lossage /los'*j/ n.
[very common] 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.
Node:lost in the noise,
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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.
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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.
Node:lots of MIPS
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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, was a notorious example).
Node:low-bandwidth, Next:LPT, Previous:lots of MIPS but no
I/O, Up:= L =
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 suits!" Compare zero-content, bandwidth, math-out.
Node:LPT, Next:Lubarsky's Law
of Cybernetic Entomology, Previous:low-bandwidth, Up:= L =
LPT /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ n.
1. Line printer (originally Line Printing Terminal). 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. 2.
Local PorT. Used among MS-DOS programmers (and so expanded in the
MS-DOS 5 manual). It seems likely this is a backronym.
Node:Lubarsky's Law
of Cybernetic Entomology, Next:Lumber Cartel, Previous:LPT, Up:= L
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Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology prov.
"There is always one more bug."
Node:Lumber Cartel, Next:lunatic fringe, Previous:Lubarsky's Law
of Cybernetic Entomology, Up:= L =
Lumber Cartel n.
A mythical conspiracy accused by spam-spewers of funding anti-spam activism in
order to force the direct-mail promotions industry back onto
paper. Hackers, predictably, responded by forming a "Lumber
Cartel" spoofing this paranoid theory; the web page is http://come.to/the.lumber.cartel.
Members often include the tag TINLC ("There Is No Lumber Cartel")
in their postings; see TINC, backbone cabal and NANA for explanation.