voice-net n.
Hackish way of referring to the telephone system, analogizing
it to a digital network. Usenet sig
blocks not uncommonly include the sender's phone next to
a "Voice:" or "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are
"Voicenet" and "V-Net". Compare paper-net, snail-mail.
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voodoo programming n.
[from George Bush's "voodoo economics"] 1. The use by guess or
cookbook of an obscure or hairy system, feature, or algorithm that
one does not truly understand. The implication is that the
technique may not work, and if it doesn't, one will never know
why. Almost synonymous with black
magic, except that black magic typically isn't documented
and nobody understands it. Compare magic, deep
magic, heavy
wizardry, rain dance,
cargo cult
programming, wave
a dead chicken. 2. Things programmers do that they know
shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually
work, such as recompiling everything.
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VR // [MUD] n.
On-line abbrev for virtual
reality, as opposed to RL.
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Vulcan nerve pinch n.
[from the old "Star Trek" TV series via Commodore Amiga
hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a soft-boot or jump
to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On PC
clones this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on Macintoshes, it is
<Cmd>-<Power switch> or
<CMD>-<CTRL>-<POWER>! Also called three-finger salute. Compare
quadruple bucky.
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vulture capitalist n.
Pejorative hackerism for `venture capitalist', deriving from
the common practice of pushing contracts that deprive inventors
of control over their own innovations and most of the money they
ought to have made from them.