n. The result of saving HTML from Microsoft Word or some other
program that uses the nonstandard Microsoft variant of Latin-1;
the symptom is that various of those nonstandard characters in
positions 128-160 show up as questionmarks. The usual culprit is
the misnamed `smart quotes' feature in Microsoft Word. For more
details (and a program called `demoroniser' that cleans up the
mess) see http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/.
Node:DRECNET, Next:driver, Previous:Dread Questionmark Disease,
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DRECNET /drek'net/ n.
[from Yiddish/German `dreck', meaning filth] Deliberate
distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol used in the VMS community. So called because DEC helped write the Ethernet specification and
then (either stupidly or as a malignant customer-control tactic)
violated that spec in the design of DRECNET in a way that made it
incompatible. See also connector conspiracy.
Node:driver, Next:droid, Previous:DRECNET, Up:= D
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driver n.
1. The main loop of an
event-processing program; the code that gets commands and
dispatches them for execution. 2. [techspeak] In `device driver',
code designed to handle a particular peripheral device such as a
magnetic disk or tape unit. 3. In the TeX world and the
computerized typesetting world in general, a program that
translates some device-independent or other common format to
something a real device can actually understand.
Node:droid, Next:drone, Previous:driver, Up:= D
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droid n.
[from `android', SF terminology for a humanoid robot of
essentially biological (as opposed to mechanical/electronic)
construction] A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or
service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following
characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent
organization or `the system'; (b) a blind-faith propensity to
believe obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or
computers!); (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or
unable to look beyond the `letter of the law' in exceptional
situations; (d) a paralyzing fear of official reprimand or worse
if Procedures are not followed No Matter What; and (e) no
interest in doing anything above or beyond the call of a very
narrowly-interpreted duty, or in particular in fixing that which
is broken; an "It's not my job, man" attitude.
Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant
and bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level
government employees. The implication is that the rules and
official procedures constitute software that the droid is
executing; problems arise when the software has not been properly
debugged. The term `droid mentality' is also used to describe the
mindset behind this behavior. Compare suit, marketroid; see -oid.
In England there is equivalent mainstream slang; a `jobsworth'
is an obstructive, rule-following bureaucrat, often of the
uniformed or suited variety. Named for the habit of denying a
reasonable request by sucking his teeth and saying "Oh no, guv,
sorry I can't help you: that's more than my job's worth".