micros~1
An abbreviation of the full name Microsoft resembling the rather bogus way Windows 9x's VFAT filesystem truncates
long file names to fit in the MS-DOS 8+3 scheme (the real
filename is stored elsewhere). If other files start with the same
prefix, they'll be called micros~2 and so on, causing lots of
problems with backups and other routine system-administration
problems. During the US Antitrust trial against Microsoft the
names Micros~1 ans Micros~2 were suggested for the two companies
that would exist after a break-up.
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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
little-endian dd/mm/yy, and Japanese use big-endian yy/mm/dd for
Western dates).
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middle-out implementation
See bottom-up
implementation.
Node:milliLampson, Next:minifloppies, Previous:middle-out
implementation, Up:= M
=
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.