DO :1 <- #0$#256_The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996

any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd. Since

this is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made

to look foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have

happened to turn up, as bosses are wont to do. The effect would

be no less devastating for the programmer having been correct.

INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even

more unspeakable. The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used

by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton. The language

has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently

enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an

alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...

appreciation of the language on Usenet.

An INTERCAL implementation is available at the Retrocomputing

Museum, http://www.ccil.org/retro.

:interesting: /adj./ In hacker parlance, this word has strong

connotations of `annoying', or `difficult', or both. Hackers

relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out

of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".

Oppose {trivial}, {uninteresting}.

:Internet:: /n./ The mother of all networks. First

incarnated beginning in 1969 as the ARPANET, a U.S. Department of

Defense research testbed. Though it has been widely believed that

the goal was to develop a network architecture for military

command-and-control that could survive disruptions up to and

including nuclear war, this is a myth; in fact, ARPANET was

conceived from the start as a way to get most economical use out of

then-scarce large-computer resources.

As originally imagined, ARPANET's major use would have been to

support what is now called remote login and more sophisticated

forms of distributed computing, but the infant technology of

electronic mail quickly grew to dominate actual usage.

Universities, research labs and defense contractors early

discovered the Internet's potential as a medium of communication

between *humans* and linked up in steadily increasing numbers,

connecting together a quirky mix of academics, techies, hippies, SF

fans, hackers, and anarchists. The roots of this lexicon lie in

those early years.

Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many

ways. The typical machine/OS combination moved from DEC

{PDP-10}s and {PDP-20}s, running {TOPS-10} and

{TOPS-20}, to PDP-11s and VAXes and Suns running {Unix}, and

in the 1990s to Unix on Intel microcomputers. The Internet's

protocols grew more capable, most notably in the move from NCP/IP

to {TCP/IP} in 1982 and the implementation of Domain Name

Service in 1983. With TCP/IP and DNS in place. It was around this

time that people began referring to the collection of

interconnected networks with ARPANET at its core as "the

Internet".

The ARPANET had a fairly strict set of participation guidelines --

connected institutions had to be involved with a DOD-related

research project. By the mid-80s, many of the organizations

clamoring to join didn't fit this profile. In 1986, the National

Science Foundation built NSFnet to open up access to its five

regional supercomputing centers; NSFnet became the backbone of the

Internet, replacing the original ARPANET pipes (which were formally

shut down in 1990). Between 1990 and late 1994 the pieces of

NSFnet were sold to major telecommunications companies until

the Internet backbone had gone completely commercial.

That year, 1994, was also the year the mainstream culture

discovered the Internet. Once again, the {killer app} was not the

anticipated one -- rather, what caught the public imagination was

the hypertext and multimedia features of the World Wide Web. As of

early 1996, the Internet has seen off its only serious challenger

(the OSI protocol stack favored by European telecom monopolies) and

is in the process of absorbing into itself many of of the

proprietary networks built during the second wave of wide-area

networking after 1980. It is now a commonplace even in mainstream

media to predict that a globally-extended Internet will become the

key unifying communications technology of the next century. See

also {network, the} and {Internet address}.

:Internet address:: /n./ 1. [techspeak] An absolute network

address of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar

is a {sitename}, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly

including periods itself. Contrast with {bang path}; see also

{network, the} and {network address}. All Internet machines

and most UUCP sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a

large amount of behind-the-scenes magic and {PD} software

written since 1980 or so. See also {bang path}, {domainist}.

2. More loosely, any network address reachable through Internet;

this includes {bang path} addresses and some internal corporate

and government networks.

Reading Internet addresses is something of an art. Here are the

four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed

by a selection of geographical domains:

com

commercial organizations

edu

educational institutions

gov

U.S. government civilian sites

mil

U.S. military sites

Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in

the U.S. or Canada.

sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains

sites in the ex-Soviet Union (see {kremvax}).

sites in the United Kingdom

Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty

states, each generally with a name identical to the state's postal

abbreviation. Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for

academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones. Other

top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways.

:interrupt: 1. [techspeak] /n./ On a computer, an event that

interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts

flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine. See also

{trap}. 2. /interj./ A request for attention from a hacker.

Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt -- have you seen Joe

recently?" See {priority interrupt}. 3. Under MS-DOS, nearly

synonymous with `system call', because the OS and BIOS routines

are both called using the INT instruction (see {{interrupt list,

the}}) and because programmers so often have to bypass the OS

(going

directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get reasonable

performance.

:interrupt list, the:: /n./ [MS-DOS] The list of all known

software interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM

PCs and compatibles, maintained and made available for free

redistribution by Ralf Brown <ralf@cs.cmu.edu>. As of late

1992, it had grown to approximately two megabytes in length.

:interrupts locked out: /adj./ When someone is ignoring you.

In a restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the

waitress's attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have

interrupts locked out". The synonym `interrupts disabled' is

also common. Variations abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit

set" and "interrupts masked out" are also heard. See also

{spl}.

:IRC: /I-R-C/ /n./ [Internet Relay Chat] A worldwide "party

line" network that allows one to converse with others in real

time. IRC is structured as a network of Internet servers, each of

which accepts connections from client programs, one per user. The

IRC community and the {Usenet} and {MUD} communities overlap

to some extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have

discovered the wonders of computer networks. Some Usenet jargon

has been adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as

{emoticon}s. There is also a vigorous native jargon,

represented in this lexicon by entries marked `[IRC]'. See also

{talk mode}.

:iron: /n./ Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of

{mainframe} class with big metal cabinets housing relatively

low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern

supercomputers). Often in the phrase {big iron}. Oppose

{silicon}. See also {dinosaur}.

:Iron Age: /n./ In the history of computing, 1961--1971 -- the

formative era of commercial {mainframe} technology, when

ferrite-core {dinosaur}s ruled the earth. The Iron Age began,

ironically enough, with the delivery of the first minicomputer (the

PDP-1) and ended with the introduction of the first commercial

microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971. See also {Stone Age};

compare {elder days}.

:iron box: /n./ [Unix/Internet] A special environment set up to

trap a {cracker} logging in over remote connections long enough

to be traced. May include a modified {shell} restricting the

cracker's movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed

to keep him interested and logged on. See also {back door},

{firewall machine}, {Venus flytrap}, and Clifford Stoll's

account in "{The Cuckoo's Egg}" of how he made and used

one (see the {Bibliography} in Appendix C). Compare {padded

cell}.

:ironmonger: /n./ [IBM] A hardware specialist (derogatory).

Compare {sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.

:ISP: /I-S-P/ Common abbreviation for Internet Service

Provider, a kind of company that barely existed before 1993. ISPs

sell Internet access to the mass market. While the big nationwide

commercial BBSs with Internet access (like America Online,

CompuServe, GEnie, Netcom, etc.) are technically ISPs, the term is

usually reserved for local or regional small providers (often run

by hackers turned entrepreneurs) who resell Internet access cheaply

without themselves being information providers or selling

advertising. Compare {NSP}.

:ITS:: /I-T-S/ /n./ 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an

influential though highly idiosyncratic operating system written

for

PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab. Much

AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an

ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most

venerable sort. ITS pioneered many important innovations,

including transparent file sharing between machines and

terminal-independent I/O. After about 1982, most actual work was

shifted to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run

essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community. The

shutdown of the lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end

of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see

{high moby}). The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden is

maintaining one `live' ITS site at its computer museum (right

next to the only TOPS-10 system still on the Internet), so ITS is

still alleged to hold the record for OS in longest continuous use

(however, {{WAITS}} is a credible rival for this palm). 2. A

mythical image of operating-system perfection worshiped by a

bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and ex-users (see

{troglodyte}, sense 2). ITS worshipers manage somehow to

continue believing that an OS maintained by assembly-language

hand-hacking that supported only monocase 6-character filenames in

one directory per account remains superior to today's state of

commercial art (their venom against Unix is particularly intense).

See also {Chernobyl packet}.

:kangaroo code: /n./ Syn. {spaghetti code}.

:ken: /ken/ /n./ 1. [Unix] Ken Thompson, principal inventor

of Unix. In the early days he used to hand-cut distribution

tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken". Old-timers still

use his first name (sometimes uncapitalized, because it's a login

name and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely

understood (on Usenet, in particular) that without a last name

`Ken' refers only to Ken Thompson. Similarly, Dennis without last

name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr). See

also {demigod}, {{Unix}}. 2. A flaming user. This was

originated by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the

two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken.

:kgbvax: /K-G-B'vaks/ /n./ See {kremvax}.

:KIBO: /ki:'boh/ 1. [acronym] Knowledge In, Bullshit Out.

A summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an

organization (or person) that deliberately or accidentally

disregards or ignores its significance. Consider, for example,

what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual

specifications. Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}.

2. James Parry <kibo@world.std.com>, a Usenetter infamous for

various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted

knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is

mentioned.

:kiboze: /v./ [Usenet] To {grep} the Usenet news for a string,

especially with the intention of posting a follow-up. This

activity was popularised by Kibo (see {KIBO}, sense 2).

:kibozo: /ki:-boh'zoh/ /n./ [Usenet] One who

{kiboze}s but is not Kibo (see {KIBO}, sense 2).

:kick: /v./ [IRC] To cause somebody to be removed from a

{IRC} channel, an option only available to {CHOP}s. This is

an extreme measure, often used to combat extreme {flamage} or

{flood}ing, but sometimes used at the chop's whim. Compare

{gun}.

:kill file: /n./ [Usenet] (alt. `KILL file') Per-user

file(s) used by some {Usenet} reading programs (originally Larry

Wall's `rn(1)') to discard summarily (without presenting for

reading) articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or

unwanted) patterns of subject, author, or other header lines. Thus

to add a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for

that person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future. By

extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or

subject in other media. See also {plonk}.

:killer app: The application that actually makes a mass

market for a promising but under-utilized technology. First used

in the mid-1980s to describe Lotus 1-2-3 once it became evident

that demand for that product had been the major driver of the early

business market for IBM PCs. The term was then restrospectively

applied to VisiCalc, which had played a similar role in the success

of the Apple II. After 1994 it became commonplace to describe the

World Wide Web as the Internet's killer app. One of the standard

questions asked about each new personal-computer technology as it

emerges has become "what's the killer app?"

:killer micro: /n./ [popularized by Eugene Brooks] A

microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or

supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will

survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the

downsizers. Used esp. of RISC architectures.

The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is

doubtless reinforced by the title of the movie "Attack Of The

Killer Tomatoes" (one of the {canonical} examples of

so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers). This has even more

{flavor} now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not

just individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively

parallel computers).

[1996 update: Eugene Brooks was right. Since this term first

entered the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively

vanished, the {mainframe} sector is in deep and apparently

terminal decline (with IBM but a shadow of its former self), and

even the supercomputer business has contracted into a smaller

niche. It's networked killer micros as far as the eye can see.

--ESR]

:killer poke: /n./ A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a

machine via insertion of invalid values (see {poke}) into a

memory-mapped control register; used esp. of various fairly

well-known tricks on {bitty box}es without hardware memory

management (such as the IBM PC and Commodore PET) that can overload

and trash analog electronics in the monitor. See also {HCF}.

:kilo-: /pref./ [SI] See {{quantifiers}}.

:KIPS: /kips/ /n./ [abbreviation, by analogy with {MIPS}

using {K}] Thousands (*not* 1024s) of Instructions Per

Second. Usage: rare.

:KISS Principle: /kis' prin'si-pl/ /n./ "Keep It Simple,

Stupid". A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off

{creeping featurism} and control development complexity.

Possibly related to the {marketroid} maxim on sales

presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple".

:kit: /n./ [Usenet; poss. fr. DEC slang for a full software

distribution, as opposed to a patch or upgrade] A source

software distribution that has been packaged in such a way that it

can (theoretically) be unpacked and installed according to a series

of steps using only standard Unix tools, and entirely documented by

some reasonable chain of references from the top-level {README

file}. The more general term {distribution} may imply that

special tools or more stringent conditions on the host environment

are required.

:klone: /klohn/ /n./ See {clone}, sense 4.

:kludge: 1. /klooj/ /n./ Incorrect (though regrettably

common) spelling of {kluge} (US). These two words have been

confused in American usage since the early 1960s, and widely

confounded in Great Britain since the end of World War II.

2. [TMRC] A {crock} that works. (A long-ago "Datamation"

article by Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted

collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing

whole.") 3. /v./ To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've

kludged around it for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."

This word appears to have derived from Scots `kludge' or

`kludgie' for a common toilet, via British military slang. It

apparently became confused with U.S. {kluge} during or after

World War II; some Britons from that era use both words in

definably different ways, but {kluge} is now uncommon in Great

Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish differs in meaning from

`kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses; a kludge is something

no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated too closely with.

Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British mainstream slang

than `kluge' is in the U.S.

:kluge: /klooj/ [from the German `klug', clever; poss.

related to Polish `klucza', a trick or hook] 1. /n./ A Rube

Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or

software. 2. /n./ A clever programming trick intended to solve a

particular nasty case in an expedient, if not clear, manner. Often

used to repair bugs. Often involves {ad-hockery} and verges on

being a {crock}. 3. /n./ Something that works for the wrong

reason. 4. /vt./ To insert a kluge into a program. "I've kluged

this routine to get around that weird bug, but there's probably a

better way." 5. [WPI] /n./ A feature that is implemented in a

{rude} manner.

Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling

`kludge'. Reports from {old fart}s are consistent that

`kluge' was the original spelling, reported around computers as

far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of

*hardware* kluges. In 1947, the "New York Folklore

Quarterly" reported a classic shaggy-dog story `Murgatroyd the

Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces, in which a `kluge'

was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial function. Other

sources report that `kluge' was common Navy slang in the WWII era

for any piece of electronics that worked well on shore but

consistently failed at sea.

However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade

older. Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of

a device called a "Kluge paper feeder", an adjunct to mechanical

printing presses. Legend has it that the Kluge feeder was designed

before small, cheap electric motors and control electronics; it

relied on a fiendishly complex assortment of cams, belts, and

linkages to both power and synchronize all its operations from one

motive driveshaft. It was accordingly temperamental, subject to

frequent breakdowns, and devilishly difficult to repair -- but oh,

so clever! People who tell this story also aver that `Kluge' was

the name of a design engineer.

There is in fact a Brandtjen & Kluge Inc., an old family business

that manufactures printing equipment -- interestingly, their name

is pronounced /kloo'gee/! Henry Brandtjen, president of the

firm, told me (ESR, 1994) that his company was co-founded by his

father and an engineer named Kluge /kloo'gee/, who built and

co-designed the original Kluge automatic feeder in 1919.

Mr. Brandtjen claims, however, that this was a *simple* device

(with only four cams); he says he has no idea how the myth of its

complexity took hold.

{TMRC} and the MIT hacker culture of the early '60s seems to

have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used some WWII

military slang (see also {foobar}). It seems likely that

`kluge' came to MIT via alumni of the many military electronics

projects that had been located in Cambridge (many in MIT's

venerable Building 20, in which {TMRC} is also located) during

the war.

The variant `kludge' was apparently popularized by the

{Datamation} article mentioned above; it was titled "How

to Design a Kludge" (February 1962, pp. 30, 31). This spelling was

probably imported from Great Britain, where {kludge} has an

independent history (though this fact was largely unknown to

hackers on either side of the Atlantic before a mid-1993 debate in

the Usenet group alt.folklore.computers over the First and

Second Edition versions of this entry; everybody used to think

{kludge} was just a mutation of {kluge}). It now appears that

the British, having forgotten the etymology of their own `kludge'

when `kluge' crossed the Atlantic, repaid the U.S. by lobbing the

`kludge' orthography in the other direction and confusing their

American cousins' spelling!

The result of this history is a tangle. Many younger U.S. hackers

pronounce the word as /klooj/ but spell it, incorrectly for its

meaning and pronunciation, as `kludge'. (Phonetically, consider

huge, refuge, centrifuge, and deluge as opposed to sludge, judge,

budge, and fudge. Whatever its failings in other areas, English

spelling is perfectly consistent about this distinction.) British

hackers mostly learned /kluhj/ orally, use it in a restricted

negative sense and are at least consistent. European hackers have

mostly learned the word from written American sources and tend to

pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning!

Some observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's

meaning.

:kluge around: /vt./ To avoid a bug or difficult condition by

inserting a {kluge}. Compare {workaround}.

:kluge up: /vt./ To lash together a quick hack to perform a

task; this is milder than {cruft together} and has some of the

connotations of {hack up} (note, however, that the construction

`kluge on' corresponding to {hack on} is never used). "I've

kluged up this routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe

place."

:Knights of the Lambda Calculus: /n./ A semi-mythical

organization of wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The name refers

to a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which

LISP is intimately connected. There is no enrollment list and the

criteria for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has

been known to give out buttons and, in general, the *members*

know who they are....

:Knuth: /knooth'/ /n./ [Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of

Computer Programming"] Mythically, the reference that answers all

questions about data structures or algorithms. A safe answer when

you do not know: "I think you can find that in Knuth." Contrast

{literature, the}. See also {bible}. There is a Donald

Knuth home page at

http://www-cs-faculty.Stanford.EDU/~knuth.

:kremvax: /krem-vaks/ /n./ [from the then large number of

{Usenet} {VAXen} with names of the form foovax]

Originally, a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, announced on

April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet

leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by

Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites

mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}. This was

probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries

perpetrated on Usenet (which has negligible security against them),

because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron

Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time.

In fact, it was only six years later that the first genuine site in

Moscow, demos.su, joined Usenet. Some readers needed

convincing that the postings from it weren't just another prank.

Vadim Antonov, senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from

there up to mid-1991, was quite aware of all this, referred to it

frequently in his own postings, and at one point twitted some

credulous readers by blandly asserting that he *was* a

hoax!

Eventually he even arranged to have the domain's gateway site

named kremvax, thus neatly turning fiction into fact

and demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends

cultural barriers. [Mr. Antonov also contributed the

Russian-language material for this lexicon. --ESR]

In an even more ironic historical footnote, kremvax became an

electronic center of the anti-communist resistance during the

bungled hard-line coup of August 1991. During those three days the

Soviet UUCP network centered on kremvax became the only

trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR. Though

the sysops were concentrating on internal communications,

cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris

Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the

demonstrations in Moscow's streets. In those hours, years of

speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its

grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer

networking were proved devastatingly accurate -- and the original

kremvax joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian

revolutionaries of `glasnost' and `perestroika' made

kremvax one of the timeliest means of their outreach to the

West.

:kyrka: /shir'k*/ /n./ [Swedish] See {feature key}.

= L =

=====

:lace card: /n. obs./ A {{punched card}} with all holes

punched (also called a `whoopee card' or `ventilator card').

Card readers tended to jam when they got to one of these, as the

resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling

inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to

produce these things owing to power-supply problems. When some

practical joker fed a lace card through the reader, you needed to

clear the jam with a `card knife' -- which you used on the joker

first.

:lamer: /n./ [prob. originated in skateboarder slang] Synonym

for {luser}, not used much by hackers but common among {warez

d00dz}, crackers, and {phreaker}s. Oppose {elite}. Has the

same connotations of self-conscious elitism that use of {luser}

does among hackers.

Crackers also use it to refer to cracker {wannabee}s. In phreak

culture, a lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than

doing cracks or really understanding the fundamental concepts. In

{warez d00dz} culture, where the ability to wave around cracked

commercial software within days of (or before) release to the

commercial market is much esteemed, the lamer might try to upload

garbage or shareware or something incredibly old (old in this

context is read as a few years to anything older than 3

days).

:language lawyer: /n./ A person, usually an experienced or

senior software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or

most of the numerous restrictions and features (both useful and

esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming languages.

A language lawyer is distinguished by the ability to show you the

five sentences scattered through a 200-plus-page manual that

together imply the answer to your question "if only you had

thought to look there". Compare {wizard}, {legal},

{legalese}.

:languages of choice: /n./ {C}, {C++}, {LISP}, and

{Perl}. Nearly every hacker knows one of C or LISP, and most

good ones are fluent in both. C++, despite some serious drawbacks,

is generally preferred to other object-oriented languages (though

1996 it looks as though Java may soon displace it in the affections

of hackers, if not everywhere). Since around 1990 Perl has rapidly

been gaining favor, especially as a tool for systems-administration

utilities and rapid prototyping. Smalltalk and Prolog are also

popular in small but influential communities.

There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with

FORTRAN, or even assembler, as their language of choice. They

often prefer to be known as {Real Programmer}s, and other

hackers consider them a bit odd (see "{The Story of Mel,

a Real Programmer}" in Appendix A). Assembler is generally

no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but

{HLL} implementation, {glue}, and a few time-critical and

hardware-specific uses in systems programs. FORTRAN occupies a

shrinking niche in scientific programming.

Most hackers tend to frown on languages like {{Pascal}} and

{{Ada}}, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered

necessary for hacking (see {bondage-and-discipline language}),

and to regard everything even remotely connected with {COBOL} or

other traditional {card walloper} languages as a total and

unmitigated {loss}.

:larval stage: /n./ Describes a period of monomaniacal

concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling

hackers. Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one

36-hour {hacking run} in a given week; neglect of all other

activities including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal

hygiene; and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from

6 months to 2 years, the apparent median being around 18 months. A

few so afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the

ordeal seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed

to merely competent) programmers. See also {wannabee}. A less

protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting

about a month) may recur when one is learning a new {OS} or

programming language.

:lase: /layz/ /vt./ To print a given document via a laser

printer. "OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those

graphics-macro calls did the right things."

:laser chicken: /n./ Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish

containing chicken, peanuts, and hot red peppers in a spicy

pepper-oil sauce. Many hackers call it `laser chicken' for two

reasons: It can {zap} you just like a laser, and the sauce has a

red color reminiscent of some laser beams.

In a variation on this theme, it is reported that some Australian

hackers have redesignated the common dish `lemon chicken' as

`Chernobyl Chicken'. The name is derived from the color of the

sauce, which is considered bright enough to glow in the dark (as,

mythically, do some of the inhabitants of Chernobyl).

:Lasherism: /n./ [Harvard] A program that solves a standard

problem (such as the Eight Queens puzzle or implementing the

{life} algorithm) in a deliberately nonstandard way.

Distinguished from a {crock} or {kluge} by the fact that the

programmer did it on purpose as a mental exercise. Such

constructions are quite popular in exercises such as the

{Obfuscated C Contest}, and occasionally in {retrocomputing}.

Lew Lasher was a student at Harvard around 1980 who became

notorious for such behavior.

:laundromat: /n./ Syn. {disk farm}; see {washing

machine}.

:LDB: /l*'d*b/ /vt./ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] To

extract from the middle. "LDB me a slice of cake, please." This

usage has been kept alive by Common LISP's function of the same

name. Considered silly. See also {DPB}.

:leaf site: /n./ A machine that merely originates and reads

Usenet news or mail, and does not relay any third-party traffic.

Often uttered in a critical tone; when the ratio of leaf sites to

backbone, rib, and other relay sites gets too high, the network

tends to develop bottlenecks. Compare {backbone site}, {rib

site}.

:leak: /n./ With qualifier, one of a class of

resource-management bugs that occur when resources are not freed

properly after operations on them are finished, so they effectively

disappear (leak out). This leads to eventual exhaustion as new

allocation requests come in. {memory leak} and {fd leak}

have their own entries; one might also refer, to, say, a `window

handle leak' in a window system.

:leaky heap: /n./ [Cambridge] An {arena} with a {memory

leak}.

:leapfrog attack: /n./ Use of userid and password information

obtained illicitly from one host (e.g., downloading a file of

account IDs and passwords, tapping TELNET, etc.) to compromise

another host. Also, the act of TELNETting through one or more

hosts in order to confuse a trace (a standard cracker procedure).

:leech: /n./ Among BBS types, crackers and {warez d00dz},

one who consumes knowledge without generating new software, cracks,

or techniques. BBS culture specifically defines a leech as someone

who downloads files with few or no uploads in return, and who does

not contribute to the message section. Cracker culture extends

this definition to someone (a {lamer}, usually) who constantly

presses informed sources for information and/or assistance, but has

nothing to contribute.

:legal: /adj./ Loosely used to mean `in accordance with all the

relevant rules', esp. in connection with some set of constraints

defined by software. "The older =+ alternate for += is no longer

legal syntax in ANSI C." "This parser processes each line of

legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed." Hackers

often model their work as a sort of game played with the

environment in which the objective is to maneuver through the

thicket of `natural laws' to achieve a desired objective. Their

use of `legal' is flavored as much by this game-playing sense as

by the more conventional one having to do with courts and lawyers.

Compare {language lawyer}, {legalese}.

:legalese: /n./ Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language

description, product specification, or interface standard; text

that seems designed to obfuscate and requires a {language

lawyer} to {parse} it. Though hackers are not afraid of high

information density and complexity in language (indeed, they rather

enjoy both), they share a deep and abiding loathing for legalese;

they associate it with deception, {suit}s, and situations in

which hackers generally get the short end of the stick.

:LER: /L-E-R/ /n./ [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] A

light-emitting resistor (that is, one in the process of burning

up). Ohm's law was broken. See also {SED}.

:LERP: /lerp/ /vi.,n./ Quasi-acronym for Linear

Interpolation, used as a verb or noun for the

operation. "Bresenham's algorithm lerps incrementally between the

two endpoints of the line."

:let the smoke out: /v./ To fry hardware (see {fried}). See

{magic smoke} for a discussion of the underlying mythology.

:letterbomb: 1. /n./ A piece of {email} containing {live

data} intended to do nefarious things to the recipient's machine or

terminal. It is possible, for example, to send letterbombs that

will lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are viewed,

so thoroughly that the user must cycle power (see {cycle}, sense

3) to unwedge them. Under Unix, a letterbomb can also try to get

part of its contents interpreted as a shell command to the mailer.

The results of this could range from silly to tragic. See also

{Trojan horse}; compare {nastygram}. 2. Loosely, a

{mailbomb}.

:lexer: /lek'sr/ /n./ Common hacker shorthand for `lexical

analyzer', the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language

(the part that breaks it into word-like pieces). "Some C lexers

get confused by the old-style compound ops like `=-'."

:lexiphage: /lek'si-fayj`/ /n./ A notorious word {chomper}

on ITS. See {bagbiter}. This program would draw on a selected

victim's bitmapped terminal the words "THE BAG" in ornate

letters, followed a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off.

:life: /n./ 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton

Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner

("Scientific American", October 1970); the game's popularity

had to wait a few years for computers on which it could reasonably

be played, as it's no fun to simulate the cells by hand. Many

hackers pass through a stage of fascination with it, and hackers at

various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of

this game (most notably Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented

life in {TECO}!; see {Gosperism}). When a hacker mentions

`life', he is much more likely to mean this game than the

magazine, the breakfast cereal, or the human state of existence.

2. The opposite of {Usenet}. As in "{Get a life!}"

:Life is hard: /prov./ [XEROX PARC] This phrase has two

possible interpretations: (1) "While your suggestion may have some

merit, I will behave as though I hadn't heard it." (2) "While

your suggestion has obvious merit, equally obvious circumstances

prevent it from being seriously considered." The charm of the

phrase lies precisely in this subtle but important ambiguity.

:light pipe: /n./ Fiber optic cable. Oppose {copper}.

:lightweight: /adj./ Opposite of {heavyweight}; usually

found in combining forms such as `lightweight process'.

:like kicking dead whales down the beach: /adj./ Describes a

slow, difficult, and disgusting process. First popularized by a

famous quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of

IBM's mainframe OSes. "Well, you *could* write a C compiler

in COBOL, but it would be like kicking dead whales down the

beach." See also {fear and loathing}.

:like nailing jelly to a tree: /adj./ Used to describe a task

thought to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises

from poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem

domain. "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of

nodes and arcs that diagrams a given graph is like nailing jelly to

a tree, because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means

algorithmically."

Hacker use of this term may recall mainstream slang

originated early in the 20th century by President Theodore

Roosevelt. There is a legend that, weary of inconclusive talks

with Colombia over the right to dig a canal through its

then-province Panama, he remarked, "Negotiating with those pirates

is like trying to nail currant jelly to the wall." Roosevelt's

government subsequently encouraged the anti-Colombian insurgency

that created the nation of Panama.

:line 666: [from Christian eschatological myth] /n./ The

notional line of source at which a program fails for obscure

reasons, implying either that *somebody* is out to get it

(when you are the programmer), or that it richly deserves to be so

gotten (when you are not). "It works when I trace through it, but

seems to crash on line 666 when I run it." "What happens is that

whenever a large batch comes through, mmdf dies on the Line of the

Beast. Probably some twit hardcoded a buffer size."

:line eater, the: /n. obs./ [Usenet] 1. A bug in some

now-obsolete versions of the netnews software that used to eat up

to BUFSIZ bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered by

having the text of the article start with a space or tab. This bug

was quickly personified as a mythical creature called the `line

eater', and postings often included a dummy line of `line eater

food'. Ironically, line eater `food' not beginning with a space

or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if

there *was* a space or tab before it, then the line eater

would eat the food *and* the beginning of the text it was

supposed to be protecting. The practice of `sacrificing to the

line eater' continued for some time after the bug had been

{nailed to the wall}, and is still humorously referred to. The

bug itself was still occasionally reported to be lurking in some

mail-to-netnews gateways as late as 1991. 2. See {NSA line

eater}.

:line noise: /n./ 1. [techspeak] Spurious characters due to

electrical noise in a communications link, especially an RS-232

serial connection. Line noise may be induced by poor connections,

interference or crosstalk from other circuits, electrical storms,

{cosmic rays}, or (notionally) birds crapping on the phone

wires. 2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that looks like

the results of line noise in sense 1. 3. Text that is

theoretically a readable text or program source but employs syntax

so bizarre that it looks like line noise in senses 1 or 2. Yes,

there are languages this ugly. The canonical example is {TECO};

it is often claimed that "TECO's input syntax is indistinguishable

from line noise." Other non-{WYSIWYG} editors, such as Multics

`qed' and Unix `ed', in the hands of a real hacker, also

qualify easily, as do deliberately obfuscated languages such as

{INTERCAL}.

:line starve: [MIT] 1. /vi./ To feed paper through a printer

the wrong way by one line (most printers can't do this). On a

display terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the

screen. "To print `X squared', you just output `X', line starve,

`2', line feed." (The line starve causes the `2' to appear on the

line above the `X', and the line feed gets back to the original

line.) 2. /n./ A character (or character sequence) that causes a

terminal to perform this action. ASCII 0011010, also called SUB or

control-Z, was one common line-starve character in the days before

microcomputers and the X3.64 terminal standard. Unlike `line

feed', `line starve' is *not* standard {{ASCII}}

terminology. Even among hackers it is considered a bit silly.

3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c (used in System V echo, as well

as {{nroff}} and {{troff}}) that suppresses a {newline} or

other character(s) that would normally be emitted.

:linearithmic: /adj./ Of an algorithm, having running time that

is O(N log N). Coined as a portmanteau of `linear' and

`logarithmic' in "Algorithms In C" by Robert Sedgewick

(Addison-Wesley 1990, ISBN 0-201-51425-7).

:link farm: /n./ [Unix] A directory tree that contains many

links to files in a master directory tree of files. Link farms

save space when one is maintaining several nearly identical copies

of the same source tree -- for example, when the only difference

is architecture-dependent object files. "Let's freeze the source

and then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms." Link

farms may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of

`-I' (include-file directory) arguments on older C

preprocessors. However, they can also get completely out of hand,

becoming the filesystem equivalent of {spaghetti code}.

:link-dead: /adj./ [MUD] Said of a {MUD} character who has

frozen in place because of a dropped Internet connection.

:lint: [from Unix's `lint(1)', named for the bits of

fluff it supposedly picks from programs] 1. /vt./ To examine a

program closely for style, language usage, and portability

problems, esp. if in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis

tools, most esp. if the Unix utility `lint(1)' is used.

This term used to be restricted to use of `lint(1)' itself,

but (judging by references on Usenet) it has become a shorthand for

{desk check} at some non-Unix shops, even in languages other

than C. Also as /v./ {delint}. 2. /n./ Excess verbiage in a

document, as in "This draft has too much lint".

:Linux:: /lee'nuhks/ or /li'nuks/, *not* /li:'nuhks/

/n./ The free Unix workalike created by Linus Torvalds and

friends starting about 1990 (the pronunciation /lee'nuhks/ is

preferred because the name `Linus' has an /ee/ sound in Swedish).

This may be the most remarkable hacker project in history -- an

entire clone of Unix for 386, 486 and Pentium micros, distributed

for free with sources over the net (ports to Alpha and Sparc-based

machines are underway). This is what {GNU} aimed to be, but the

Free Software Foundation has not (as of early 1996) produced the

kernel to go with its Unix toolset (which Linux uses). Other,

similar efforts like FreeBSD and NetBSD have been much less

successful. The secret of Linux's success seems to be that Linus

worked much harder early on to keep the development process open

and recruit other hackers, creating a snowball effect.

:lion food: /n./ [IBM] Middle management or HQ staff (or, by

extension, administrative drones in general). From an old joke

about two lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase

their chances but agree to meet after 2 months. When they finally

meet, one is skinny and the other overweight. The thin one says:

"How did you manage? I ate a human just once and they turned out

a small army to chase me -- guns, nets, it was terrible. Since

then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass." The

fat one replies: "Well, *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a

manager a day. And nobody even noticed!"

:Lions Book: /n./ "Source Code and Commentary on Unix

level 6", by John Lions. The two parts of this book contained (1)

the entire source listing of the Unix Version 6 kernel, and (2) a

commentary on the source discussing the algorithms. These were

circulated internally at the University of New South Wales

beginning 1976--77, and were, for years after, the *only*

detailed kernel documentation available to anyone outside Bell

Labs. Because Western Electric wished to maintain trade secret

status on the kernel, the Lions Book was only supposed to be

distributed to affiliates of source licensees. In spite of this,

it soon spread by samizdat to a good many of the early Unix

hackers.

[1996 update: The Lions book lives again! It will finally see legal

public print as ISBN 1-57398-013-7 from Peer-To-Peer

Communications, with a forward by Dennis Ritchie.]

:LISP: /n./ [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically

from `Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] AI's mother

tongue, a language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length lists

and trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the interpretation of

code as data and vice-versa. Invented by John McCarthy at MIT in

the late 1950s, it is actually older than any other {HLL} still

in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable

adaptive radiation over the years; modern variants are quite

different in detail from the original LISP 1.5. The dominant HLL

among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now shares the throne

with {C}. See {languages of choice}.

All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return

values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,

gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar

Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything

and the cost of nothing".

One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example

that most newer languages, such as {COBOL} and {Ada}, are full

of unnecessary {crock}s. When the {Right Thing} has already

been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer

languages.

:list-bomb: /v./ To {mailbomb} someone by forging

messages causing the victim to become a subscriber to many mailing

lists. This is a self-defeating tactic; it merely forces mailing

list servers to require confirmation by return message for every

subscription.

:literature, the: /n./ Computer-science journals and other

publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the

speaker believes is {trivial}. Thus, one might answer an

annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose

{Knuth}, which has no connotation of triviality.

:lithium lick: /n./ [NeXT] Steve Jobs. Employees who have

gotten too much attention from their esteemed founder are said to

have `lithium lick' when they begin to show signs of Jobsian fervor

and repeat the most recent catch phrases in normal conversation ---

for example, "It just works, right out of the box!"

:little-endian: /adj./ Describes a computer architecture in

which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses

have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first').

The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors

and a lot of communications and networking hardware are

little-endian. See {big-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI

problem}. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of

units other than bytes; most often, bits within a byte.

:live: /li:v/ /adj.,adv./ Opposite of `test'. Refers to

actual real-world data or a program working with it. For example,

the response to "I think the record deleter is finished" might

be "Is it live yet?" or "Have you tried it out on live data?"

This usage usually carries the connotation that live data is more

fragile and must not be corrupted, or bad things will happen. So a

more appropriate response might be: "Well, make sure it works

perfectly before we throw live data at it." The implication here

is that record deletion is something pretty significant, and a

haywire record-deleter running amok live would probably cause great

harm.

:live data: /n./ 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and

takes over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious

operation, such as viewing it. One use of such hacks is to break

security. For example, some smart terminals have commands that

allow one to download strings to program keys; this can be used to

write live data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with

a security-breaking {virus} that is triggered the next time a

hapless user strikes that key. For another, there are some

well-known bugs in {vi} that allow certain texts to send

arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed.

2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function {hook}s

(executable code). 3. An object, such as a {trampoline}, that

is constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed

as code.

:Live Free Or Die!: /imp./ 1. The state motto of New Hampshire,

which appears on that state's automobile license plates. 2. A

slogan associated with Unix in the romantic days when Unix

aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground

tilting against the windmills of industry. The "free" referred

specifically to freedom from the {fascist} design philosophies

and crufty misfeatures common on commercial operating systems.

Armando Stettner, one of the early Unix developers, used to give

out fake license plates bearing this motto under a large Unix, all

in New Hampshire colors of green and white. These are now valued

collector's items. Recently (1994) an inferior imitation of these

has been put in circulation with a red corporate logo added.

:livelock: /li:v'lok/ /n./ A situation in which some critical

stage of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually

create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but

before it can clear its queue. Differs from {deadlock} in that

the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a

virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.

:liveware: /li:v'weir/ /n./ 1. Synonym for {wetware}.

Less common. 2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some

liveware in my salad..."

:lobotomy: /n./ 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management

training is said to have undergone. At IBM and elsewhere this term

is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter

doubtless intend it as a joke. 2. The act of removing the

processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it.

Some very cheap {clone} systems are sold in `lobotomized' form

-- everything but the brain.

:locals, the: /pl.n./ The users on one's local network (as

opposed, say, to people one reaches via public Internet or UUCP

connects). The marked thing about this usage is how little it has

to do with real-space distance. "I have to do some tweaking on

this mail utility before releasing it to the locals."

:locked and loaded: /adj./ [from military slang for an M-16

rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] Said of a

removable disk volume properly prepared for use -- that is, locked

into the drive and with the heads loaded. Ironically, because

their heads are `loaded' whenever the power is up, this

description is never used of {{Winchester}} drives (which are

named after a rifle).

:locked up: /adj./ Syn. for {hung}, {wedged}.

:logic bomb: /n./ Code surreptitiously inserted into an

application or OS that causes it to perform some destructive or

security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are

met. Compare {back door}.

:logical: /adj./ [from the technical term `logical device',

wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary

`logical' name] Having the role of. If a person (say, Les

Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post left and were

replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the

`logical' Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the

replacement.) Compare {virtual}.

At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate

system in which `logical north' is toward San Francisco,

`logical west' is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical

north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and

physical west near San Jose. (The best rule of thumb here is that,

by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-and-south.)

In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco

restaurant, get onto {El Camino Bignum} going logical north."

Using the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from

worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost

directly in front of him. The concept is reinforced by North

American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently

labeled with logical rather than physical directions. A similar

situation exists at MIT: Route 128 (famous for the electronics

industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle

surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the

coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe the

two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and

`counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and

"south", respectively. A hacker might describe these directions

as `logical north' and `logical south', to indicate that they

are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual

denotation for those words. (If you went logical south along the

entire length of route 128, you would start out going northwest,

curve around to the south, and finish headed due east, passing

along one infamous stretch of pavement that is simultaneously route

128 south and Interstate 93 north, and is signed as such!)

:loop through: /vt./ To process each element of a list of

things. "Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail."

Derives from the computer-language notion of an iterative loop;

compare `cdr down' (under {cdr}), which is less common among C

and Unix programmers. ITS hackers used to say `IRP over' after

an obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler (the same IRP op

can nowadays be found in Microsoft's assembler).

:loose bytes: /n./ Commonwealth hackish term for the padding

bytes or {shim}s many compilers insert between members of a

record or structure to cope with alignment requirements imposed by

the machine architecture.

:lord high fixer: /n./ [primarily British, from Gilbert &

Sullivan's `lord high executioner'] The person in an organization

who knows the most about some aspect of a system. See {wizard}.

:lose: [MIT] /vi./ 1. To fail. A program loses when it

encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the

expected manner. 2. To be exceptionally unesthetic or crocky.

3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to

ignorant). See also {deserves to lose}. 4. /n./ Refers to

something that is {losing}, especially in the phrases "That's a

lose!" and "What a lose!"

:lose lose: /interj./ A reply to or comment on an undesirable

situation. "I accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose,

lose."

:loser: /n./ An unexpectedly bad situation, program,

programmer, or person. Someone who habitually loses. (Even

winners can lose occasionally.) Someone who knows not and knows

not that he knows not. Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total

loser', and `complete loser' (but not **`moby loser', which

would be a contradiction in terms). See {luser}.

:losing: /adj./ Said of anything that is or causes a {lose}

or {lossage}.

:loss: /n./ Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in

which something is losing. Emphatic forms include `moby loss',

and `total loss', `complete loss'. Common interjections are

"What a loss!" and "What a moby loss!" Note that `moby

loss' is OK even though **`moby loser' is not used; applied to an

abstract noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to

a person it implies substance and has positive connotations.

Compare {lossage}.

:lossage: /los'*j/ /n./ The result of a bug or malfunction.

This is a mass or collective noun. "What a loss!" and "What

lossage!" are nearly synonymous. The former is slightly more

particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter

implies a continuing {lose} of which the speaker is currently a

victim. Thus (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss,

but bugs in an important tool (like a compiler) are serious

lossage.

:lost in the noise: /adj./ Syn. {lost in the underflow}.

This term is from signal processing, where signals of very small

amplitude cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the

system. Though popular among hackers, it is not confined to

hackerdom; physicists, engineers, astronomers, and statisticians

all use it.

:lost in the underflow: /adj./ Too small to be worth

considering; more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy

or measurement. This is a reference to `floating underflow', a

condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic processor

tries to handle quantities smaller than its limit of magnitude. It

is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that

sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers).

"Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the

path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the

underflow." Compare {epsilon}, {epsilon squared}; see also

{overflow bit}.

:lots of MIPS but no I/O: /adj./ Used to describe a person who

is technically brilliant but can't seem to communicate with human

beings effectively. Technically it describes a machine that has

lots of processing power but is bottlenecked on input-output (in

1991, the IBM Rios, a.k.a. RS/6000, is a notorious recent example).

:low-bandwidth: /adj./ [from communication theory] Used to

indicate a talk that, although not {content-free}, was not

terribly informative. "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what

can you expect for an audience of {suit}s!" Compare

{zero-content}, {bandwidth}, {math-out}.

:LPT: /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ /n./ Line printer,

of course. Rare under Unix, more common among hackers who grew up

with ITS, MS-DOS, CP/M and other operating systems that were

strongly influenced by early DEC conventions.

:Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: /prov./ "There is

*always* one more bug."

:lunatic fringe: /n./ [IBM] Customers who can be relied upon to

accept release 1 versions of software.

:lurker: /n./ One of the `silent majority' in a electronic

forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to

read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative

and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking."

Often used in `the lurkers', the hypothetical audience for the

group's {flamage}-emitting regulars. When a lurker speaks up

for the first time, this is called `delurking'.

:luser: /loo'zr/ /n./ A {user}; esp. one who is also a

{loser}. ({luser} and {loser} are pronounced

identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT. Under

ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed

Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed out some

status information, including how many people were already using

the computer; it might print "14 users", for example. Someone

thought it would be a great joke to patch the system to print "14

losers" instead. There ensued a great controversy, as some of the

users didn't particularly want to be called losers to their faces

every time they used the computer. For a while several hackers

struggled covertly, each changing the message behind the back of

the others; any time you logged into the computer it was even money

whether it would say "users" or "losers". Finally, someone

tried the compromise "lusers", and it stuck. Later one of the

ITS machines supported `luser' as a request-for-help command.

ITS died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage

lives on, however, and the term `luser' is often seen in program

comments.

= M =

=====

:M: /pref./ (on units) suff. (on numbers) [SI] See

{{quantifiers}}.

:macdink: /mak'dink/ /vt./ [from the Apple Macintosh, which

is said to encourage such behavior] To make many incremental and

unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Often the

subject of the macdinking would be better off without them. "When

I left at 11 P.M. last night, he was still macdinking the

slides for his presentation." See also {fritterware},

{window shopping}.

:machinable: /adj./ Machine-readable. Having the {softcopy}

nature.

:machoflops: /mach'oh-flops/ /n./ [pun on `megaflops', a

coinage for `millions of FLoating-point Operations Per Second']

Refers to artificially inflated performance figures often quoted by

computer manufacturers. Real applications are lucky to get half

the quoted speed. See {Your mileage may vary}, {benchmark}.

:Macintoy: /mak'in-toy/ /n./ The Apple Macintosh, considered

as a {toy}. Less pejorative than {Macintrash}.

:Macintrash: /mak'in-trash`/ /n./ The Apple Macintosh, as

described by a hacker who doesn't appreciate being kept away from

the *real computer* by the interface. The term {maggotbox}

has been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of

North Carolina. Compare {Macintoy}. See also {beige

toaster}, {WIMP environment}, {point-and-drool interface},

{drool-proof paper}, {user-friendly}.

:macro: /mak'roh/ [techspeak] /n./ A name (possibly followed

by a formal {arg} list) that is equated to a text or symbolic

expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with the

substitution of actual arguments) by a macro expander. This

definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what those

won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have

changed over time.

The term `macro' originated in early assemblers, which encouraged

the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device.

During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and

sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as {HLL}s, only to fall

from favor as improving compiler technology marginalized assembler

programming (see {languages of choice}). Nowadays the term is

most often used in connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one

of several special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion

facility (such as TeX or Unix's [nt]roff suite).

Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective

`macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose

application control language (whether or not the language is

actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like entities

such as the `keyboard macros' supported in some text editors

(and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard enhancers).

:macro-: /pref./ Large. Opposite of {micro-}. In the

mainstream and among other technical cultures (for example, medical

people) this competes with the prefix {mega-}, but hackers tend

to restrict the latter to quantification.

:macrology: /mak-rol'*-jee/ /n./ 1. Set of usually complex or

crufty macros, e.g., as part of a large system written in

{LISP}, {TECO}, or (less commonly) assembler. 2. The art and

science involved in comprehending a macrology in sense 1.

Sometimes studying the macrology of a system is not unlike

archeology, ecology, or {theology}, hence the sound-alike

construction. See also {boxology}.

:macrotape: /mak'roh-tayp/ /n./ An industry-standard reel of

tape, as opposed to a {microtape}. See also {round tape}.

:maggotbox: /mag'*t-boks/ /n./ See {Macintrash}. This is

even more derogatory.

:magic: /adj./ 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to

explain; compare {automagically} and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third

Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable

from magic." "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of

magic bits." "This routine magically computes the parity of an

8-bit byte in three instructions." 2. Characteristic of something

that works although no one really understands why (this is

especially called {black magic}). 3. [Stanford] A feature not

generally publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or

a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled. Compare

{black magic}, {wizardly}, {deep magic}, {heavy

wizardry}.

For more about hackish `magic', see {A Story About `Magic'}

in Appendix A.

:magic cookie: /n./ [Unix] 1. Something passed between routines

or programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation; a

capability ticket or opaque identifier. Especially used of small

data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or

intrinsically machine-dependent way. E.g., on non-Unix OSes with a

non-byte-stream model of files, the result of `ftell(3)' may

be a magic cookie rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to

`fseek(3)', but not operated on in any meaningful way. The

phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it returns a result

whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the

same or some other program later. 2. An in-band code for changing

graphic rendition (e.g., inverse video or underlining) or

performing other control functions (see also {cookie}). Some

older terminals would leave a blank on the screen corresponding to

mode-change magic cookies; this was also called a {glitch} (or

occasionally a `turd'; compare {mouse droppings}). See also

{cookie}.

:magic number: /n./ [Unix/C] 1. In source code, some

non-obvious constant whose value is significant to the operation of

a program and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line

({hardcoded}), rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a

commented `#define'. Magic numbers in this sense are bad

style. 2. A number that encodes critical information used in an

algorithm in some opaque way. The classic examples of these are

the numbers used in hash or CRC functions, or the coefficients in a

linear congruential generator for pseudo-random numbers. This

sense actually predates and was ancestral to the more commonsense

1. 3. Special data located at the beginning of a binary data file

to indicate its type to a utility. Under Unix, the system and

various applications programs (especially the linker) distinguish

between types of executable file by looking for a magic number.

Once upon a time, these magic numbers were PDP-11 branch

instructions that skipped over header data to the start of

executable code; 0407, for example, was octal for `branch 16 bytes

relative'. Many other kinds of files now have magic numbers

somewhere; some magic numbers are, in fact, strings, like the

`!<arch>' at the beginning of a Unix archive file or the

`%!' leading PostScript files. Nowadays only a {wizard}

knows the spells to create magic numbers. How do you choose a

fresh magic number of your own? Simple -- you pick one at random.

See? It's magic!

*The* magic number, on the other hand, is 7+/-2. See

"The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on

our capacity for processing information" by George Miller, in the

"Psychological Review" 63:81-97 (1956). This classic paper

established the number of distinct items (such as numeric digits)

that humans can hold in short-term memory. Among other things,

this strongly influenced the interface design of the phone system.

:magic smoke: /n./ A substance trapped inside IC packages that

enables them to function (also called `blue smoke'; this is

similar to the archaic `phlogiston' hypothesis about

combustion). Its existence is demonstrated by what happens when a

chip burns up -- the magic smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work

any more. See {smoke test}, {let the smoke out}.

Usenetter Jay Maynard tells the following story: "Once, while

hacking on a dedicated Z80 system, I was testing code by blowing

EPROMs and plugging them in the system, then seeing what happened.

One time, I plugged one in backwards. I only discovered that

*after* I realized that Intel didn't put power-on lights under

the quartz windows on the tops of their EPROMs -- the die was

glowing white-hot. Amazingly, the EPROM worked fine after I erased

it, filled it full of zeros, then erased it again. For all I know,

it's still in service. Of course, this is because the magic smoke

didn't get let out." Compare the original phrasing of {Murphy's

Law}.

:mail storm: /n./ [from {broadcast storm}, influenced by

`maelstrom'] What often happens when a machine with an Internet

connection and active users re-connects after extended downtime ---

a flood of incoming mail that brings the machine to its knees.