Xref: utzoo alt.folklore.computers:8407 comp.unix.internals:1716 comp.misc:11050
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!uunet!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.internals,comp.misc
Subject: The Jargon File v2.3.1 03 JAN 1991, part 6 of 11
Message-ID: <1Z0vWR#2BxD323SpYmJ9WLQ9c2RsOfL=eric@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: 3 Jan 91 21:05:15 GMT
Lines: 1030

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X   equally well, but the one with the hooks is much more flexible for
X   future expansion of capabilities.
X
X<home box> n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he owns.
X   "Yeah?  Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2BSD, so there!"
X
X<hose> 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in
X   performance, as in "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the
X   system."  See <hosed>.  2. n. A narrow channel through which data
X   flows under pressure.  Generally denotes data paths in a system
X   that represent performance bottlenecks.  3.  Cabling, especially
X   thick Ethernet cable.  This is sometimes called "bit hose" or
X   "hosery" (play on "hosiery") or "etherhose".  See also
X   <washing machine>.
X
X<hosed> adj. Same as <down>.  Used primarily by UNIX hackers.
X   Humorous: also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to
X   reverse.  Probably derived from the Canadian slang `hoser'
X   popularized by the Bob and Doug skits on SCTV. See <hose>.
X
X   There is a story that a Cray which had been experiencing periodic
X   difficulties once crashed, and it was announced to have been
X   <hosed>.  It was discovered that the crash was due to the
X   disconnection of some coolant hoses.  The problem was corrected, and
X   users were then assured that everything was OK because the system
X   had been rehosed.  [This is an excellent example of hackish
X   wordplay --- ESR].
X
X<hot spot> n. 1. [primarily C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] n.  In
X   most programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the execution
X   time; if one were to graph instruction visits versus code
X   addresses, one would typically see a few huge spikes amidst a lot
X   of low-level noise.  Such spikes are called "hot spots" and are
X   good candidates for micro-optimization or <hand-hacking>.  The term
X   is especially used of tight loops and recursions in the code's
X   central algorithm, as opposed to (say) initial set-up costs or
X   large but infrequent I/O operations.  See <tune>, <bum>,
X   <hand-hacking>.  2. The active location of a cursor on a bit-map
X   display.  "Put the mouse's hot spot on the `ON' widget and click
X   the left button."
X
X<house wizard> [prob. from ad-agency lingo, cf. `house freak'] n. A
X   lone hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D or systems
X   position at a commercial shop.  A really effective house wizard can
X   have influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and
X   still not have to wear a suit.  Used esp. of UNIX experts.  The
X   term <house guru> is equivalent.
X
X<HP-SUX> /aych pee suhx/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX,
X   Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port.  Features some truly unique bogosities
X   in the filesystem internals and elsewhere that occasionally create
X   portability problems.  HP-UX is often referred to as "hockey-pux"
X   inside HP, and one outside correspondent claims that the proper
X   pronunciation is /aych-pee ukkkhhhh/ as though one were spitting.
X   See also <Telerat>, <sun-stools>, <terminak>.
X
X<humma> excl. A filler word used on various "chat" and "talk"
X   programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was important
X   to say something.  The word apparently originated (at least with
X   this definition) on the MECC Timeshare System (MTS) a now-defunct
X   educational time-sharing system running in Minnesota during the
X   1970s and early '80s, but was later sighted on early UNIX systems.
X
X<humongous> /hyoo-mohng'gus/ alt. <humingous> (hyoo-muhng'gus) See
X   <hungus>.
X
X<HUMOR, HACKER> n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor
X   found among hackers, having the following marked characteristics:
X
X   1) Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
X   having to do with confusion of metalevels (see <meta>). One way to
X   make a hacker laugh: hold an index card in front of him/her with
X   "THIS IS GREEN" written on it in bold red ink, or vice-versa
X   (note, however, that this is only funny the first time).
X
X   2) Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs such
X   as specifications (see <write-only memory>), standards documents,
X   language descriptions (see <INTERCAL>) and even entire scientific
X   theories (see <quantum bogodynamics>, <computron>).
X
X   3) Jokes which involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
X   ludicrous or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
X
X   4) Fascination with puns and wordplay.
X
X   5) A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive
X   currents of intelligence in it, for example: old Warner Brothers
X   and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, Charlie Chaplin movies, the B-52s,
X   and Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Humor which combines this trait
X   with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favored.
X
X   6) References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas
X   in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism.  See <has the x nature>,
X   <Discordianism>, <zen>, <ha ha only serious>, <AI koans>.
X
X   See also <filk>; <retrocomputing>; and Appendix B.  If you have an
X   itchy feeling that all six of these traits are really aspects of
X   one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
X   are a) correct and b) responding like a hacker.  These traits are
X   also recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout
X   <SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM>.
X
X<hung> [from "hung up"] adj. Equivalent to <wedged>, q.v. but more
X   common at UNIX/C sites.  Not generally used of people.  Syn. with
X   <locked up>, <wedged>; compare <hosed>.  See also <hang>.
X
X<hungus> /hung'g@s/ [perhaps related to current slang "humongous";
X   which one came first (if either) is unclear] adj. Large, unwieldy,
X   usually unmanageable.  "TCP is a hungus piece of code."  "This
X   is a hungus set of modifications."
X
X<hyperspace> (hie'per-spays) n. A memory location within a virtual
X   memory machine that is many, many megabytes (or gigabytes) away
X   from where the program counter should be pointing, usually
X   inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. "Another core
X   dump... looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace somehow."
X   This usage is from the SF notion of a spaceship "jumping into
X   hyperspace", that is, taking a shortcut through higher-dimensional
X   space --- in other words, leaving this universe.
X
X                                {= I =}
X
X<IBM> /ie bee em/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually;
X   Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel
X   Movement; and a near-<infinite> number of even less complimentary
X   expansions, including "International Business Machines". See
X   <TLA>.  These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy
X   most hackers have long felt for the "industry leader" (see <fear
X   and loathing>).  What galls hackers about most IBM machines above
X   the PC level isn't so much that they're underpowered and overpriced
X   (though that counts against them) but that the designs are
X   incredibly archaic, crufty and <elephantine> and you can't
X   *fix* them --- source code is locked up tight and programming
X   tools are expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once
X   you've found them.  With the release of the UNIX-based RIOS family
X   this may have begun to change --- but then, we thought that when
X   the PC-RT came out, too.  In the spirit of universal peace and
X   brotherhood, this lexicon now includes a number of entries marked
X   `IBM'; these derive from a rampantly unofficial jargon list
X   circulated among IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground.
X
X<ice> [from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF: notionally, "Intrusion
X   Countermeasure Electronics"] Security software (in Gibson's
X   original, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to
X   literally kill the intruder).  Also, <icebreaker>: a program
X   designed for cracking security on a system.  Neither term is in
X   serious use yet as of 1990, but many hackers find the metaphor
X   attractive and they may be in the near future.
X
X<ill-behaved> adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or
X   computational method that tends to blow up due to accumulated
X   roundoff error or poor convergence properties.  2. Software which
X   bypasses the defined <OS> interfaces to do things (like screen,
X   keyboard and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the
X   hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or
X   incompatible with other pieces of software.  In the IBM PC/MS-DOS
X   world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that
X   (due to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS
X   interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved.  Oppose
X   <well-behaved>, compare <PC-ism>.  See <mess-dos>.
X
X<IMHO> [from SF fandom via USENET] Written acronym for In My Humble
X   Opinion.  Example: "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as
X   mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect
X   errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."  Also seen in
X   variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO
X   (In My Arrogant Opinion).
X
X<in the extreme> adj. A preferred emphasizing suffix for many hackish
X   terms. See for example <obscure in the extreme> under <obscure>,
X   and compare <highly>.
X
X<incantation> n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that
X   must be muttered at a system to attain a desired result.  Not used
X   of passwords or other explicit security features.  Especially used
X   of tricks that are so poorly documented they must be learned from a
X   <wizard>.  E.g. "This compiler normally locates initialized data
X   in the data segment, but if you mutter the right incantation they
X   will be forced into text space". See <mutter>.
X
X<include> v. [USENET] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of
X   another's message (typically with attribution to the source) in a
X   reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.
X   2. A directive; to explicitly command the preprocessor to include a
X   file.  3. Derived from C: #include <disclaimer.h> has appeared in
X   <sig block>s to denote a `standard' dislaimer file.
X
X<include war> n. Excessive multi-leveled including within a discussion
X   thread (ie of the same subject), to annoy readers.  In a forum such
X   as USENET, with high traffic newsgroups, this can lead to <flame>s
X   and the urge to start a <kill file>.
X
X<infinite> adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.
X   Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite
X   garbage."  "He is an infinite loser."  This is an abuse of the
X   word's mathematical meaning.  The term "semi-infinite" denoting
X   an immoderately large amount of some resource is also heard.
X   "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite amount of time to
X   optimize my program".  See also <semi->.
X
X<infinity> n. 1. The largest value that can be represented in a
X   particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type,
X   whatever).  2. <minus infinity> The smallest such value.  Note that
X   this is different from <time t equals minus infinity>, which is
X   closer to a mathematician's usage of infinity.
X
X<infant mortality> n. It is common lore among hackers that the chances
X   of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's
X   time since power-up (that is until the relatively distant time at
X   which mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in
X   components has accumulated enough for the machine to start going
X   senile). Up to half of all chip-and-wire failures happen within a
X   new system's first few weeks; such failures are often referred to
X   as "infant mortality" problems (or, occasionally, as "sudden
X   infant death syndrome").
X
X<insanely great> adj. [Mac Community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD UNIX
X   people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly <elegant> that it is
X   imaginable only to someone possessing the greatest of
X   <hacker>-natures.
X
X<INTERCAL> /in't@r-kal/ [said by the authors to stand for "Compiler
X   Language With No Pronounceable Acronym"] n. A computer language
X   designed by Don Woods and James Lyon in 1972. INTERCAL is purposely
X   different from all other computer languages in all ways but one; it
X   is purely a written language, being totally unspeakable.  An
X   excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference Manual will make the style of
X   the language clear.  In most languages, if you wanted the variable
X   A to have the value 65536, you would write something like
X
X     LET A = 65536;
X
X   The INTERCAL Reference Manual, however, explains that "It is a
X   well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose work is
X   incomprehensible is held in high esteem.  For example, if one were
X   to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536 in a
X   32-bit INTERCAL variable is:
X
X     DO :1 <- #0$#256
X
X   any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd.  Since this
X   is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look
X   foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to
X   turn up, as bosses are wont to do.  The effect would be no less
X   devastating for the programmer having been correct."  INTERCAL has
X   many other peculiar features designed to make it even more
X   unspeakable.  The Woods/Lyons implementation was actually used by
X   many (well, at least several) people at Princeton.  The language
X   has been recently re-implemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently
X   enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an
X   alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...
X   appreciation of the language on USENET.
X
X<interesting> adj. In hacker parlance, this word is not simply
X   synonymous with "intriguing", but has strong connotations of
X   "annoying", or "difficult", or both.  Hackers relish a
X   challenge.  Oppose <trivial>.
X
X<Internet address> n. An `absolute' network address of the form
X   foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a <sitename>, and
X   baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periods itself.
X   Contrasts with <bang path>, q.v.; see also <network, the> and
X   <network address>.  All Internet machines and most UUCP sites can
X   now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of
X   behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.
X   See also <bang path>.
X
X<interrupt> interj. 1. On a computer, an event which interrupts normal
X   processing and temporarily diverts flow-of-control through an
X   "interrupt handler" routine.  See also <trap>.  2. A request for
X   attention from a hacker.  Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt ---
X   have you seen Joe recently?".  See <priority interrupt>.
X
X<interrupts locked out> adj. When someone is ignoring you.  In a
X   restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's
X   attention, a hacker might well observe that "She must have
X   interrupts locked out."  Variations of this abound; "to have one's
X   interrupt mask bit set" is also heard.
X
X<iron> n. Hardware, especially older/larger hardware of mainframe
X   class with big metal cabinets housing relatively low-density
X   electronics (but also used of modern supercomputers). Often in the
X   phrase <big iron>.  Oppose <silicon>.  See also <dinosaur>.
X
X<iron box> [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap a
X   <cracker> logging in over remote or network connections long enough
X   so he can be traced.  May include a specially-gimmicked <shell>
X   restricting the hacker's movements in unobvious ways, and `bait'
X   files designed to keep him interested and logged on.  See also
X   <back door>, <firewall machine>, <venus flytrap> and Clifford
X   Stoll's account of how he made and used one (see Appendix B).
X
X<ironmonger> [IBM] n. A hardware specialist.  Derogatory.  Compare
X   <sandbender>, <polygon pusher>.
X
X<ITS> /ie-tee-ess/ n. Incompatible Time-Sharing System, an influential
X   but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-10s at
X   MIT and long used at the MIT AI lab; much AI-hacker slang derives
X   from ITS folklore.  After about 1982 most actual work was shifted
X   to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run essentially as
X   a hobby and service to the hacker community.  The shutdown of the
X   lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end of an era and
X   sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide.  The Royal
X   Institute of Technology in Sweden is maintaining one `live'  ITS
X   site at its computer museum (right next to the only TOPS-10 system
X   still on the Internet), so ITS is still alleged to hold the record
X   for OS in longest continuous use.  See Appendix A.
X
X<IWBNI> [acronym] It Would Be Nice If.  No pronunciation, as this is
X   never spoken, only written.  Compare <WIBNI>.
X
X<IYFEG> [USENET] Abbreviation for "Insert Your Favourite Ethnic
X   Group".  Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes in email to
X   avoid offending anyone.
X
X                                {= J =}
X
X<J. Random> /jay rand'm/ n. [generalized from <J. Random Hacker>,
X   q.v.]  Arbitrary; ordinary; any one; "any old".  "Would you let
X   J.  Random Loser marry your daughter?".  <J. Random> is
X   often prefixed to a noun to make a name out of it.  It means
X   roughly "some particular" or "any specific one".  The most
X   common uses are "J. Random Hacker, "J. Random Loser" and "J.
X   Random Nerd" ("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to <gun> down
X   other people?"), but it can be used just as an elaborate version
X   of <random> in any sense.
X
X<J. Random Hacker> [MIT] /jay rand'm hak'r/ n. A mythical figure like
X   the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd.  See <random>,
X   <Suzie COBOL>.  This may originally have been inspired or
X   influenced by `J.  Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee whose name
X   was a household word back in the days of the MIT Model Railroad
X   Club.
X
X<jaggies> /jag'eez/ n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an edge
X   (esp. a linear edge of slope far from a multiple of 45 degrees) is
X   rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).
X
X<JCL> [ex-IBM] 1. IBM's ultimately <rude> "Job Control Language."
X   JCL was the script language used to control the execution of
X   programs in IBM's batch systems.  JCL had a very <fascist> syntax,
X   and would, for example, <barf> if two spaces appeared where it
X   expected one.  Most programmers who were confronted with JCL would
X   simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the file names.
X   Someone who actually understood and generated unique JCL was
X   regarded with the mixed respect which one gives to someone who
X   memorizes the phone book.  2. Any very <rude> software that a
X   hacker is expected to use.  "That's as bad as JCL."  Often used
X   without having experienced it, as is <COBOL>.  See also <IBM>,
X   <fear and loathing>.
X
X<JFCL> /jif'kl/ or /jaf'kl/ v., obs. To cancel or annul something.
X   "Why don't you jfcl that out?" The fastest do-nothing instruction
X   on the PDP-10 happened to be JFCL, which stands for "Jump if Flag
X   set and then CLear the flag"; this does something useful, but is a
X   very fast no-operation if no flag is specified.  Geoff Goodfellow,
X   one of the jargon-1 compilers, once had JFCL on the license plate
X   of his BMW.  Usage: rare except among old-time PDP10 hackers.
X
X<jiffy> n. 1. The width of one tick of the system clock on the
X   computer (see <tick>).  Often 1 AC cycle time (1/60 second in the
X   U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places) but more recently 1/100
X   sec has become common.  2.  Confusingly, the term is sometimes also
X   used for a 1-millisecond <wall time> interval.  "The swapper runs
X   every six jiffies" means that the virtual memory management
X   routine is executed once for every six ticks of the clock, or about
X   ten times a second.  3.  Indeterminate time from a few seconds to
X   forever. "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and
X   possibly never.  This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use
X   of the word.
X
X<jock> n. 1. Programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat
X   brute force programs.  See <brute force>. 2. When modified by
X   another noun, describes a specialist in some particular computing
X   area.  The compounds `compiler jock' and `systems jock' seem to be
X   the best established examples of this.
X
X<joe code> /joh kohd/ [said to commemmorate a notoriously bad coder
X   named Joe at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory] n. Badly written,
X   possibly buggy source code.  Correspondents wishing to remain
X   anonymous have fingered a particular Joe and observed that usage
X   has drifted slightly; they described his code as "overly <tense>
X   and unmaintainable".  "Perl may be a handy program, but if you
X   look at the source, it's complete joe code."
X
X<JR[LN]> /jay ahr en/, /jay ahr el/ n. The names JRN and JRL were
X   sometimes used as example names when discussing a kind of user ID
X   used under <TOPS-10>; they were understood to be the initials of
X   (fictitious) programmers named "J. Random Nerd" and "J. Random
X   Loser" (see <J. Random>).  For example, if one said "To log in,
X   type log one comma jay are en" (that is, "log1,JRN"), the
X   listener would have understood that he should use his own computer
X   id in place of "JRN".
X
X                                {= K =}
X
X<K> [from <kilo->] /kay/ n.  Kilobyte.  Similarly, at least, meg
X   (/meg/) and gig (/gig/) for megabyte and gigabyte.  Also written
X   KB, MB, GB respectively.  See also <kilo>.
X
X<K&R> [Kernighan and Ritchie] n. Brian Kernighan & Dennis Ritchie's
X   "The C Programming Language", esp. the classic and influential
X   first edition (Prentice-Hall 1978, ISBN 0-113-110163-3).  Also
X   called the <White Book>.  See also <Red Book>, <Green Book>, <Blue
X   Book>, <Purple Book>, <Silver Book>, <Orange Book>, <Pink-Shirt
X   Book>, <Dragon Book>, <Aluminum Book>.
X
X<kahuna> /k@-hoo'nuh/ [IBM, from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.
X   Synonym for <wizard>, <guru>.
X
X<ken> /ken/ n. A flaming user.  This noun was in use by the Software
X   Support group at Symbolics because the two greatest flamers in the
X   user community were both named Ken.
X
X<kgbvax> /kay-jee-bee-vaks/ n. See <kremvax>.
X
X<kill file> [USENET] n.  Per-user file used by some <USENET> reading
X   programs to discard summarily (without presenting for reading)
X   articles which match some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted)
X   patterns of subject, author, or other header lines.  Thus to "add
X   a person (or subject) to one's kill file" is to arrange for that
X   person to be ignored by your newsreader in future.  By extension,
X   it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in
X   other media.
X
X<killer micro> [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. A
X   microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe or
X   supercomputer performance turf.  Often heard in "No one will
X   survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the
X   downsizers.  Used esp. of RISC architectures.
X
X<killer poke> n. A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine
X   via insertion of invalid values in a memory-mapped control
X   register; used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks on MMU-less
X   <bitty boxes> like the IBM PC and Commodore PET that can overload
X   and trash analog electronics in the monitor.  See also <HCF>.
X
X<kilo-> [from metric measure] prefix.  Denotes multiplication by 1024,
X   the power of 2 closest to 1000, rather than by the usual 1000.
X   Similarly the higher metric prefixes denote multiplication by
X   powers of 1024 rather than of 1000: mega- meaning 1048576, giga-
X   meaning 1073741824, tera- meaning 1099511627776, peta- meaning
X   1125899906842624, and exa- meaning 1152921504606846976.  The last
X   two have not actually been observed, yet.  Usage: especially with
X   "bytes", but also with anything else perceived to naturally come in
X   units that are powers of 2.
X
X   Confusion of 1000 and 1024, for example describing memory in units
X   of 524K (see K) instead of 512K, is a sure sign of the
X   <marketroid>.
X
X<kluge> /klooj/ alt. kludge /kluhj/ [from the German "klug", clever]
X   (`klooj' is the original pronunciation, more common in the US;
X   `kluhj' is reported more common in England).  n. 1. A Rube Goldberg
X   (or Heath Robinson) device in hardware or software. (A long-ago
X   Datamation article said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly
X   matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")  2. n.  A clever
X   programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an
X   expedient, if not clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often
X   involves <ad-hockery> and verges on being a <crock>.  3.  Something
X   that works for the wrong reason.  4.  vt. To insert a kluge into a
X   program.  "I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug,
X   but there's probably a better way."  Also "kluge up"; "I've
X   kluged up this routine...,etc." .  5. <kluge around>: To avoid by
X   inserting a kluge.  6.  [WPI] A feature which is implemented in a
X   <rude> manner.
X
X   Note that a plurality of hackers pronounce this word /klooj/ but
X   spell it incorrectly as `kludge'.  Some observers consider this
X   appropriate in view of its meaning.
X
X<Knights of the Lambda Calculus> n. A semi-mythical organization of
X   wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers (the name refers to a mathematical
X   formalism invented by Alonzo Church with which LISP is intimately
X   connected). There is no enrollment list and the criteria for
X   induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known to
X   give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who they
X   are...
X
X<Knuth> [Dold Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming"] n. The
X   reference that answers all questions about data structures or
X   algorithms.  A safe answer when you do not know, as in "I think
X   you can find that in Knuth."  Contrast <literature, the>.  See also
X   <bible>.
X
X<kremvax> /krem-vaks/ [From the then large number of <USENET> <VAXen>
X   with names of the form "foovax"] n.  A fictitious USENET site at
X   the Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984, in a posting ostensibly
X   from Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko.  The posting was actually
X   forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke.  Other sites
X   mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and <kgbvax>, which now seems to
X   be the one by which it is remembered.  This was probably the
X   funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on USENET
X   (which has negligible security against them), because the notion
X   that USENET might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally
X   absurd at the time.  But in fact, the first genuine site in Moscow
X   (demos.su) joined USENET only 6 years later --- and some readers
X   needed convincing that it wasn't a hoax.
X
X   [Ed. note: Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su), the major poster from
X   demos.su up to at least the end of 1990, was well acquainted with
X   the kremvax hoax and referred to it in his own postings --- even to
X   the extent of twitting a number of credulous netters on
X   alt.folklore.computers by blandly "admitting" that *he* was
X   a hoax! Mr. Antonov, BTW, also contributed the Russian-language
X   material for this File --- ESR]
X
X                                {= L =}
X
X<lace card> n. obs. A Hollerith card with all holes punched (also
X   called a <whoopee card>).  Card readers jammed when they got to one
X   of these, as the resulting card had too little structural strength
X   to avoid buckling inside the mechanism.  When some practical joker
X   fed a <lace card> through the reader you needed to clear the jam
X   with a card knife --- which you used on the joker first.
X
X<language lawyer> n. A person, usually an experienced or senior
X   software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of
X   the numerous syntactic and semantic restrictions (both useful and
X   esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming languages.
X   Compare <wizard>.
X
X<languages of choice> n. C or LISP. Essentially all hackers know one
X   of these and most good ones are fluent in both.  Smalltalk and
X   Prolog are popular in small but influential communities.  Assembler
X   used to be a language of choice, but is generally no longer
X   considered interesting or appropriate for anything but compiler
X   code generation and a few time-critical uses in systems programs.
X   There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with
X   FORTRAN as their language of choice; they often prefer to be known
X   as <real programmers>, and other hackers consider them a bit odd.
X
X   Most hackers tend to frown at languages like Pascal and Ada which
X   don't give them the near-total freedom considered necessary for
X   hacking (see <bondage-and-discipline language>) and to regard
X   everything that's even remotely connected with COBOL as a total
X   <loss>.
X
X<larval stage> n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on
X   coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers.  Common
X   symptoms include: the perpetration of more than one 36-hour
X   <hacking run> in a given week, neglect of all other activities
X   including usual basics like food and sex, and a chronic case of
X   advanced bleary-eye.  Can last from six months to two years, with
X   the apparent median being around eighteen months.  A few so
X   afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal seems
X   to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely
X   competent) programmers.  A less protracted and intense version of
X   larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when
X   learning a new <OS> or programming language.
X
X<lase> /layz/ vt. To print a given document via a laser printer. "OK,
X   let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro calls
X   did the right things."
X
X<laser chicken> n. Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish
X   containing chicken, peanuts, and bell peppers in a spicy pepper-oil
X   sauce.  A few hackers call it "laser chiicken" for two reasons;
X   it can <zap> you just like a laser, and the pepper-oil sauce has a
X   red color reminiscent of some laser beams.
X
X   In a variation on this theme, it is reported that one group of
X   Australian hackers have redesignated the common dish "lemon
X   chicken" as "Chernobyl Chicken".  The name is derived from the
X   colour of the dish, which is considered bright enough to glow in
X   the dark (much like some of the fabled inhabitants of Chernobyl).
X
X<LDB> /l@d'd@b/ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To extract from
X   the middle.  This usage has been kept alive by Common LISP's
X   function of the same name.  See also <DPB>.
X
X<leak> n. With qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs
X   that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations
X   on them are finished, leading to eventual exhaustion as new
X   allocation requests come in.  <memory leak> and <fd leak> have
X   their own entries; one might also refer, say, to a "window handle
X   leak" in a window system.
X
X<leaky heap> [Cambridge] n. Syn. <memory leak>.
X
X<LERP> /lerp/ v.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a
X   verb or noun for the operation.  Ex. Bresenham's algorithm lerps
X   incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.
X
X<lexer> /lek'sr/ n. Common hacker shorthand for "lexical analyzer",
X   the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language. "Some C
X   lexers get confused by the old-style compound ops like =-".
X
X<life> n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway,
X   and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (Scientific
X   American, October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of
X   fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed
X   heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably
X   Bill Gosper at MIT; see <Gosperism>).  When a hacker mentions
X   "life", he is much more likely to mean this game than the
X   magazine, the breakfast cereal, or the human state of existence.
X   2. The opposite of <USENET>. As in "Get a life!".
X
X<like kicking dead whales down the beach> adj. A slow and disgusting
X   process.  First popularized by a famous quote about the difficulty
X   of getting work done under one of IBM's mainframe OSs. "Well, you
X   *could* write a C compiler in COBOL, but it would be like
X   kicking dead whales down the beach."
X
X<line eater, the> [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete versions
X   of the netnews software used to eat up to 512 bytes of the article
X   text.  The bug was triggered by having the text of the article
X   start other than as the first character of the line.  This bug was
X   quickly personified as a mythical creature called "the line
X   eater", and postings often included a dummy line of "line eater
X   food".  Ironically, line eater food that had whitespace before it
X   was eaten along with the following text the food was supposed to
X   protect, and line eater food that didn't have whitespace before it
X   isn't eaten, since the bug is avoided.  The practice of
X   "sacrificing to the line eater" continued for some time after the
X   bug had been <nailed to the wall>, and is still humorously referred
X   to.  The bug itself is still (in mid-1990) occasionally reported to
X   be lurking in some mail-to-netnews gateways.  2. The mythical NSA
X   trawling program sometimes assumed to be reading <USENET> for the
X   U.S. Government's spooks.  Some netters put loaded phrases like
X   `Uzi' `nuclear materials' `Palestine' `cocaine' and `assassination'
X   in their <sig block>s in an attempt to confuse and overload the
X   creature.  The <GNU> version of <EMACS> actually has a command that
X   randomly generates a lot of words like that into your edited text.
X
X<line starve> [MIT] 1. vi. To feed the paper through the terminal the
X   wrong way by one line (most terminals can't do this!).  On a
X   display terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the
X   screen.  Example: "To print X squared, you just output X, line
X   starve, 2, line feed."  (The line starve causes the 2 to appear on
X   the line above the X, and the line feed gets back to the original
X   line.) 2. n. A "character" (or character sequence) that causes a
X   terminal to perform this action.  Unlike "line feed", "line
X   starve" is *not* standard ASCII terminology.  Even among
X   hackers it is considered a bit silly.  3. [proposed] A sequence
X   like \c (used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) which
X   suppresses a line feed that would normally implicitly be emitted.
X
X<link-dead> [popularized by MUD] adj. 1. A lost Telnet/MUD connection.
X   v. 2. A deliberate act, with ulterior motives, to close a
X   connection.
X
X<link farm> [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to
X   files in another, master directory tree of files.  Link farms save
X   space when maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same
X   source tree, e.g. when the only difference is
X   architecture-dependent object files.  Example use: `Let's freeze
X   the source and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link
X   farms.'  Link farms may also be used to get around restrictions on
X   the number of -I arguments on older C preprocessors.
X
X<lint> [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named perhaps for the bits of
X   fluff it picks from programs] 1. v. To examine a program closely
X   for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C,
X   esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if the UNIX
X   utility `lint(1)' is used.  This term used to be restricted to
X   use of `lint(1)' itself but (judging by references on USENET)
X   has become a shorthand for `desk-check' at some non-UNIX shops,
X   even in some languages other than C. See also <delint>.  2. Excess
X   verbiage in a document, as in "this draft has too much lint".
X
X<lion food> [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension,
X   administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two lions
X   who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but
X   agreed to meet after two months.  When they do meet, one is skinny
X   and the other overweight.  The thin one says "How did you manage?
X   I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase
X   me --- guns, nets, it was terrible.  Since then I've been reduced
X   to eating mice, insects, even grass."  The fat one replies "Well,
X   *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a manager a day.  And
X   nobody even noticed!"
X
X<LISP> [from "LISt Processing language", but mythically from "Lots
X   of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses] n. The name of AI's mother
X   tongue, a language based on the ideas of 1) variable-length lists
X   and trees as fundamental data types, and 2) the interpretation of
X   code as data and vice-versa.  Invented by John McCarthy at Stanford
X   in the late 1950s, it is actually older than any other <HLL> still
X   in use except FORTRAN.  Accordingly, it has undergone considerable
X   adaptive radiation over the years; modern variants (of which Scheme
X   is perhaps the most successful) are quite different in detail from
X   the original LISP 1.5 at Stanford.  The hands-down favorite of
X   hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the throne with <C>.
X   See <languages of choice>.
X
X<literature, the> n. Used to answer a question that the hearer
X   believes is <trivial>, as in "It's in the literature."  Oppose
X   <Knuth>, which has no connotation of triviality.
X
X<little-endian> adj. Describes a computer architecture in which,
X   within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses have lower
X   significance (the word is stored `little-end-first').  The PDP-11
X   and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot
X   of communications and networking hardware are little-endian.  See
X   <big-endian>, <middle-endian>, <NUXI problem>.
X
X<Live Free Or Die!> imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire.  2. A
X   slogan associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX
X   aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground
X   tilting against the windmills of industry.  The "free" referred
X   specifically to freedom from the <fascist> design phiolosophies and
X   crufty misfeatures common on commercial operating systems.  Armando
X   Stettner, one of the early UNIX developers, used to give out fake
X   license plates bearing this motto under a large UNIX, all in New
X   Hampshire colors of green and white.  These are now valued
X   collector's items.
X
X<livelock> n.  A situation in which some critical stage of a task is
X   unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work
X   for it to do after they've been serviced but before it can clear.
X   Differs from <deadlock> in that the process is not blocked or
X   waiting for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work
X   to do and accomplishes nothing.
X
X<liveware> n. Synonym for <wetware> Less common.
X
X<locked up> adj. Syn. for <hung>, <wedged>.
X
X<logic bomb> n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or OS
X   which causes it to perform some destructive or
X   security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are
X   met.  Compare <back door>.
X
X<logical> [from the technical term "logical device", wherein a
X   physical device is referred to by an arbitrary name] adj.
X   Understood to have a meaning not necessarily corresponding to
X   reality.  E.g., if a person who has long held a certain post (e.g.,
X   Les Earnest at SAIL) left and was replaced, the replacement would
X   for a while be known as the "logical Les Earnest".  Compare
X   <virtual>.  This use of <logical> is an extension from its
X   technical use in computer science.  A program can be written to do
X   input or output using a "logical device"; when the program is
X   run, the user can specify which "physical" (actual) device to use
X   for that logical device.  For example, a program might write all
X   its error messages to a logical device called ERROR; the user can
X   then specify whether logical device ERROR should be associated to
X   the terminal, a disk file, or the <bit bucket> (to throw the error
X   messages away).  Perhaps the word "logical" is used because even
X   though a thing isn't the actual object in question, you can reason
X   logically about the thing as if it were the actual object.
X
X   At Stanford, "logical" compass directions denoted a coordinate
X   system in which "logical north" is toward San Francisco,
X   "logical west" is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical
X   north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and
X   physical west near San Jose.  (The best rule of thumb here is that
X   El Camino Real by definition always runs logical north-and-south.)
X   In giving directions, one might say, "To get to Rincon Tarasco
X   restaurant, get onto El Camino Bignum going logical north."  Using
X   the word "logical" helps to prevent the recipient from worrying
X   about that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in
X   front of him.  The concept is perpetuated by North American
X   highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labelled
X   with logical rather than physical directions.  A similar situation
X   exists at MIT.  Route 128 (famous for the electronics industries
X   that have grown up along it) is a three-quarters circle surrounding
X   Boston at a radius of ten miles, terminating at the coastline at
X   each end.  It would be most precise to describe the two directions
X   along this highway as being "clockwise" and "counterclockwise",
X   but the road signs all say "north" and "south", respectively.
X   A hacker would describe these directions as "logical north" and
X   "logical south", to indicate that they are conventional
X   directions not corresponding to the usual convention for those
X   words.  (If you went logical south along the entire length of route
X   128, you would start out going northwest, curve around to the
X   south, and finish headed due east!)
X
X<loop through> v. To process each element of a list of things. "Hold
X   on, I've got to loop through my paper mail."  Derives from the
X   computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare <cdr down>
X   (which is less common among C and UNIX programmers).
X
X<lord high fixer> [primarily British, prob. fr. Gilbert & Sullivan's
X   "lord high executioner"] n. The person in an organization who
X   knows the most about some aspect of a system.  See <wizard>.
X
X<lose> [from MIT jargon] vi. 1. To fail.  A program loses when it
X   encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the
X   expected manner.  2. To be exceptionally unaesthetic.  3. Of
X   people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to
X   ignorant).  4. <deserves to lose>: vi. Said of someone who
X   willfully does the wrong thing; humorously, if one uses a feature
X   known to be marginal.  What is meant is that one deserves the
X   consequences of one's losing actions.  "Boy, anyone who tries to
X   use <mess-dos> deserves to lose!" (ITS fans used to say this of
X   UNIX; many still do) See also <screw>, <chomp>, <bagbiter>.  5.
X   <lose> as a noun refers to something which is losing, especially in
X   the phrases "That's a lose!" or "What a lose!".
X
X<lose lose> interj. A reply or comment on an undesirable situation.
X   "I accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose lose."
X
X<loser> n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or
X   person.  Someone who habitually loses (even winners can lose
X   occasionally).  Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows
X   not.  emphatic forms are "real loser", "total loser", and
X   "complete loser" (but not "moby loser", which would be a
X   contradiction in terms). See <luser>.
X
X<losing> adj. Said of anything which is or causes a <lose>.
X
X<loss> n. Something (not a person) which loses; a situation in which
X   something is losing.  Emphatic forms include "moby loss" "total
X   loss", "complete loss".  Common interjections are "What a loss!"
X   and "What a moby loss!"  Compare <lossage>.
X
X<lossage> /los'@j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction.  This is a
X   collective noun.  "What a loss!" and "What lossage!" are nearly
X   synonymous remarks.  The former is slightly more particular to the
X   speaker's present circumstances while the latter implies a
X   continuing lose of which the speaker is presently victim.  Thus
X   (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss, but bugs in
X   an important tool (like a compiler) are serious lossage.
X
X<LPT> /lip'it/ [ITS] n. Line printer, of course.  Rare under UNIX,
X   commoner in hackers with MS-DOS or CP/M background (the printer
X   device is called LPT: on those systems, which like ITS were
X   strongly influenced by early DEC conventions).
X
X<lurker> n. One of the `silent majority' in a <USENET> or BBS
X   newsgroup; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to
X   read the group regularly.  Often in `the lurkers', the hypothetical
X   audience for the group's <flamage>-emitting regulars.
X
X<lunatic fringe> [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept
X   release 1 versions of software.
X
X<luser> /loo'zr/ n.  A <user> who is probably also a <loser>.
X   (<luser> and <loser> are pronounced identically.)  This word was
X   coined about 1975 at MIT.  Under ITS, when you first walked up to a
X   terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's
X   attention, it prints out some status information, including how
X   many people are already using the computer; it might print "14
X   users", for example.  Someone thought it would be a great joke to
X   patch the system to print "14 losers" instead.  There ensued a
X   great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to
X   be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer.
X   For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the
X   message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the
X   computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or
X   "losers".  Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and
X   it stuck.  Later one of the ITS machines supported `luser' as a
X   request-for-help command.  ITS died in early 1990; the usage lives
X   on, however, and the term `luser' is often seen in program
X   comments.
X
X                                {= M =}
X
X<macdink> /mak'dink/ [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to
X   encourage such behavior] vt.  To make many incremental and
X   unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file.  Frequently the
X   subject of the macdinking would be better off without them.  Ex:
X   "When I left at 11pm last night, he was still macdinking the
X   slides for his presentation."
X
X<Macintrash> /mak'in-trash/ The Apple Macintosh, as described by a
X   hacker who doesn't appreciate being kept away from the *real
X   computer* by the interface.  See also <WIMP environment>,
X   <drool-proof paper>, <user friendly>.
X
X<macro> /mak'ro/ n. A name (possibly followed by a formal <arg> list)
X   which is equated to a text expression to which it is to be expanded
X   (possibly with substitution of actual arguments) by a language
X   translator.  This definition can be found in any technical
X   dictionary; what those won't tell you is how the hackish
X   connotations of the term have changed over time.  The term `macro'
X   originated in early assemblers, which encouraged use of macros as a
X   structuring and information-hiding device.  During the early 70s
X   macro assemblers became ubiquitous and sometimes quite as powerful
X   and expensive as HLLs, only to fall from favor as improving
X   compiler technology marginalized assembler programming (see
X   <languages of choice>). Nowadays the term is most often used in
X   connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one of several
X   special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion facility
X   (such as TeX or UNIX's nroff, troff and pic suite). Indeed, the
X   meaning has drifted enough that the collective `macros' is now
X   sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application-control
X   language (whether or not the language is actually translated by
X   text expansion) as well as other "expansions" such as the
X   "keyboard macros" supported in some text editors (and PC TSR
X   keyboard enhancers).
X
X<machoflops> [pun on "megaflops", a coinage for "millions of
X   floating-point operations per second"] n. Refers to artificially
X   inflated performance figures often quoted by computer
X   manufacturers.  Real applications are lucky to get half the quoted
X   speed. Thus, machoflops are similar to EPA gas mileage estimates.
X   See <benchmark>.
X
X<macrology> /mak-ro'l@-jee/ n. Set of usually complex or crufty
X   macros, e.g. as part of a large system written in LISP, <TECO> or
X   (less commonly) assembler.  Sometimes studying the macrology of a
X   system is not unlike archaeology, hence the sound-alike
X   construction.  Prob. influenced by <ecology> and <theology>.
X
X<macrotape> /ma'kro-tayp/ n. An industry standard reel of tape, as
X   opposed to a <microtape>.
X
X<magic> adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain
X   (compare <automagically> and Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently
X   advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic").  "TTY
X   echoing is controlled by a large number of magic bits."  "This
X   routine magically computes the parity of an eight-bit byte in three
X   instructions." 2.  Characteristic of something that works but no
X   one really understands why.  3. [Stanford] A feature not generally
X   publicized which allows something otherwise impossible, or a
X   feature formerly in that category but now unveiled.  Example: The
X   keyboard commands which override the screen-hiding features.
X
X<magic cookie> [UNIX] n. 1. Something passed between routines or
X   programs that enables the receiver to perform some <obscure>
X   operation; a capability ticket or opaque identifier.  Especially
X   used of small data objects which contain data encoded in a strange
X   or intrinsically machine-dependent way.  For example, on non-UNIX
X   OSs with a non-byte-stream model of files, the result of `ftell(3)'
X   may be a `magic cookie' rather than a byte offset; it can be passed
X   to `fseek(3)' but not operated on in any meaningful way.  2. An
X   in-band code for changing graphic rendition (i.e. inverse video or
X   underlining) or performing other control functions.  Some older
X   terminals would leave a blank on the screen corresponding to
X   mode-change cookies; this was also called a <glitch>.  See also
X   <cookie>.
X
X<magic number> [UNIX/C] n. 1. Special data located at the beginning of
X   a binary data file to indicate its type to a utility.  Under UNIX
X   the system and various applications programs (especially the
X   linker) distinguish between types of executable by looking for a
X   magic number. 2. In source code, some non-obvious constant whose
X   value is significant to the operation of a program and is inserted
X   inconspicuously in line, rather than expanded in by a symbol set by
X   a commented #define.  Magic numbers in this sense are bad style.
X
X<magic smoke> n. A notional substance trapped inside IC packages that
X   enables them to function (also called "blue smoke"). Its
X   existence is demonstrated by what happens when a chip burns up ---
X   the magic smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work any more.  See
X   <smoke test>.
X
X<management> n. 1. Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by
X   their distance from actual productive work and chronic failure to
X   manage (see also <suit>).  Spoken derisively, as in
X   "*Management* decided that..." 2. Mythically, a vast
X   bureaucracy responsible for all the world's minor irritations.
X   Hackers' satirical public notices are often signed "The Mgmt".
X
X<mangle> vt. Used similarly to <mung> or <scribble>, but more violent
X   in its connotations; something that is mangled has been
X   irreversibly and totally trashed.
X
X<mango> [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n.  A manager.  See also
X   <devo> and <doco>.
X
X<marginal> adj. 1. Extremely small.  "A marginal increase in core can
X   decrease <GC> time drastically."  In everyday terms, this means
X   that it's a lot easier to clean off your desk if you have a spare
X   place to put some of the junk while you sort through it. 2. Of
X   extremely small merit.  "This proposed new feature seems rather
X   marginal to me."  3. Of extremely small probability of winning.
X   "The power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it
X   fried."  4.  <marginally>: adv.  Slightly.  "The ravs here are
X   only marginally better than at Small Eating Place."  See <epsilon>.
X   4. <marginal hacks>: n. Margaret Jacks Hall, a building into which
X   the Stanford AI Lab was moved near the beginning of the '80s.
X
X<marketroid> /mar'k@-troyd/ alt. <marketing slime>, <marketing
X   droid>, <marketeer> n.  Member of a company's marketing department,
X   esp.  one who promises users that the next version of a product
X   will have features which are unplanned, extremely difficult to
X   implement, and/or violate the laws of physics; and/or one who
X   describes existing features (and misfeatures) in ebullient,
X   buzzword-laden adspeak.  Derogatory.  Used by techies.
X
X<martian> n. A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a source address
X   of the test loopback interface (127.0.0.1).  As in "The domain
X   server is getting lots of packets from Mars.  Does that gateway
X   have a Martian filter?"
X
X<massage> vt. Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of
X   a data set into a more useful form, esp.  transformations which do
X   not lose information.  Connotes less pain than <munch> or <crunch>.
X   "He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF
X   format."  Compare <slurp>.
X
X<meatware> n. Synonym for <wetware>.  Less common.
X
X<meg> /meg/ n. A megabyte; 1024K.
X
X<mega-> /me'ga/ pref. See <kilo>.
X
X<megapenny> /meg'a-pen'ee/ n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10e6). Used
X   semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost/performance
X   figures.
X
X<MEGO> /mego/ or /meego/ [My Eyes Glaze Over, often Mine Eyes Glazeth
X   Over, attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn] Also "MEGO
X   factor".  1.  Handwaving intended to confuse the listener and
X   hopefully induce agreement because the listener does not want to
X   admit to not understanding what is going on.  MEGO is usually
X   directed at senior management by engineers and contains a high
X   proportion of <TLA>s. 2. excl. An appropriate response to MEGO
SHAR_EOF
chmod 0644 jsplit.af || echo "restore of jsplit.af fails"
if [ $TOUCH = can ]
then
    touch -am 0103154591 jsplit.af
fi
exit 0