:mickey: /n./ The resolution unit of mo_The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0, 24 Jul 1996

been suggested that the `disney' will become a benchmark unit for

animation graphics performance.

:mickey mouse program: /n./ North American equivalent of a

{noddy} (that is, trivial) program. Doesn't necessarily have

the belittling connotations of mainstream slang "Oh, that's just

mickey mouse stuff!"; sometimes trivial programs can be very

useful.

:micro-: /pref./ 1. Very small; this is the root of its use as

a quantifier prefix. 2. A quantifier prefix, calling for

multiplication by 10^(-6) (see {{quantifiers}}).

Neither of these uses is peculiar to hackers, but hackers tend to

fling them both around rather more freely than is countenanced in

standard English. It is recorded, for example, that one CS

professor used to characterize the standard length of his lectures

as a microcentury -- that is, about 52.6 minutes (see also

{attoparsec}, {nanoacre}, and especially

{microfortnight}). 3. Personal or human-scale -- that is,

capable of being maintained or comprehended or manipulated by one

human being. This sense is generalized from `microcomputer',

and is esp. used in contrast with `macro-' (the corresponding

Greek prefix meaning `large'). 4. Local as opposed to global (or

{macro-}). Thus a hacker might say that buying a smaller car to

reduce pollution only solves a microproblem; the macroproblem of

getting to work might be better solved by using mass transit,

moving to within walking distance, or (best of all) telecommuting.

:MicroDroid: /n./ [Usenet] A Microsoft employee, esp. one who

posts to various operating-system advocacy newsgroups. MicroDroids

post follow-ups to any messages critical of Microsoft's operating

systems, and often end up sounding like visiting Mormon

missionaries.

:microfloppies: /n./ 3.5-inch floppies, as opposed to 5.25-inch

{vanilla} or mini-floppies and the now-obsolete 8-inch variety.

This term may be headed for obsolescence as 5.25-inchers pass out

of use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy

standard. See {stiffy}, {minifloppies}.

:microfortnight: /n./ 1/1000000 of the fundamental unit of time

in the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of measurement; 1.2096 sec.

(A furlong is 1/8th of a mile; a firkin is 1/4th of a barrel; the

mass unit of the system is taken to be a firkin of water). The VMS

operating system has a lot of tuning parameters that you can set

with the SYSGEN utility, and one of these is TIMEPROMPTWAIT, the

time the system will wait for an operator to set the correct date

and time at boot if it realizes that the current value is bogus.

This time is specified in microfortnights!

Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and

{nanofortnight} have also been reported.

:microLenat: /mi:`-kroh-len'-*t/ /n./ The unit of

{bogosity}, written uL; the consensus is that this is

the largest unit practical for everyday use. The microLenat,

originally invented by David Jefferson, was promulgated as an

attack against noted computer scientist Doug Lenat by a {tenured

graduate student} at CMU. Doug had failed the student on an

important exam for giving only "AI is bogus" as his answer to the

questions. The slur is generally considered unmerited, but it has

become a running gag nevertheless. Some of Doug's friends argue

that *of course* a microLenat is bogus, since it is only one

millionth of a Lenat. Others have suggested that the unit should

be redesignated after the grad student, as the microReid.

:microReid: /mi:'kroh-reed/ /n./ See {microLenat}.

:Microsloth Windows: /mi:'kroh-sloth` win'dohz/ /n./

Hackerism for `Microsoft Windows', a windowing system for the

IBM-PC which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with

{mess-dos} that it is agonizingly slow on anything less than a

fast 486. Also just called `Windoze', with the implication that

you can fall asleep waiting for it to do anything; the latter term

is extremely common on Usenet. See {Black Screen of Death};

compare {X}, {sun-stools}.

:microtape: /mi:'kroh-tayp/ /n./ Occasionally used to mean a

DECtape, as opposed to a {macrotape}. A DECtape is a small

reel, about 4 inches in diameter, of magnetic tape about an inch

wide. Unlike those for today's {macrotape}s, microtape drivers

allowed random access to the data, and therefore could be used to

support file systems and even for swapping (this was generally done

purely for {hack value}, as they were far too slow for practical

use). In their heyday they were used in pretty much the same ways

one would now use a floppy disk: as a small, portable way to save

and transport files and programs. Apparently the term

`microtape' was actually the official term used within DEC for

these tapes until someone coined the word `DECtape', which, of

course, sounded sexier to the {marketroid}s; another version of

the story holds that someone discovered a conflict with another

company's `microtape' trademark.

:middle-endian: /adj./ Not {big-endian} or

{little-endian}. Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2

or 2-1-4-3, occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of

minicomputer manufacturers who shall remain nameless. See {NUXI

problem}. Non-US hackers use this term to describe the American

mm/dd/yy style of writing dates (Europeans write dd/mm/yy).

:milliLampson: /mil'*-lamp`sn/ /n./ A unit of talking speed,

abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200 milliLampsons. The

eponymous Butler Lampson (a CS theorist and systems implementor

highly regarded among hackers) goes at 1000. A few people speak

faster. This unit is sometimes used to compare the (sometimes

widely disparate) rates at which people can generate ideas and

actually emit them in speech. For example, noted computer

architect C. Gordon Bell (designer of the PDP-11) is said, with

some awe, to think at about 1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he

is frequently reduced to fragments of sentences as his mouth tries

to keep up with his speeding brain.

:minifloppies: /n./ 5.25-inch {vanilla} floppy disks, as

opposed to 3.5-inch or {microfloppies} and the now-obsolescent

8-inch variety. At one time, this term was a trademark of Shugart

Associates for their SA-400 minifloppy drive. Nobody paid any

attention. See {stiffy}.

:MIPS: /mips/ /n./ [abbreviation] 1. A measure of computing

speed; formally, `Million Instructions Per Second' (that's

10^6 per second, not 2^(20)!); often rendered by

hackers as `Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed' or in

other unflattering ways. This joke expresses a nearly universal

attitude about the value of most {benchmark} claims, said

attitude being one of the great cultural divides between hackers

and {marketroid}s. The singular is sometimes `1 MIP' even

though this is clearly etymologically wrong. See also {KIPS}

and {GIPS}. 2. Computers, especially large computers,

considered abstractly as sources of {computron}s. "This is

just a workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement."

3. The corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company; among

other things, they designed the processor chips used in DEC's 3100

workstation series. 4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per

Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).

:misbug: /mis-buhg/ /n./ [MIT] An unintended property of a

program that turns out to be useful; something that should have

been a {bug} but turns out to be a {feature}. Usage: rare.

Compare {green lightning}. See {miswart}.

:misfeature: /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ /n./ A feature

that eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate

for a new situation that has evolved. Since it results from a

deliberate and properly implemented feature, a misfeature is not a

bug. Nor is it a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies

that the feature in question was carefully planned, but its

long-term consequences were not accurately or adequately predicted

(which is quite different from not having thought ahead at all). A

misfeature can be a particularly stubborn problem to resolve,

because fixing it usually involves a substantial philosophical

change to the structure of the system involved.

Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface design) arise

because the designers/implementors mistake their personal tastes

for laws of nature. Often a former feature becomes a misfeature

because trade-offs were made whose parameters subsequently change

(possibly only in the judgment of the implementors). "Well, yeah,

it is kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to six

characters, but the original implementors wanted to save directory

space and we're stuck with it for now."

:Missed'em-five: /n./ Pejorative hackerism for AT&T System V

Unix, generally used by {BSD} partisans in a bigoted mood. (The

synonym `SysVile' is also encountered.) See {software bloat},

{Berzerkeley}.

:missile address: /n./ See {ICBM address}.

:miswart: /mis-wort/ /n./ [from {wart} by analogy with

{misbug}] A {feature} that superficially appears to be a

{wart} but has been determined to be the {Right Thing}. For

example, in some versions of the {EMACS} text editor, the

`transpose characters' command exchanges the character under the

cursor with the one before it on the screen, *except* when the

cursor is at the end of a line, in which case the two characters

before the cursor are exchanged. While this behavior is perhaps

surprising, and certainly inconsistent, it has been found through

extensive experimentation to be what most users want. This feature

is a miswart.

:moby: /moh'bee/ [MIT: seems to have been in use among

model railroad fans years ago. Derived from Melville's "Moby

Dick" (some say from `Moby Pickle').] 1. /adj./ Large, immense,

complex, impressive. "A Saturn V rocket is a truly moby frob."

"Some MIT undergrads pulled off a moby hack at the Harvard-Yale

game." (See "{The Meaning of `Hack'}").

2. /n./ obs. The maximum address space of a machine (see below).

For

a 680[234]0 or VAX or most modern 32-bit architectures, it is

4,294,967,296 8-bit bytes (4 gigabytes). 3. A title of address

(never of third-person reference), usually used to show admiration,

respect, and/or friendliness to a competent hacker. "Greetings,

moby Dave. How's that address-book thing for the Mac going?"

4. /adj./ In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in `moby sixes',

`moby ones', etc. Compare this with {bignum} (sense 3):

double sixes are both bignums and moby sixes, but moby ones are not

bignums (the use of `moby' to describe double ones is sarcastic).

Standard emphatic forms: `Moby foo', `moby win', `moby loss'.

`Foby moo': a spoonerism due to Richard Greenblatt. 5. The

largest available unit of something which is available in discrete

increments. Thus, ordering a "moby Coke" at the local fast-food

joint is not just a request for a large Coke, it's an explicit

request for the largest size they sell.

This term entered hackerdom with the Fabritek 256K memory added to

the MIT AI PDP-6 machine, which was considered unimaginably huge

when it was installed in the 1960s (at a time when a more typical

memory size for a timesharing system was 72 kilobytes). Thus, a

moby is classically 256K 36-bit words, the size of a PDP-6 or

PDP-10 moby. Back when address registers were narrow the term was

more generally useful, because when a computer had virtual memory

mapping, it might actually have more physical memory attached to it

than any one program could access directly. One could then say

"This computer has 6 mobies" meaning that the ratio of physical

memory to address space is 6, without having to say specifically

how much memory there actually is. That in turn implied that the

computer could timeshare six `full-sized' programs without having

to swap programs between memory and disk.

Nowadays the low cost of processor logic means that address spaces

are usually larger than the most physical memory you can cram onto

a machine, so most systems have much *less* than one

theoretical `native' moby of {core}. Also, more modern

memory-management techniques (esp. paging) make the `moby

count' less significant. However, there is one series of

widely-used chips for which the term could stand to be revived ---

the Intel 8088 and 80286 with their incredibly {brain-damaged}

segmented-memory designs. On these, a `moby' would be the

1-megabyte address span of a segment/offset pair (by coincidence, a

PDP-10 moby was exactly 1 megabyte of 9-bit bytes).

:mockingbird: /n./ Software that intercepts communications

(especially login transactions) between users and hosts and

provides system-like responses to the users while saving their

responses (especially account IDs and passwords). A special case

of {Trojan horse}.

:mod: /vt.,n./ 1. Short for `modify' or `modification'.

Very commonly used -- in fact the full terms are considered

markers that one is being formal. The plural `mods' is used

esp. with reference to bug fixes or minor design changes in

hardware or software, most esp. with respect to {patch} sets

or a {diff}. 2. Short for {modulo} but used *only* for

its techspeak sense.

:mode: /n./ A general state, usually used with an adjective

describing the state. Use of the word `mode' rather than

`state' implies that the state is extended over time, and

probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is

being carried out. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode." In its

jargon sense, `mode' is most often attributed to people, though

it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In

particular, see {hack mode}, {day mode}, {night mode},

{demo mode}, {fireworks mode}, and {yoyo mode}; also

{talk mode}.

One also often hears the verbs `enable' and `disable' used in

connection with jargon modes. Thus, for example, a sillier way of

saying "I'm going to crash" is "I'm going to enable crash mode

now". One might also hear a request to "disable flame mode,

please".

In a usage much closer to techspeak, a mode is a special state that

certain user interfaces must pass into in order to perform certain

functions. For example, in order to insert characters into a

document in the Unix editor `vi', one must type the "i" key,

which invokes the "Insert" command. The effect of this command

is to put vi into "insert mode", in which typing the "i" key

has a quite different effect (to wit, it inserts an "i" into the

document). One must then hit another special key, "ESC", in

order to leave "insert mode". Nowadays, modeful interfaces are

generally considered {losing} but survive in quite a few widely

used tools built in less enlightened times.

:mode bit: /n./ A {flag}, usually in hardware, that selects

between two (usually quite different) modes of operation. The

connotations are different from {flag} bit in that mode bits are

mainly written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom explicitly

read, and seldom change over the lifetime of an ordinary program.

The classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (#12) of the

Program Status Word of the IBM 360. Another was the bit on a

PDP-12 that controlled whether it ran the PDP-8 or the LINC

instruction set.

:modulo: /mod'yu-loh/ /prep./ Except for. An

overgeneralization of mathematical terminology; one can consider

saying that 4 equals 22 except for the 9s (4 = 22 mod 9).

"Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that {GC} bug."

"I feel fine today modulo a slight headache."

:molly-guard: /mol'ee-gard/ /n./ [University of Illinois] A

shield to prevent tripping of some {Big Red Switch} by clumsy or

ignorant hands. Originally used of the plexiglass covers

improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer's toddler

daughter (named Molly) frobbed it twice in one day. Later

generalized to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and

networking equipment.

:Mongolian Hordes technique: /n./ [poss. from the Sixties

counterculture expression `Mongolian clusterfuck' for a public

orgy] Development by {gang bang}. Implies that large numbers of

inexperienced programmers are being put on a job better performed

by a few skilled ones. Also called `Chinese Army technique'; see

also {Brooks's Law}.

:monkey up: /vt./ To hack together hardware for a particular

task, especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely {crufty}

and consciously temporary solution. Compare {hack up},

{kluge up}, {cruft together}.

:monkey, scratch: /n./ See {scratch monkey}.

:monstrosity: 1. /n./ A ridiculously {elephantine} program

or system, esp. one that is buggy or only marginally functional.

2. /adj./ The quality of being monstrous (see `Overgeneralization'

the discussion of jargonification). See also {baroque}.

:monty: /mon'tee/ /n./ 1. [US Geological Survey] A program

with a ludicrously complex user interface written to perform

extremely trivial tasks. An example would be a menu-driven, button

clicking, pulldown, pop-up windows program for listing directories.

The original monty was an infamous weather-reporting program, Monty

the Amazing Weather Man, written at the USGS. Monty had a

widget-packed X-window interface with over 200 buttons; and all

monty actually *did* was {FTP} files off the network.

2. [Great Britain; commonly capitalized as `Monty' or as `the

Full Monty'] 16 megabytes of memory, when fitted to an IBM-PC or

compatible. A standard PC-compatible using the AT- or ISA-bus with

a normal BIOS cannot access more than 16 megabytes of RAM.

Generally used of a PC, Unix workstation, etc. to mean `fully

populated with' memory, disk-space or some other desirable

resource. This usage is possibly derived from a TV commercial for

Del Monte fruit juice, in which one of the characters insisted on

"the full Del Monte". Compare American {moby}.

:Moof: /moof/ [Macintosh users] 1. /n./ The call of a

semi-legendary creature, properly called the {dogcow}. (Some

previous versions of this entry claimed, incorrectly, that Moof was

the name of the *creature*.) 2. /adj./ Used to flag software

that's a hack, something untested and on the edge. On one Apple

CD-ROM, certain folders such as "Tools & Apps (Moof!)" and

"Development Platforms (Moof!)", are so marked to indicate that

they contain software not fully tested or sanctioned by the powers

that be. When you open these folders you cross the boundary into

hackerland. 3. /v./ On the Microsoft Network, the term `moof' has

gained popularity as a verb meaning `to be suddenly disconnected by

the system'. One might say "I got moofed".

:Moore's Law: /morz law/ /prov./ The observation that the

logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed

the curve (bits per square inch) = 2^((t - 1962)) where

t is time in years; that is, the amount of information storable on

a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the

technology was invented. This relation, first uttered in 1964 by

semiconductor engineer Gordon Moore (who co-founded Intel four

years later) held until the late 1970s, at which point the doubling

period slowed to 18 months. It remained at that value through time

of writing (late 1995). See also {Parkinson's Law of Data}.

:moose call: /n./ See {whalesong}.

:moria: /mor'ee-*/ /n./ Like {nethack} and {rogue}, one

of the large PD Dungeons-and-Dragons-like simulation games,

available for a wide range of machines and operating systems. The

name is from Tolkien's Mines of Moria; compare {elder days},

{elvish}. The game is extremely addictive and a major consumer

of time better used for hacking.

:MOTAS: /moh-tahz/ /n./ [Usenet: Member Of The Appropriate

Sex, after {MOTOS} and {MOTSS}] A potential or (less often)

actual sex partner. See also {SO}.

:MOTOS: /moh-tohs/ /n./ [acronym from the 1970 U.S. census

forms via Usenet: Member Of The Opposite Sex] A potential or (less

often) actual sex partner. See {MOTAS}, {MOTSS}, {SO}.

Less common than MOTSS or {MOTAS}, which have largely displaced

it.

:MOTSS: /mots/ or /M-O-T-S-S/ /n./ [from the 1970

U.S. census forms via Usenet] Member Of The Same Sex, esp. one

considered as a possible sexual partner. The gay-issues newsgroup

on Usenet is called soc.motss. See {MOTOS} and {MOTAS},

which derive from it. See also {SO}.

:mouse ahead: /vi./ Point-and-click analog of `type ahead'.

To manipulate a computer's pointing device (almost always a mouse

in this usage, but not necessarily) and its selection or command

buttons before a computer program is ready to accept such input, in

anticipation of the program accepting the input. Handling this

properly is rare, but it can help make a {WIMP environment} much

more usable, assuming the users are familiar with the behavior of

the user interface.

:mouse around: /vi./ To explore public portions of a large

system, esp. a network such as Internet via {FTP} or

{TELNET}, looking for interesting stuff to {snarf}.

:mouse belt: /n./ See {rat belt}.

:mouse droppings: /n./ [MS-DOS] Pixels (usually single) that

are not properly restored when the mouse pointer moves away from a

particular location on the screen, producing the appearance that

the mouse pointer has left droppings behind. The major causes for

this problem are programs that write to the screen memory

corresponding to the mouse pointer's current location without

hiding the mouse pointer first, and mouse drivers that do not quite

support the graphics mode in use.

:mouse elbow: /n./ A tennis-elbow-like fatigue syndrome

resulting from excessive use of a {WIMP environment}.

Similarly, `mouse shoulder'; GLS reports that he used to get this

a lot before he taught himself to be ambimoustrous.

:mouso: /mow'soh/ /n./ [by analogy with `typo'] An error in

mouse usage resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic

garbage on the screen. Compare {thinko}, {braino}.

:MS-DOS:: /M-S-dos/ /n./ [MicroSoft Disk Operating System] A

{clone} of {{CP/M}} for the 8088 crufted together in 6 weeks by

hacker Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products, who called the

original QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) and is said to

have regretted it ever since. Microsoft licensed QDOS order to

have something to demo for IBM on time, and the rest is history.

Numerous features, including vaguely Unix-like but rather broken

support for subdirectories, I/O redirection, and pipelines, were

hacked into Microsoft's 2.0 and subsequent versions; as a result,

there are two or more incompatible versions of many system calls,

and MS-DOS programmers can never agree on basic things like what

character to use as an option switch or whether to be

case-sensitive. The resulting appalling mess is now the

highest-unit-volume OS in history. Often known simply as DOS,

which annoys people familiar with other similarly abbreviated

operating systems (the name goes back to the mid-1960s, when it was

attached to IBM's first disk operating system for the 360). The

name further annoys those who know what the term {operating

system} does (or ought to) connote; DOS is more properly a set of

relatively simple interrupt services. Some people like to

pronounce DOS like "dose", as in "I don't work on dose, man!",

or to compare it to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button

in wide circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say

No!"). See {mess-dos}, {ill-behaved}.

:mu: /moo/ The correct answer to the classic trick question

"Have you stopped beating your wife yet?". Assuming that you

have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes"

is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and

then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you have

one and are still beating her. According to various Discordians

and Douglas Hofstadter the correct answer is usually "mu", a

Japanese word alleged to mean "Your question cannot be answered

because it depends on incorrect assumptions". Hackers tend to be

sensitive to logical inadequacies in language, and many have

adopted this suggestion with enthusiasm. The word `mu' is

actually from Chinese, meaning `nothing'; it is used in

mainstream Japanese in that sense, but native speakers do not

recognize the Discordian question-denying use. It almost certainly

derives from overgeneralization of the answer in the following

well-known Rinzei Zen teaching riddle:

A monk asked Joshu, "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?" Joshu

retorted, "Mu!"

See also {has the X nature}, {AI Koans}, and Douglas

Hofstadter's "G"odel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid"

(pointer in the {Bibliography} in Appendix C.

:MUD: /muhd/ /n./ [acronym, Multi-User Dungeon; alt.

Multi-User Dimension] 1. A class of {virtual reality}

experiments accessible via the Internet. These are real-time chat

forums with structure; they have multiple `locations' like an

adventure game, and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic, a

simple economic system, and the capability for characters to build

more structure onto the database that represents the existing

world. 2. /vi./ To play a MUD. The acronym MUD is often

lowercased

and/or verbed; thus, one may speak of `going mudding', etc.

Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU-

form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the

University of Essex's DEC-10 in the early 1980s; descendants of

that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called

BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth (repeated,

unfortunately, by earlier versions of this lexicon) that the name

MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British

Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've

*died* on MUD!"); however, this is false -- Richard Bartle

explicitly placed `MUD' in the public domain in 1985. BT was upset

at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps

and posters, which were released and created the myth.

Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the

MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD).

Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social

interaction. Because these had an image as `research' they

often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This,

together with the fact that Usenet feeds were often spotty and

difficult to get in the U.K., made the MUDs major foci of hackish

social interaction there.

AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and

quickly gained popularity in the U.S.; they became nuclei for large

hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom

(some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the

early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants)

tended to emphasize social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative

world-building as opposed to combat and competition. By 1991, over

50% of MUD sites were of a third major variety, LPMUD, which

synthesizes the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems

with the extensibility of TinyMud. In 1996 the cutting edge of the

technology is Pavel Curtis's MOO, even more extensible using a

built-in object-oriented language. The trend toward greater

programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly,

with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month.

Around 1991 there was an unsuccessful movement to deprecate the

term {MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety

of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being

explored. It survived. See also {bonk/oif}, {FOD},

{link-dead}, {mudhead}, {talk mode}.

:muddie: /n./ Syn. {mudhead}. More common in Great Britain,

possibly because system administrators there like to mutter

"bloody muddies" when annoyed at the species.

:mudhead: /n./ Commonly used to refer to a {MUD} player who

eats, sleeps, and breathes MUD. Mudheads have been known to fail

their degrees, drop out, etc., with the consolation, however, that

they made wizard level. When encountered in person, on a MUD, or

in a chat system, all a mudhead will talk about is three topics:

the tactic, character, or wizard that is supposedly always unfairly

stopping him/her from becoming a wizard or beating a favorite MUD;

why the specific game he/she has experience with is so much better

than any other; and the MUD he or she is writing or going to write

because his/her design ideas are so much better than in any

existing MUD. See also {wannabee}.

To the anthropologically literate, this term may recall the

Zuni/Hopi legend of the mudheads or `koyemshi', mythical

half-formed children of an unnatural union. Figures representing

them act as clowns in Zuni sacred ceremonies. Others may recall

the `High School Madness' sequence from the Firesign Theater album

"Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", in which there

is a character named "Mudhead".

:multician: /muhl-ti'shn/ /n./ [coined at Honeywell,

ca. 1970] Competent user of {{Multics}}. Perhaps oddly, no one

has ever promoted the analogous `Unician'.

:Multics:: /muhl'tiks/ /n./ [from "MULTiplexed Information

and Computing Service"] An early (late 1960s) timesharing

operating system co-designed by a consortium including MIT, GE, and

Bell Laboratories. Multics was very innovative for its time ---

among other things, it introduced the idea of treating all devices

uniformly as special files. All the members but GE eventually

pulled out after determining that {second-system effect} had

bloated Multics to the point of practical unusability (the

`lean' predecessor in question was {CTSS}). Honeywell

commercialized Multics after buying out GE's computer group, but it

was never very successful (among other things, on some versions one

was commonly required to enter a password to log out). One of the

developers left in the lurch by the project's breakup was Ken

Thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of

{{Unix}}. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics

design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also

{brain-damaged} and {GCOS}.

:multitask: /n./ Often used of humans in the same meaning it

has for computers, to describe a person doing several things at

once (but see {thrash}). The term `multiplex', from

communications technology (meaning to handle more than one channel

at the same time), is used similarly.

:mumblage: /muhm'bl*j/ /n./ The topic of one's mumbling (see

{mumble}). "All that mumblage" is used like "all that

stuff" when it is not quite clear how the subject of discussion

works, or like "all that crap" when `mumble' is being used as

an implicit replacement for pejoratives.

:mumble: /interj./ 1. Said when the correct response is too

complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out.

Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance

to get into a long discussion. "Don't you think that we could

improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count

transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there

are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well,

mumble ... I'll have to think about it." 2. [MIT] Expression

of not-quite-articulated agreement, often used as an informal vote

of consensus in a meeting: "So, shall we dike out the COBOL

emulation?" "Mumble!" 3. Sometimes used as an expression of

disagreement (distinguished from sense 2 by tone of voice and other

cues). "I think we should buy a {VAX}." "Mumble!" Common

variant: `mumble frotz' (see {frotz}; interestingly, one does

not say `mumble frobnitz' even though `frotz' is short for

`frobnitz'). 4. Yet another {metasyntactic variable}, like

{foo}. 5. When used as a question ("Mumble?") means "I

didn't understand you". 6. Sometimes used in `public' contexts

on-line as a placefiller for things one is barred from giving

details about. For example, a poster with pre-released hardware in

his machine might say "Yup, my machine now has an extra 16M of

memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for Mumbleco." 7. A

conversational wild card used to designate something one doesn't

want to bother spelling out, but which can be {glark}ed from

context. Compare {blurgle}. 8. [XEROX PARC] A colloquialism

used to suggest that further discussion would be fruitless.

:munch: /vt./ [often confused with {mung}, q.v.] To

transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large

amounts of computation. To trace down a data structure. Related

to {crunch} and nearly synonymous with {grovel}, but connotes

less pain.

:munching: /n./ Exploration of security holes of someone else's

computer for thrills, notoriety, or to annoy the system manager.

Compare {cracker}. See also {hacked off}.

:munching squares: /n./ A {display hack} dating back to the

PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which

employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X

XOR T for successive values of T -- see {HAKMEM} items

146--148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing

squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated

as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing

effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the LISP machine,

have been christened `munching triangles' (try AND for XOR and

toggling points instead of plotting them), `munching w's', and

`munching mazes'. More generally, suppose a graphics program

produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic

form, foo, on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively

simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is

likely to be referred to as `munching foos'. [This is a good

example of the use of the word {foo} as a {metasyntactic

variable}.]

:munchkin: /muhnch'kin/ /n./ [from the squeaky-voiced little

people in L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz"] A

teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else

equally constricted. A term of mild derision -- munchkins are

annoying but some grow up to be hackers after passing through a

{larval stage}. The term {urchin} is also used. See also

{wannabee}, {bitty box}.

:mundane: /n./ [from SF fandom] 1. A person who is not in

science fiction fandom. 2. A person who is not in the computer

industry. In this sense, most often an adjectival modifier as in

"in my mundane life...." See also {Real World}.

:mung: /muhng/ /vt./ [in 1960 at MIT, `Mash Until No Good';

sometime after that the derivation from the {{recursive acronym}}

`Mung Until No Good' became standard; but see {munge}] 1. To

make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable changes.

See {BLT}. 2. To destroy, usually accidentally, occasionally

maliciously. The system only mungs things maliciously; this is a

consequence of {Finagle's Law}. See {scribble}, {mangle},

{trash}, {nuke}. Reports from {Usenet} suggest that the

pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual in speech, but the spelling

`mung' is still common in program comments (compare the

widespread confusion over the proper spelling of {kluge}).

3. The kind of beans the sprouts of which are used in Chinese food.

(That's their real name! Mung beans! Really!)

Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at

{TMRC}; it was already in use there in 1958. Peter Samson

(compiler of the original TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally

have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact)

being twanged. However, it is known that during the World Wars,

`mung' was U.S. army slang for the ersatz creamed chipped beef

better known as `SOS', and it seems quite likely that the word in

fact goes back to Scots-dialect {munge}.

:munge: /muhnj/ /vt./ 1. [derogatory] To imperfectly

transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine,

data structure or the whole program. 3. To modify data in some way

the speaker doesn't need to go into right now or cannot describe

succinctly (compare {mumble}).

This term is often confused with {mung}, which probably was

derived from it. However, it also appears the word `munge' was in

common use in Scotland in the 1940s, and in Yorkshire in the 1950s,

as a verb, meaning to munch up into a masticated mess, and

as a noun, meaning the result of munging something up (the

parallel with the {kluge}/{kludge} pair is amusing).

:Murphy's Law: /prov./ The correct, *original* Murphy's

Law reads: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one

of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do

it." This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because

it is usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the

challenges of design for {luser}s. For example, you don't make a

two-pin plug symmetrical and then label it `THIS WAY UP'; if it

matters which way it is plugged in, then you make the design

asymmetrical (see also the anecdote under {magic smoke}).

Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled

experiments that were done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949 to test

human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981). One experiment

involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of

the subject's body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued

to its mount, and somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong

way around. Murphy then made the original form of his

pronouncement, which the test subject (Major John Paul Stapp)

quoted at a news conference a few days later.

Within months `Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical

cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too many years

had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination,

changing as they went. Most of these are variants on "Anything

that can go wrong, will"; this is correctly referred to as

{Finagle's Law}. The memetic drift apparent in these mutants

clearly demonstrates Murphy's Law acting on itself!

:music:: /n./ A common extracurricular interest of hackers

(compare {{science-fiction fandom}}, {{oriental food}}; see also

{filk}). Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and

programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at

least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.

Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical

appreciation in unusual and interesting directions. Folk music is

very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of

elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called

`progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. The hacker's

musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal

appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Pat

Metheny, Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, Dream Theater, King Sunny

Ade, The Pretenders, Screaming Trees, or the Brandenburg Concerti.

It is also apparently true that hackerdom includes a much higher

concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would expect

from a similar-sized control group of {mundane} types.

:mutter: /vt./ To quietly enter a command not meant for the

ears, eyes, or fingers of ordinary mortals. Often used in `mutter

an {incantation}'. See also {wizard}.

= N =

=====

:N: /N/ /quant./ 1. A large and indeterminate number of

objects: "There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in

its original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N

bugs, as N goes to infinity." (The true number of bugs is

always at least N + 1; see {Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic

Entomology}.) 2. A variable whose value is inherited from the

current context. For example, when a meal is being ordered at a

restaurant, N may be understood to mean however many people

there are at the table. From the remark "We'd like to order

N wonton soups and a family dinner for N - 1" you

can deduce that one person at the table wants to eat only soup,

even though you don't know how many people there are (see

{great-wall}). 3. `Nth': /adj./ The ordinal counterpart

of N, senses 1 and 2. "Now for the Nth and last

time..." In the specific context "Nth-year grad

student", N is generally assumed to be at least 4, and is

usually 5 or more (see {tenured graduate student}). See also

{{random numbers}}, {two-to-the-N}.

:nadger: /nad'jr/ /v./ [UK] Of software or hardware (not

people), to twiddle some object in a hidden manner, generally so

that it conforms better to some format. For instance, string

printing routines on 8-bit processors often take the string text

from the instruction stream, thus a print call looks like `jsr

print:"Hello world"'. The print routine has to `nadger' the

saved instruction pointer so that the processor doesn't try to

execute the text as instructions when the subroutine returns.

Apparently this word originated on a now-legendary 1950s radio

comedy program called "The Goon Show". The Goon Show usage

of "nadger" was definitely in the sense of "jinxed"

"clobbered" "fouled up". The American mutation {adger}

seems to have preserved more of the original flavor.

:nagware: /nag'weir/ /n./ [Usenet] The variety of {shareware}

that displays a large screen at the beginning or end reminding you

to register, typically requiring some sort of keystroke to continue

so that you can't use the software in batch mode. Compare

{crippleware}.

:nailed to the wall: /adj./ [like a trophy] Said of a bug

finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.

:nailing jelly: /vi./ See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.

:naive: /adj./ Untutored in the perversities of some particular

program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive

way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these

coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the

appropriate sense). This trait is completely unrelated to general

maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific

program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of

computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed

to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical

user'.

:naive user: /n./ A {luser}. Tends to imply someone who is

ignorant mainly owing to inexperience. When this is applied to

someone who *has* experience, there is a definite implication

of stupidity.

:NAK: /nak/ /interj./ [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0010101]

1. On-line joke answer to {ACK}?: "I'm not here." 2. On-line

answer to a request for chat: "I'm not available." 3. Used to

politely interrupt someone to tell them you don't understand their

point or that they have suddenly stopped making sense. See

{ACK}, sense 3. "And then, after we recode the project in

COBOL...." "Nak, Nak, Nak! I thought I heard you say

COBOL!"

:nano: /nan'oh/ /n./ [CMU: from `nanosecond'] A brief

period of time. "Be with you in a nano" means you really will be

free shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by "in a

jiffy" (whereas the hackish use of `jiffy' is quite different

-- see {jiffy}).

:nano-: /pref./ [SI: the next quantifier below {micro-};

meaning * 10^(-9)] Smaller than {micro-}, and used in

the same rather loose and connotative way. Thus, one has

{{nanotechnology}} (coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy

with `microtechnology'; and a few machine architectures have a

`nanocode' level below `microcode'. Tom Duff at Bell Labs has

also pointed out that "Pi seconds is a nanocentury".

See also {{quantifiers}}, {pico-}, {nanoacre}, {nanobot},

{nanocomputer}, {nanofortnight}.

:nanoacre: /nan'oh-ay`kr/ /n./ A unit (about 2 mm square) of

real estate on a VLSI chip. The term gets its giggle value from

the fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real

acres once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.

:nanobot: /nan'oh-bot/ /n./ A robot of microscopic

proportions, presumably built by means of {{nanotechnology}}. As

yet, only used informally (and speculatively!). Also called a

`nanoagent'.

:nanocomputer: /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ /n./ A computer with

molecular-sized switching elements. Designs for mechanical

nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their

logic have been proposed. The controller for a {nanobot} would

be a nanocomputer.

:nanofortnight: /n./ [Adelaide University] 1 fortnight

* 10^(-9), or about 1.2 msec. This unit was used

largely by students doing undergraduate practicals. See

{microfortnight}, {attoparsec}, and {micro-}.

:nanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-jee/ /n./ A hypothetical

fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with

the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.

The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in

1990, for example with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on

a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large

computer company. Nanotechnology has been a hot topic in the

hacker subculture ever since the term was coined by K. Eric Drexler

in his book "Engines of Creation" (Anchor/Doubleday, ISBN

0-385-19973-2), where he predicted that nanotechnology could give

rise to replicating assemblers, permitting an exponential growth of

productivity and personal wealth. See also {blue goo}, {gray

goo}, {nanobot}.

:nasal demons: /n./ Recognized shorthand on the Usenet group

comp.std.c for any unexpected behavior of a C compiler on

encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on that

group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler

encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to make

demons fly out of your nose" (the implication is that the compiler

may choose any arbitrarily bizarre way to interpret the code

without violating the ANSI C standard). Someone else followed up

with a reference to "nasal demons", which quickly became

established.

:nastygram: /nas'tee-gram/ /n./ 1. A protocol packet or item

of email (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes

advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to

do untoward things. 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a

{net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a

complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission

problem. Compare {shitogram}, {mailbomb}. 3. A status

report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What'd

Corporate say in today's nastygram?" 4. [deprecated] An error

reply by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce

message}.

:Nathan Hale: /n./ An asterisk (see also {splat},

{{ASCII}}). Oh, you want an etymology? Notionally, from "I

regret that I have only one asterisk for my country!", a misquote

of the famous remark uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was

hanged. Hale was a (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War

of Independence.

:nature: /n./ See {has the X nature}.

:neat hack: /n./ 1. A clever technique. 2. A brilliant

practical joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness,

harmlessness, and surprise value. Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl

card display switch (see "{The Meaning of `Hack'}",

Appendix A). See also {hack}.

:neats vs. scruffies: /n./ The label used to refer to one of

the continuing {holy wars} in AI research. This conflict

tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship

between human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try to build

systems that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to the

way humans report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess

not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the

least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe

that logic is king, while scruffies favor looser, more ad-hoc

methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods

appear promiscuous, successful only by accident, and not productive

of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy,

neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to

the hard-to-capture `common sense' of living intelligences.

:neep-neep: /neep neep/ /n./ [onomatopoeic, widely spread

through SF fandom but reported to have originated at Caltech in the

1970s] One who is fascinated by computers. Less specific than

{hacker}, as it need not imply more skill than is required to

boot games on a PC. The derived noun `neeping' applies

specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to

develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties (the term

`neepery' is also in wide use). Fandom has a related proverb to

the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!".

:neophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-*/ /n./ The trait of being

excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF

fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge

subcultures, including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of

the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and

the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap

heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share

characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{music}}, and

{{oriental food}}. The opposite tendency is `neophobia'.

:nerd: /n./ 1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone

with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary

social rituals. 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious

ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really

important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by

trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare the two senses of

{computer geek}.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines "And then, just to

show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a

Preep

and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!" in the

Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings

`nurd' and `gnurd' also used to be current at MIT.) How it

developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to

have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports

that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit"

without the connotation of intelligence).

An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its

variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this

bears all the earmarks of a bogus folk etymology.

Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later,

and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a

joke. At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket

protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal.

:net.-: /net dot/ /pref./ [Usenet] Prefix used to describe

people and events related to Usenet. From the time before the

{Great Renaming}, when most non-local newsgroups had names

beginning `net.'. Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses'

(various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),

`net.lurkers' (see {lurker}), `net.person', `net.parties'

(a synonym for {boink}, sense 2), and many similar constructs.

:mickey: /n./ The resolution unit of mouse movement. It has