAL
   REALITY interfaces modelled explicitly on CYBERSPACE are already
   under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors
   and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to outright
   deny the possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of THE
   NETWORK.

            = D =

DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of ``demon'', which has
   slightly different connotations (q.v.)] n. A program which is not
   invoked explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some
   condition(s) to occur.  The idea is that the perpetrator of the
   condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though often
   a program will commit an action only because it knows that it will
   implicitly invoke a daemon).  For example, writing a file on the
   lpt spooler's directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which
   prints the file.  The advantage is that programs which want (in
   this example) files printed need not compete for access to the lpt.
   They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide
   what to do with them.  Daemons are usually spawned automatically by
   the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at
   intervals.  Usage: DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used
   interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations.  DAEMON
   was introduced to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it
   dee'mon) and used it to refer to what is now called a DRAGON or
   PHANTOM (q.v.).  The meaning and pronunciation have drifted, and we
   think this glossary reflects current usage.

DAY MODE n. See PHASE (of people).

DD (dee-dee) [from archaic UNIX dd(1)] v. Equivalent to CAT or BLT.
   Very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly obsolescent even there,
   as dd(1) has been DEPRECATED for a long time. Replaced by BLT or
   simple English `copy'.

DEADLOCK n. A situation wherein two or more processes are unable to
   proceed because each is waiting for another to do something.  A
   common example is a program communicating to a PTY or STY, which
   may find itself waiting for output from the PTY/STY before sending
   anything more to it, while the PTY/STY is similarly waiting for
   more input from the controlling program before outputting anything.
   (This particular flavor of deadlock is called ``starvation''.
   Another common flavor is ``constipation'', where each process is
   trying to send stuff to the other, but all buffers are full because
   nobody is reading anything.)  See DEADLY EMBRACE, RACE CONDITION.

DEADLY EMBRACE n. Same as DEADLOCK (q.v.), though usually used only
   when exactly two processes are involved.  DEADLY EMBRACE is the
   more popular term in Europe; DEADLOCK in the United States.

DEATH STAR [from the movie _Star_Wars_] The AT&T corporate logo, which
   appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny resemblence
   to the ``Death Star'' in the movie. This usage is particularly
   common among partisans of BSD UNIX, who tend to regard the AT&T
   versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy.

DEFENESTRATION [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of
   assassinating prime ministers, via ESR and SF fandom] n. Proper
   karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. ``Oh, ghod, that
   was *awful*!'' ``Quick! Defenestrate him!''  See also H INFIX.

DEFINED AS adj. Currently in the role of, usually in an
   off-the-organization-chart sense.  ``Pete is currently defined as
   bug prioritizer''.  From the C language MACRO feature.

DEEP SPACE adj. 1. Describes the ``location'' of any program which has
   gone OFF THE TROLLEY. Esp. used of programs which just sit there
   silently grinding long after either failure or some output is
   expected. 2. The metaphorical ``location'' of a human so dazed
   and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form of BOGOSITY that
   he/she no longer responds coherently to normal communication.
   Compare PAGE OUT.

DEMENTED adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a program.
   The connotation in this case is that the program works as designed,
   but the design is bad.  For example, a program that generates large
   numbers of meaningless error messages implying it is on the point
   of imminent collapse.

DEMIGOD n. Hacker with years of experience, a national reputation, and
   a major role in the development of at least one design, tool or
   game used by or known to more than 50% of the hacker community. To
   qualify as a genuine demigod, the person must recognizably identify
   with the hacker community and have helped shape it. Major demigods
   include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (co-inventors of UNIX and
   C) and Richard M. Stallman (inventor of EMACS). In their hearts of
   hearts most hackers dream of someday becoming demigods themselves,
   and more than one major software project has been driven to
   completion by the author's veiled hopes of apotheosis. See also
   NET.GOD, TRUE-HACKER.

DEMON n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program which is not invoked
   explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
   occur.  See DAEMON.  The distinction is that demons are usually
   processes within a program, while daemons are usually programs
   running on an operating system.  Demons are particularly common in
   AI programs.  For example, a knowledge manipulation program might
   implement inference rules as demons.  Whenever a new piece of
   knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demons
   depends on the particular piece of data) and would create
   additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective
   inference rules to the original piece.  These new pieces could in
   turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through
   chains of logic.  Meanwhile the main program could continue with
   whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used
   equivalently to DAEMON, especially in the UNIX world where the
   latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic.

DEPRECATED n. Said of a program or feature that is considered
   obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in
   favor of a specified replacement. Deprecated features can,
   unfortunately, linger on for many years.

DE-REZZ (dee rez) [from the movie TRON] v. To disappear or dissolve;
   the image that goes with it is of an object breaking up into raster
   lines and static and then dissolving. Occasionally used of a person
   who seems to have suddenly ``fuzzed out'' mentally rather than
   physically. Usage: extremely silly, also rare. This verb was
   actually invented as *fictional* hacker slang, and adopted in a
   spirit of irony by real hackers years after the fact.

DEVO (dee'vo) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A person in a
   development group.  See also DOCO and MANGO.

DICKLESS WORKSTATION n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for ``diskless
   workstation'', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50 and other
   machines designed exclusively to network with an expensive central
   disk server. These combine all the disadvantages of time-sharing
   with all the disadvantages of distributed personal computers.

DIDDLE v. To work with in a not particularly serious manner.  ``I
   diddled a copy of ADVENT so it didn't double-space all the time.''
   ``Let's diddle this piece of code and see if the problem goes
   away.''  See TWEAK and TWIDDLE.

DIFFS n. 1. Differences, especially difference in source code or
   documents. Includes additions. ``Send me your diffs for the jargon
   file!'' 2. (often in the singular DIFF) the output from the diff(1)
   utility, esp. when used as specification input to the patch(1)
   utility (which can actually perform the mods). This is a common
   method of distributing patches and source updates in the UNIX/C
   world.

DIKE [from ``diagonal cutters''] v. To remove a module or disable it.
   ``When in doubt, dike it out.''

DING (ding) n.,v. Synonym for FEEP (q.v.). Usage: rare among hackers,
   but commoner in THE REAL WORLD.

DINOSAUR n. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special power.
   Used especially of old minis and mainframes when contrasted with
   newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famous quote from the '88
   UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in the massive IBM
   display with a grazing dinosaur, ``with a truck outside pumping its
   bodily fluids through it''. IBM was not amused.  Compare BIG IRON.

DINOSAUR PEN n. A traditional mainframe computer room complete with
   raised flooring, special power, its own ultra-heavy-duty air
   conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire extinguishers. See
   BOA.

DISCORDIANISM (dis-kor'di-uhn-ism) n. The veneration of ERIS, aka
   Discordia; widely popular among hackers.  Popularized by Robert
   Anton Wilson's _Illuminatus!_ trilogy as a sort of self-subverting
   dada-Zen for Westerners -- it should on no account be taken
   seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Usually
   connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving
   millenia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of
   Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the
   Illuminati. See Appendix C and HA HA ONLY SERIOUS.

DISPLAY HACK n. A program with the same approximate purpose as a
   kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous display hacks include
   MUNCHING SQUARES, SMOKING CLOVER, the BSD UNIX rain(6) program,
   worms(6) on miscellaneous UNIXes, and the X kaleid program.

DOCO (do'ko) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A documentation
   writer.  See also DEVO and MANGO.

DO PROTOCOL [from network protocol programming] v.  To perform an
   interaction with somebody or something that follows a clearly
   defined procedure.  For example, ``Let's do protocol with the
   check'' at a restaurant means to ask the waitress for the check,
   calculate the tip and everybody's share, generate change as
   necessary, and pay the bill.

DOGWASH [From a quip in the ``urgency'' field of a very optional
   software change request, about 1982.  It was something like,
   ``Urgency: Wash your dog first.''] v.,n. A project of minimal
   priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work.  Also, to
   engage in such a project. Many games and much FREEWARE gets written
   this way.

DON'T DO THAT, THEN interj. Stock response to a user complaint.
   ``When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a halt for
   thirty seconds.''  ``Don't do that, then.'' Compare RTFM.

DONGLE (don-gl) n. 1. A security device for commercial microcomputer
   programs consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in an
   RS-232 connector shell. Programs that use a dongle query the port
   at startup and programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it
   does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code.
   Thus, users could make as many copies of the program as they want
   but must pay for each dongle. The idea was clever but initially a
   failure, as users disliked tying up a serial port this way.  Most
   dongles on the market today (1990) will pass through the port, and
   monitor for ``magic codes'' (and combinations of status lines) with
   minimal if any interference with devices further down the line
   (this innovation was necessary to allow daisy chained dongles for
   multiple pieces of software). The devices are still not widely
   used, as the industry has trended away from copy-protection schemes
   in general. 2. By extension, any physical electronic key or
   transferable ID required for a program to function. See
   DONGLE-DISK.

DONGLE-DISK (don'g@l disk) n. See DONGLE; a DONGLE-DISK is a floppy
   disk with some coding which allows an application to identify it
   uniquely. It can therefore be used as a DONGLE. Also called a ``key
   disk''.

DOORSTOP n. Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and
   halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolescent equipment
   kept around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup.
   ``When we get another Wyse-50 in here that ADM3 will turn into a
   doorstop.'' Compare BOAT ANCHOR.

DOT FILE [UNIX] n. A file that is not visible to normal
   directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named beginning with a dot
   are invisible).

DOWN 1. adj. Not working.  ``The up escalator is down.''  2.  TAKE
   DOWN, BRING DOWN: v. To deactivate, usually for repair work.  See
   UP.

DOWNLOAD v. To transfer data or (esp.) code from a larger `host'
   system (esp. a mainframe) over a digital comm link to a smaller
   `client' system, esp. a microcomputer or specialized peripheral
   device. Oppose UPLOAD.

DRAGON n. [MIT] A program similar to a ``daemon'' (q.v.), except that
   it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to
   perform various secondary tasks.  A typical example would be an
   accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in,
   accumulates load-average statistics, etc.  Under ITS, many
   terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they are,
   what they're running, etc. along with some random picture (such as
   a unicorn, Snoopy, or the Enterprise) which is generated by the
   ``NAME DRAGON''.  See PHANTOM.  Usage: rare outside MIT -- under
   UNIX and most other OSs this would be called a `background DEMON'
   or `DAEMON' (q.v).

DRAGON BOOK, THE n. Aho, Sethi and Ullman's classic compilers text
   _Principles_Of_Compiler_Design_, so called because of the cover
   design depicting a knight slaying a dragon labelled ``compiler
   complexity''.

DRAIN [IBM] v. Syn. for FLUSH (sense 4).

DRECNET (drek'net) [fr. Yiddish `dreck'] n. Deliberate distortion of
   DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So-called
   because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification, and then
   (either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic)
   violated that spec in the design of DRECNET (among other things,
   they implemented the wrong HEARTBEAT speed).

DROOL-PROOF PAPER n. Documentation which has been obsessively dumbed
   down, to the point where only a CRETIN could bear to read it, is
   said to have succumbed to the ``drool-proof paper syndrome'' or to
   have been ``written on drool-proof paper''.

DROP ON THE FLOOR vt. To discard silently.  Example: ``The gateway ran
   out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor.''
   Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that
   lose messages.

DRUGGED adj., also ON DRUGS. Conspicuously stupid, heading towards
   BRAIN DAMAGE. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a joint.

DRUNK MOUSE SYNDROME n.  A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing
   device of some workstations.  The typical symptom is for the mouse
   cursor on the screen to move to random directions and not in sync
   with the moving of the actual mouse.  Can usually be corrected by
   unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again.

DUSTY DECKS [a holdover from card-punch days] n. Old software
   (especially applications) with which one is obliged to remain
   compatible. Used esp. when referring to old scientific and
   number-crunching software, much of which was written in FORTRAN and
   very poorly documented but would be too expensive to replace.  See
   FOSSIL.

DWIM (dwim) [Do What I Mean] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes even
   correctly, what result was intended when provided with bogus input.
   Often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex program.
   A related term, more often seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right
   Thing).  2. n. The INTERLISP function that attempts to accomplish
   this feat by correcting many of the more common errors.  See HAIRY.

            = E =

EASTER EGG n. 1. A message hidden in the object code of a program as a
   joke, intended to be found by persons disassembling or browsing the
   code. 2. A message, graphic, or sound-effect emitted by a program
   (or, on a PC, the BIOS ROM) in response to some undocumented set of
   commands or keystrokes, intended as a joke or to display program
   credits. One well-known early easter egg found in a couple of OSs
   and TECO caused them to respond to the command `make love' with
   `not war?'. Many personal computers (other than the IBM PC) have
   much more elaborate eggs hidden in ROM, including lists of the
   developers' names, political exhortations, snatches of music, and
   (in one case) graphics images of the entire development team.

EASTER EGGING [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated parts more or
   less at random in hopes that a malfunction will go away. Hackers
   consider this the normal operating mode of FIELD CIRCUS techs and
   do not love them for it.

EARTHQUAKE [IBM] n. The ultimate REAL WORLD shock test for computer
   hardware. Hacker sources at IBM deny the rumor that the Bay Area
   quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test QA at its
   California plants.

EIGHTY-COLUMN MIND [IBM] n. The sort said to be employed by persons
   for whom the transition from card to tape was traumatic (nobody has
   dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people will
   be buried `9-EDGE-FORWARD-FACE-DOWN'. [These people are thought by
   most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base, and its thinking --
   ESR.]

ELEGANT [from mathematical usage] adj. Combining simplicity, power,
   and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than
   `clever', `winning' or even CUSPY.

ELEPHANTINE adj. Used of programs or systems which are both
   conspicuous HOGs (due perhaps to poor design founded on BRUTE FORCE
   AND IGNORANCE) and exceedingly HAIRY in source form. An elephantine
   program may be functional and even friendly, but (like the old joke
   about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to have around all
   the same, esp. a bitch to maintain. In extreme cases, hackers have
   been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform expressive
   zoomorphic mime at the mention of the offending program.  Usage:
   semi-humorous. Compare ``has the elephant nature'' and the somewhat
   more pejorative MONSTROSITY. See also SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME.

EMACS (ee'maks) [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of hacker
   editors, a program editor with an entire LISP interpreter inside
   it.  Originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO at the MIT-AI
   lab, but the most widely used versions now run under UNIX.  It
   includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and
   receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time
   inside it.

EMAIL (ee-mayl) v.,n. Electronic mail. Contrast SNAIL-MAIL.

EMOTICON (ee-moh'ti-cahn) n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an
   emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but
   only a few are in common use. These include:

   :-)   Smiley face (indicates laughter)
   :-(   Frowney face (indicates sadness, anger or upset)
   ;-)   Half-smiley (ha ha only serious), aka winkey face.
   :-/   Wry face

   Of these, the first two are by far the most frequently encountered.
   Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie and BIX;
   see also BIXIE.  On USENET, ``smiley'' is often used as a generic
   (synonym for emoticon) as well as specifically for the happy-face
   emoticon.

EMPIRE n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game
   written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are 5 or 6
   multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, and one
   single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS which is
   even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive.

EOF (ee-oh-ef) [UNIX/C] n. End Of File. 1. Refers esp. to whatever
   pseudo-character value is returned by C's sequential input
   functions (and their equivalents in other environments) when the
   logical end of file has been reached (this was 0 under V6 UNIX, is
   -1 under V7 and all subsequent versions and all non-UNIX C library
   implementations). 2. Used by extension in non-computer contexts
   when a human is doing something that can be modelled as a
   sequential read and can't go further. ``Yeah, I looked for a list
   of 360 mnemonics to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast, all
   the library had was a JCL manual.''

EPOCH, THE [UNIX] n. Syn. for ERA.

EPSILON [from standard mathematical notation for a small quantity] 1.
   n. A small quantity of anything.  ``The cost is epsilon.''  2. adj.
   Very small, negligible; less than marginal.  ``We can get this
   feature for epsilon cost.''  3. WITHIN EPSILON OF: Close enough to
   be indistinguishable for all practical purposes.

ERA, THE [from UNIX] n. The time and date corresponding to zero in an
   operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under most UNIX
   versions, midnight of January 1st 1970. System time is measured in
   TICKS past the era. Syn. with EPOCH. See TICKS, WALL TIME.

ERIC CONSPIRACY n. Notional group of mustachioed hackers named Eric
   first pinpointed as a sinister conspiracy by an infamous
   talk.bizarre posting c. 1986; this was doubtless influenced by the
   numerous `Eric' jokes in the Monty Python oeuvre. There do indeed
   seem to be considerably more mustachioed hacker-Erics than the
   frequency of these three traits can account for unless they are
   correlated in some arcane way. Well known examples include your
   editor [ESR], Eric Allman of BSD fame, and Erik Fair (coauthor of
   NNTP); your editor has heard from about fourteen others by email.

ERIS (e'r@s) pn. The Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion
   and Things You Know Not Of; aka Discordia. Not a very friendly
   deity in the Classical original, she was re-invented as a more
   benign personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the
   adherents of DISCORDIANISM and has since been a semi-serious
   subject of veneration in several `fringe' cultures including
   hackerdom.  See DISCORDIANISM, CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS.

ESSENTIALS n. Things necessary to maintain a productive and secure
   hacking environment. ``A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a
   20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte disk
   supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP
   to a friendly Internet site, and thou.''

EVIL adj. As used by hackers, implies that some system, program,
   person or institution is sufficiently mal-designed as to be not
   worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the
   CRETINOUS/LOSING/BRAIN-DAMAGED series, EVIL does not imply
   incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design
   criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This is more an
   esthetic and engineering judgement than a moral one in the
   mainstream sense. ``We thought about adding an SNA interface but
   decided it was too evil to deal with.'' ``TECO is neat, but it can
   be pretty evil if you're prone to typos.''

EXCL (eks'kl) n. Abbreviation for ``exclamation point''.  See BANG,
   SHRIEK, WOW.

EXE (ex'ee) An executable binary file. Some operating systems use the
   extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage is also found among
   UNIX programmers even though UNIX executables don't have any
   required extension.

EXEC (eg'zek) [shortened from ``executive'' or ``execute''] v.,n. 1.
   [UNIX] Synonym for CHAIN, derives from the exec(2) call. 2. (obs)
   The command interpreter for an OS (see SHELL); term esp. used on
   mainframes, and prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC
   8 operating systems.
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Subject: Jargon file v2.1.5 28 NOV 1990 -- part 3 of 6
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            = F =

FALL OVER [IBM] v. Yet another synonym for CRASH or LOSE.  `Fall over
   hard' equates to CRASH AND BURN.

FANDANGO ON CORE [UNIX/C hackers, from the Mexican dance] n. In C, a
   wild pointer that runs out of bounds causing a CORE DUMP, or
   corrupts the malloc(3) ARENA in such a way as to cause mysterious
   failures later on, is sometimes said to have `done a fandango on
   core'. On low-end personal machines without an MMU this can corrupt
   the OS itself, causing massive lossage. Other third-world dances
   such as the rhumba, cha-cha or watusi may be substituted. See
   ALIASING BUG, PRECEDENCE LOSSAGE, SMASH THE STACK, MEMORY LEAK,
   OVERRUN SCREW.

FASCISTIC adj. Said of a computer system with excessive or annoying
   security barriers, usage limits or access policies. The implication
   is that said policies are preventing hackers from getting
   interesting work done.

FAULTY adj. Same denotation as ``bagbiting'', ``bletcherous'',
   ``losing'', q.v., but the connotation is much milder.

FD LEAK (ef dee leek) n. A kind of programming bug analogous to a CORE
   LEAK, in which a program fails to close file descriptors (``fd''s)
   after file operations are completed, and thus eventually runs out.
   See LEAK.

FEAR AND LOATHING [from Hunter Thompson] n. State inspired by the
   prospect of dealing with certain REAL WORLD systems and standards
   which are totally BRAIN DAMAGED but ubiquitous -- Intel 8086s, or
   COBOL, or any IBM machine except the Rios (aka the RS/6000). ``Ack.
   They want PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and
   loathing time!'' See also IBM.

FEATURE n. 1. A surprising property of a program.  Occasionally
   documented.  To call a property a feature sometimes means the
   author of the program did not consider the particular case, and the
   program makes an unexpected, although not strictly speaking an
   incorrect response.  See BUG.  ``That's not a bug, that's a
   feature!''  A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it.
   2. A well-known and beloved property; a facility.  Sometimes
   features are planned, but are called crocks by others.

FEATURECTOMY (fee`ch@r-ek'to-mee) n. The act of removing a feature
   from a program.  Featurectomies generally come in two varieties,
   the RIGHTEOUS and the RELUCTANT. Righteous featurectomies are
   performed because the remover believes the program would be more
   elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and
   ``better'' way to achieve the same end.  (This is not quite the
   same thing as removing a MISFEATURE.)  Reluctant featurectomies are
   performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or
   execution speed.

FEEP (feep) 1. n. The soft bell of a display terminal (except for a
   VT-52!); a beep.  2. v. To cause the display to make a feep sound.
   TTY's do not have feeps.  Alternate forms: BEEP, BLEEP, or just
   about anything suitably onomatopoeic.  The term BREEDLE was
   sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal bleepers are not
   particularly ``soft'' (they sound more like the musical equivalent
   of sticking out one's tongue).  The ``feeper'' on a VT-52 has been
   compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears. See also
   DING.

FEEPING CREATURITIS (fee'ping kree`ch@r-ie'tis) n. Deliberate
   spoonerization of CREEPING FEATURITIS, meant to imply that the
   system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of
   hacks.

FENCEPOST ERROR n. 1. The discrete equivalent of a boundary condition.
   Often exhibited in programs by iterative loops.  From the following
   problem: ``If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts ten feet
   apart, how many posts do you need?''  (Either 9 or 11 is a better
   answer than the obvious 10.)  2.  Occasionally, an error induced by
   unexpectedly regular spacing of inputs, which can (for instance)
   screw up your hash table. See also OFF-BY-ONE ERROR.

FIELD CIRCUS n.  The field service organization of any hardware
   manufacturer, but especially DEC.  There is an entire genre of
   jokes about DEC field circus engineers:

    Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer with a flat
        tire?
    A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.

    Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer who is out
        of gas?
    A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat.

FILK (filk) [from SF fandom, where a typo for ``folk'' was adopted as
   a new word] n.,v. A ``filk'' is a popular or folk song with lyrics
   revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when
   read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a
   flourishing subgenre of these called ``computer filks'', written by
   hackers and often containing technical humor of quite sophisticated
   nature.

FILM AT 11 [MIT, in parody of TV newscasters], interj.  Used in
   conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic
   implication that these events are earth-shattering. This is hard to
   describe.  Examples: ``ITS crashes; film at 11.'' ``Bug found in
   scheduler; film at 11.''

FILTER [orig. UNIX, now also in MS-DOS] n. A program which processes
   an input text stream into an output text stream in some
   well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly
   on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a
   PIPELINE (q.v.).

FINE [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be CUSPY.  [The word FINE
   is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison
   to the higher level implied by CUSPY.]

FINGER [BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a particular user or
   all users logged on the system or a remote system.  Typically shows
   full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line and terminal
   location. May also display a ``plan file'' left by the user. 2. v.
   To apply finger to a username. 3. v. By extension, to check a
   human's current state by any means.  ``Foodp?''  ``T!''  ``OK,
   finger Lisa and see if she's idle''.

FIREBOTTLE n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical
   device, similar to an FET constructed out of glass, metal, and
   vacuum.  Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability,
   high-temperature operation, and high power dissipation.  Sometimes
   mistakenly called a ``tube'' in the U.S. or a ``valve'' in England.

FIREWALL MACHINE n. A dedicated gateway machine with special security
   precautions on it, used to service outside network/mail/news
   connections and/or accept remote logins for (read only)
   shared-file-system access via FTP. The idea is to protect a cluster
   of more loosely administered machines `hidden' behind it from
   crackers. The typical `firewall' is an inexpensive micro-based UNIX
   box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and public
   network ports on it but just one carefully watched connection back
   to the rest of the cluster. The special precautions may include
   threat monitoring, callback, and even a complete IRON BOX keyable
   to particular incoming IDs or activity patterns. Syn.  FLYTRAP,
   VENUS FLYTRAP.

FIRMWARE n. Software installed into a computer-based piece of
   equipment on ROM. So-called because it's harder to change than
   software but easier than hardware.

FLAG DAY [from a bit of Multics history involving a change in the
   ASCII character set originally scheduled for June 14, 1966] n. A
   software change which is neither forward nor backward compatible,
   and which is costly to make and costly to revert.  ``Can we install
   that without causing a flag day for all users?''

FLAKEY adj. Subject to frequent lossages.  See LOSSAGE.

FLAMAGE (flay'm@j) n. High-noise, low-signal postings to USENET or
   other electronic fora. Often in the phrase ``the usual flamage''.

FLAME 1. v. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively
   uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude.  2.
   To post an email message intended to insult and provoke.  FLAME ON:
   v. To continue to flame.  See RAVE, BURBLE.  The punning reference
   to Marvel comics' Human Torch has been lost as recent usage
   completes the circle: ``Flame on'' now usually means ``beginning of
   flame''.

FLAME WAR n. Acrimonious dispute, especially when conducted on a
   public electronic forum such as USENET.

FLAMER v. One who habitually flames others. Said of obnoxious USENET
   personalities.

FLAP v. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap, flap...).  Old
   hackers at MIT tell of the days when the disk was device 0 and
   microtapes were 1, 2,... and attempting to flap device 0 would
   instead start a motor banging inside a cabinet near the disk!

FLAVOR n. 1. Variety, type, kind.  ``DDT commands come in two
   flavors.''  2. The attribute of causing something to be FLAVORFUL.
   ``This convention yields additional flavor by allowing one to...''
   See VANILLA.

FLAVORFUL adj. Aesthetically pleasing.  See RANDOM and LOSING for
   antonyms.  See also the entries for TASTE and ELEGANT.

FLIPPY (flip'ee) n. A single-side floppy disk altered for double-sided
   use by addition of a second write-notch, so called because it must
   be flipped over for the second side to be accessible. No longer
   common.

FLUSH v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous.  ``All that
   nonsense has been flushed.''  Standard ITS terminology for aborting
   an output operation.  2. To leave at the end of a day's work (as
   opposed to leaving for a meal).  ``I'm going to flush now.''
   ``Time to flush.''  3. To exclude someone from an activity.  4.
   [UNIX/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an fflush(3) call.
   UNIX hackers find the ITS usage confusing and vice versa.

FLYTRAP n. See FIREWALL.

FOO (foo) 1. [from Yiddish ``feh'' or the Anglo-Saxon ``fooey!'']
   interj.  Term of disgust.  2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All
   Recognition), from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for
   temporary programs, or samples of three-letter names.  Other
   similar words are BAR, BAZ (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely
   RAG.  These have been used in Pogo as well.  3. Used very generally
   as a sample name for absolutely anything.  The old `Smokey Stover'
   comic strips often included the word FOO, in particular on license
   plates of cars.  4. First on the standard list of metasyntactic
   variables used in syntax examples. See also: BAR, BAZ, QUX, QUUX,
   QUUUX, CORGE, GRAULT, GARPLY, WALDO, FRED, PLUGH, XYZZY.  MOBY FOO:
   See MOBY.  [It is possible that hacker usage of FOO actually
   springs from the title ``FOO, Lampoons and Parody'' of a comic book
   first issued in September 1958; the byline read ``C. Crumb'' but my
   source believes this was a sort-of pseudonym for noted weird-comix
   artist Robert Crumb.  The title FOO was featured in large letters
   on the front cover -- ESR]

FOOL n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who
   habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect
   premises and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise by evidence; it is
   not generally used in its other senses, i.e. to describe a person
   with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown.  Indeed,
   in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too
   effectively in executing their errors. See also CRETIN, LOSER.

FOOTPRINT n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of
   hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed
   program (often in plural, `footprints').

FOREGROUND [UNIX] adj.v. On a time-sharing system, a task executing in
   foreground is one running at normal priority and able to accept
   input from and return output to the user; oppose BACKGROUND. There
   may be only one forground task per terminal (or terminal window).
   By extension, ``to foreground'' a task is to bring it to the top of
   one's PDL or STACK for immediate processing, and in this sense
   hackers often use it for non-computer tasks.

FORTUNE COOKIE [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke or maxim
   printed to the user's tty at login time or (more rarely) at logout
   time. Items from this jargon file have often been used as fortune
   cookies.

FOSSIL n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable
   only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so
   as not to break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as