Books: The New Hacker\'s Dictionary version 4.2.2

V >> Various editors >> The New Hacker\'s Dictionary version 4.2.2

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* [4356]earthquake:
* [4357]Easter egg:
* [4358]Easter egging:
* [4359]eat flaming death:
* [4360]EBCDIC:
* [4361]echo:
* [4362]ECP:
* [4363]ed:
* [4364]egosurf:
* [4365]eighty-column mind:
* [4366]El Camino Bignum:
* [4367]elder days:
* [4368]elegant:
* [4369]elephantine:
* [4370]elevator controller:
* [4371]elite:
* [4372]ELIZA effect:
* [4373]elvish:
* [4374]EMACS:
* [4375]email:
* [4376]emoticon:
* [4377]EMP:
* [4378]empire:
* [4379]engine:
* [4380]English:
* [4381]enhancement:
* [4382]ENQ:
* [4383]EOF:
* [4384]EOL:
* [4385]EOU:
* [4386]epoch:
* [4387]epsilon:
* [4388]epsilon squared:
* [4389]era the:
* [4390]Eric Conspiracy:
* [4391]Eris:
* [4392]erotics:
* [4393]error 33:
* [4394]eurodemo:
* [4395]evil:
* [4396]evil and rude:
* [4397]Evil Empire:
* [4398]exa-:
* [4399]examining the entrails:
* [4400]EXCH:
* [4401]excl:
* [4402]EXE:
* [4403]exec:
* [4404]exercise left as an:
* [4405]Exon:
* [4406]Exploder:
* [4407]exploit:
* [4408]external memory:
* [4409]eye candy:
* [4410]eyeball search:
_________________________________________________________________

Node:earthquake, Next:[4411]Easter egg, Previous:[4412]dynner,
Up:[4413]= E =

earthquake n.

[IBM] The ultimate real-world shock test for computer hardware.
Hackish sources at IBM deny the rumor that the Bay Area quake of 1989
was initiated by the company to test quality-assurance procedures at
its California plants.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Easter egg, Next:[4414]Easter egging, Previous:[4415]earthquake,
Up:[4416]= E =

Easter egg n.

[from the custom of the Easter Egg hunt observed in the U.S. and many
parts of Europe] 1. A message hidden in the object code of a program
as a joke, intended to be found by persons disassembling or browsing
the code. 2. A message, graphic, or sound effect emitted by a program
(or, on a PC, the BIOS ROM) in response to some undocumented set of
commands or keystrokes, intended as a joke or to display program
credits. One well-known early Easter egg found in a couple of OSes
caused them to respond to the command make love with not war?. Many
personal computers have much more elaborate eggs hidden in ROM,
including lists of the developers' names, political exhortations,
snatches of music, and (in one case) graphics images of the entire
development team.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Easter egging, Next:[4417]eat flaming death,
Previous:[4418]Easter egg, Up:[4419]= E =

Easter egging n.

[IBM] The act of replacing unrelated components more or less at random
in hopes that a malfunction will go away. Hackers consider this the
normal operating mode of [4420]field circus techs and do not love them
for it. See also the jokes under [4421]field circus. Compare
[4422]shotgun debugging.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:eat flaming death, Next:[4423]EBCDIC, Previous:[4424]Easter
egging, Up:[4425]= E =

eat flaming death imp.

A construction popularized among hackers by the infamous [4426]CPU
Wars comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a
WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death,
non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also
reported that the Firesign Theatre's 1975 album "In The Next World,
You're On Your Own" a character won the right to scream "Eat flaming
death, fascist media pigs" in the middle of Oscar night on a game
show; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown
expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, [4427]EBCDIC users!"
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EBCDIC, Next:[4428]echo, Previous:[4429]eat flaming death,
Up:[4430]= E =

EBCDIC /eb's*-dik/, /eb'see`dik/, or /eb'k*-dik/ n.

[abbreviation, Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code] An
alleged character set used on IBM [4431]dinosaurs. It exists in at
least six mutually incompatible versions, all featuring such delights
as non-contiguous letter sequences and the absence of several ASCII
punctuation characters fairly important for modern computer languages
(exactly which characters are absent varies according to which version
of EBCDIC you're looking at). IBM adapted EBCDIC from [4432]punched
card code in the early 1960s and promulgated it as a customer-control
tactic (see [4433]connector conspiracy), spurning the already
established ASCII standard. Today, IBM claims to be an open-systems
company, but IBM's own description of the EBCDIC variants and how to
convert between them is still internally classified top-secret,
burn-before-reading. Hackers blanch at the very name of EBCDIC and
consider it a manifestation of purest [4434]evil. See also [4435]fear
and loathing.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:echo, Next:[4436]ECP, Previous:[4437]EBCDIC, Up:[4438]= E =

echo [FidoNet] n.

A [4439]topic group on [4440]FidoNet's echomail system. Compare
[4441]newsgroup.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:ECP, Next:[4442]ed, Previous:[4443]echo, Up:[4444]= E =

ECP /E-C-P/ n.

See [4445]spam and [4446]velveeta.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:ed, Next:[4447]egosurf, Previous:[4448]ECP, Up:[4449]= E =

ed n.

"ed is the standard text editor." Line taken from original the
[4450]Unix manual page on ed, an ancient line-oriented editor that is
by now used only by a few [4451]Real Programmers, and even then only
for batch operations. The original line is sometimes uttered near the
beginning of an emacs vs. vi holy war on [4452]Usenet, with the (vain)
hope to quench the discussion before it really takes off. Often
followed by a standard text describing the many virtues of ed (such as
the small memory [4453]footprint on a Timex Sinclair, and the
consistent (because nearly non-existent) user interface).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:egosurf, Next:[4454]eighty-column mind, Previous:[4455]ed,
Up:[4456]= E =

egosurf vi.

To search the net for your name or links to your web pages. Perhaps
connected to long-established SF-fan slang `egoscan', to search for
one's name in a fanzine.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:eighty-column mind, Next:[4457]El Camino Bignum,
Previous:[4458]egosurf, Up:[4459]= E =

eighty-column mind n.

[IBM] The sort said to be possessed by persons for whom the transition
from [4460]punched card to tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell
them about disks yet). It is said that these people, including
(according to an old joke) the founder of IBM, will be buried `face
down, 9-edge first' (the 9-edge being the bottom of the card). This
directive is inscribed on IBM's 1402 and 1622 card readers and is
referenced in a famous bit of doggerel called "The Last Bug", the
climactic lines of which are as follows:
He died at the console
Of hunger and thirst.
Next day he was buried,
Face down, 9-edge first.

The eighty-column mind was thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's
customer base and its thinking. This only began to change in the
mid-1990s when IBM began to reinvent itself after the triumph of the
[4461]killer micro. See [4462]IBM, [4463]fear and loathing, [4464]card
walloper. A copy of "The Last Bug" lives on the the GNU site at
[4465]http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/last.bug.html.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:El Camino Bignum, Next:[4466]elder days,
Previous:[4467]eighty-column mind, Up:[4468]= E =

El Camino Bignum /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ n.

The road mundanely called El Camino Real, running along San Francisco
peninsula. It originally extended all the way down to Mexico City;
many portions of the old road are still intact. Navigation on the San
Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which
defines [4469]logical north and south even though it isn't really
north-south in many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford
University and so is familiar to hackers.

The Spanish word `real' (which has two syllables: /ray-ahl'/) means
`royal'; El Camino Real is `the royal road'. In the FORTRAN language,
a `real' quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant
digits, and a `double precision' quantity is a larger floating-point
number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other
languages have similar `real' types).

When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a
long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on `real', he started
calling it `El Camino Double Precision' -- but when the hacker was
told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it `El
Camino Bignum', and that name has stuck. (See [4470]bignum.)

[GLS has since let slip that the unnamed hacker in this story was in
fact himself --ESR]

In recent years, the synonym `El Camino Virtual' has been reported as
an alternate at IBM and Amdahl sites in the Valley. Mathematically
literate hackers in the Valley have also been heard to refer to some
major cross-street intersecting El Camino Real as "El Camino
Imaginary". One popular theory is that the intersection is located
near Moffett Field - where they keep all those complex planes.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elder days, Next:[4471]elegant, Previous:[4472]El Camino Bignum,
Up:[4473]= E =

elder days n.

The heroic age of hackerdom (roughly, pre-1980); the era of the
[4474]PDP-10, [4475]TECO, [4476]ITS, and the ARPANET. This term has
been rather consciously adopted from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy epic
"The Lord of the Rings". Compare [4477]Iron Age; see also [4478]elvish
and [4479]Great Worm.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elegant, Next:[4480]elephantine, Previous:[4481]elder days,
Up:[4482]= E =

elegant adj.

[common; from mathematical usage] Combining simplicity, power, and a
certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever',
`winning', or even [4483]cuspy.

The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,
probably best known for his classic children's book "The Little
Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best
definition of engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he
has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but
when there is nothing left to take away."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elephantine, Next:[4484]elevator controller,
Previous:[4485]elegant, Up:[4486]= E =

elephantine adj.

Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous [4487]hogs
(owing perhaps to poor design founded on [4488]brute force and
ignorance) and exceedingly [4489]hairy in source form. An elephantine
program may be functional and even friendly, but (as in the old joke
about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to have around all the
same (and, like a pachyderm, difficult to maintain). In extreme cases,
hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform
expressive proboscatory mime at the mention of the offending program.
Usage: semi-humorous. Compare `has the elephant nature' and the
somewhat more pejorative [4490]monstrosity. See also
[4491]second-system effect and [4492]baroque.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elevator controller, Next:[4493]elite,
Previous:[4494]elephantine, Up:[4495]= E =

elevator controller n.

An archetypal dumb embedded-systems application, like [4496]toaster
(which superseded it). During one period (1983-84) in the
deliberations of ANSI X3J11 (the C standardization committee) this was
the canonical example of a really stupid, memory-limited computation
environment. "You can't require printf(3) to be part of the default
runtime library -- what if you're targeting an elevator controller?"
Elevator controllers became important rhetorical weapons on both sides
of several [4497]holy wars.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elite, Next:[4498]ELIZA effect, Previous:[4499]elevator
controller, Up:[4500]= E =

elite adj.

Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a general
positive adjective. This term is not actually native hacker slang; it
is used primarily by crackers and [4501]warez d00dz, for which reason
hackers use it only with heavy irony. The term used to refer to the
folks allowed in to the "hidden" or "privileged" sections of BBSes in
the early 1980s (which, typically, contained pirated software).
Frequently, early boards would only let you post, or even see, a
certain subset of the sections (or `boards') on a BBS. Those who got
to the frequently legendary `triple super secret' boards were elite.
Misspellings of this term in warez d00dz style abound; the forms
`eleet', and `31337' (among others) have been sighted.

A true hacker would be more likely to use `wizardly'. Oppose
[4502]lamer.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:ELIZA effect, Next:[4503]elvish, Previous:[4504]elite, Up:[4505]=
E =

ELIZA effect /*-li:'z* *-fekt'/ n.

[AI community] The tendency of humans to attach associations to terms
from prior experience. For example, there is nothing magic about the
symbol + that makes it well-suited to indicate addition; it's just
that people associate it with addition. Using + or `plus' to mean
addition in a computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA
effect.

This term comes from the famous ELIZA program by Joseph Weizenbaum,
which simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist by rephrasing many of the
patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It
worked by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words
into canned phrases. It was so convincing, however, that there are
many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in
dealing with ELIZA. All this was due to people's tendency to attach to
words meanings which the computer never put there. The ELIZA effect is
a [4506]Good Thing when writing a programming language, but it can
blind you to serious shortcomings when analyzing an Artificial
Intelligence system. Compare [4507]ad-hockery; see also
[4508]AI-complete. Sources for a clone of the original Eliza are
available at
[4509]ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/pub/AI_ATTIC/Programs/Classic/Eliza/Eliz
a.c.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:elvish, Next:[4510]EMACS, Previous:[4511]ELIZA effect, Up:[4512]=
E =

elvish n.

1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the
beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book of Kells". Invented and
described by J. R. R. Tolkien in "The Lord of The Rings" as an
orthography for his fictional `elvish' languages, this system (which
is both visually and phonetically [4513]elegant) has long fascinated
hackers (who tend to be intrigued by artificial languages in general).
It is traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and
the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items.
See also [4514]elder days. 2. By extension, any odd or unreadable
typeface produced by a graphics device. 3. The typeface mundanely
called `Böcklin', an art-Noveau display font.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EMACS, Next:[4515]email, Previous:[4516]elvish, Up:[4517]= E =

EMACS /ee'maks/ n.

[from Editing MACroS] The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a
programmable text editor with an entire LISP system inside it. It was
originally written by Richard Stallman in [4518]TECO under [4519]ITS
at the MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced,
self-documenting, customizable, extensible real-time display editor".
It has since been reimplemented any number of times, by various
hackers, and versions exist that run under most major operating
systems. Perhaps the most widely used version, also written by
Stallman and now called "[4520]GNU EMACS" or [4521]GNUMACS, runs
principally under Unix. (Its close relative XEmacs is the second most
popular version.) It includes facilities to run compilation
subprocesses and send and receive mail or news; many hackers spend up
to 80% of their [4522]tube time inside it. Other variants include
[4523]GOSMACS, CCA EMACS, UniPress EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove,
epsilon, and MicroEMACS. (Though we use the original all-caps spelling
here, it is nowadays very commonly `Emacs'.)

Some EMACS versions running under window managers iconify as an
overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the
editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too
[4524]heavyweight and [4525]baroque for their taste, and expand the
name as `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy reliance on
keystrokes decorated with [4526]bucky bits. Other spoof expansions
include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping' (from when that was
a lot of [4527]core), `Eventually malloc()s All Computer Storage', and
`EMACS Makes A Computer Slow' (see [4528]recursive acronym). See also
[4529]vi.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:email, Next:[4530]emoticon, Previous:[4531]EMACS, Up:[4532]= E =

email /ee'mayl/

(also written `e-mail' and `E-mail') 1. n. Electronic mail
automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems over
common-carrier lines. Contrast [4533]snail-mail, [4534]paper-net,
[4535]voice-net. See [4536]network address. 2. vt. To send electronic
mail.

Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it
means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged in a net or
open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is probably derived
from French `émaillé' (enameled) and related to Old French
`emmailleüre' (network). A French correspondent tells us that in
modern French, `email' is a hard enamel obtained by heating special
paints in a furnace; an `emailleur' (no final e) is a craftsman who
makes email (he generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and
cooks them in a furnace).

There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic
up to 1995, `email' predominates, `e-mail' runs a not-too-distant
second, and `E-mail' and `Email' are a distant third and fourth.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:emoticon, Next:[4537]EMP, Previous:[4538]email, Up:[4539]= E =

emoticon /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n.

[common] An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email
or news. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons (or
some other explicit humor indication) are virtually required under
certain circumstances in high-volume text-only communication forums
such as Usenet; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause
what were intended to be humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise
non-100%-serious comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even
by [4540]newbies), resulting in arguments and [4541]flame wars.

Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in common
use. These include:

:-)
`smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness, occasionally
sarcasm)

:-(
`frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)

;-)
`half-smiley' ([4542]ha ha only serious); also known as
`semi-smiley' or `winkey face'.

:-/
`wry face'

(These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head sideways,
to the left.)

The first two listed are by far the most frequently encountered.
Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX; see
also [4543]bixie. On [4544]Usenet, `smiley' is often used as a generic
term synonymous with [4545]emoticon, as well as specifically for the
happy-face emoticon.

It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the
CMU [4546]bboard systems sometime between early 1981 and mid-1982. He
later wrote: "I wish I had saved the original post, or at least
recorded the date for posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting
something that would soon pollute all the world's communication
channels." [GLS confirms that he remembers this original posting].

Note for the [4547]newbie: Overuse of the smiley is a mark of
loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that
you've gone over the line.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EMP, Next:[4548]empire, Previous:[4549]emoticon, Up:[4550]= E =

EMP /E-M-P/

See [4551]spam.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:empire, Next:[4552]engine, Previous:[4553]EMP, Up:[4554]= E =

empire n.

Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game written by
Peter Langston many years ago. A number of multi-player variants of
varying degrees of sophistication exist, and one single-player version
implemented for both Unix and VMS; the latter is even available as
MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive. Of various commercial
derivatives the best known is probably "Empire Deluxe" on PCs and
Amigas.

Modern empire is a real-time wargame played over the internet by up to
120 players. Typical games last from 24 hours (blitz) to a couple of
months (long term). The amount of sleep you can get while playing is a
function of the rate at which updates occur and the number of
co-rulers of your country. Empire server software is available for
unix-like machines, and clients for Unix and other platforms. A
comprehensive history of the game is available at
[4555]http://www.empire.cx/infopages/History.html. The Empire resource
site is at [4556]http://www.empire.cx/.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:engine, Next:[4557]English, Previous:[4558]empire, Up:[4559]= E =

engine n.

1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be
used without some kind of [4560]front end. Today we have, especially,
`print engine': the guts of a laser printer. 2. An analogous piece of
software; notionally, one that does a lot of noisy crunching, such as
a `database engine'.

The hacker senses of `engine' are actually close to its original,
pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or
instrument (the word is cognate to `ingenuity'). This sense had not
been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of
power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which explains
why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the
`Analytical Engine'.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:English, Next:[4561]enhancement, Previous:[4562]engine,
Up:[4563]= E =

English

1. n. obs. The source code for a program, which may be in any
language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced
from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that to a real
hacker, a program written in his favorite programming language is at
least as readable as English. Usage: mostly by old-time hackers,
though recognizable in context. Today the prefereed shorthand is
sinply [4564]source. 2. The official name of the database language
used by the old Pick Operating System, actually a sort of crufty,
brain-damaged SQL with delusions of grandeur. The name permitted
[4565]marketroids to say "Yes, and you can program our computers in
English!" to ignorant [4566]suits without quite running afoul of the
truth-in-advertising laws.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:enhancement, Next:[4567]ENQ, Previous:[4568]English, Up:[4569]= E
=

enhancement n.

Common [4570]marketroid-speak for a bug [4571]fix. This abuse of
language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence into
increased revenue. A hacker being ironic would instead call the fix a
[4572]feature -- or perhaps save some effort by declaring the bug
itself to be a feature.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:ENQ, Next:[4573]EOF, Previous:[4574]enhancement, Up:[4575]= E =

ENQ /enkw/ or /enk/

[from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for 0000101] An on-line convention
for querying someone's availability. After opening a [4576]talk mode
connection to someone apparently in heavy hack mode, one might type
SYN SYN ENQ? (the SYNs representing notional synchronization bytes),
and expect a return of [4577]ACK or [4578]NAK depending on whether or
not the person felt interruptible. Compare [4579]ping, [4580]finger,
and the usage of FOO? listed under [4581]talk mode.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EOF, Next:[4582]EOL, Previous:[4583]ENQ, Up:[4584]= E =

EOF /E-O-F/ n.

[abbreviation, `End Of File'] 1. [techspeak] The [4585]out-of-band
value returned by C's sequential character-input functions (and their
equivalents in other environments) when end of file has been reached.
This value is usually -1 under C libraries postdating V6 Unix, but was
originally 0. DOS hackers think EOF is ^Z, and a few Amiga hackers
think it's ^\. 2. [Unix] The keyboard character (usually control-D,
the ASCII EOT (End Of Transmission) character) that is mapped by the
terminal driver into an end-of-file condition. 3. Used by extension in
non-computer contexts when a human is doing something that can be
modeled as a sequential read and can't go further. "Yeah, I looked for
a list of 360 mnemonics to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast;
all the library had was a [4586]JCL manual." See also [4587]EOL.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EOL, Next:[4588]EOU, Previous:[4589]EOF, Up:[4590]= E =

EOL /E-O-L/ n.

[End Of Line] Syn. for [4591]newline, derived perhaps from the
original CDC6600 Pascal. Now rare, but widely recognized and
occasionally used for brevity. Used in the example entry under
[4592]BNF. See also [4593]EOF.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EOU, Next:[4594]epoch, Previous:[4595]EOL, Up:[4596]= E =

EOU /E-O-U/ n.

The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control character (End Of User) that
would make an ASR-33 Teletype explode on receipt. This construction
parodies the numerous obscure delimiter and control characters left in
ASCII from the days when it was associated more with wire-service
teletypes than computers (e.g., FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and esp.
EOT). It is worth remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical
beasts with a lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might
explode was nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone
sitting in front of a [4597]tube or flatscreen today.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:epoch, Next:[4598]epsilon, Previous:[4599]EOU, Up:[4600]= E =

epoch n.

[Unix: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] The time and date
corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp
values. Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1,
1970; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 of November 17, 1858 (base date of the
U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides); on a Macintosh, it's the
midnight beginning January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds
or [4601]ticks past the epoch. Weird problems may ensue when the clock
wraps around (see [4602]wrap around), which is not necessarily a rare
event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed 32-bit count
of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The 1-tick-per-second clock of
Unix is good only until January 18, 2038, assuming at least some
software continues to consider it signed and that word lengths don't
increase by then. See also [4603]wall time. Microsoft Windows, on the
other hand, has an epoch problem every 49.7 days - but this is seldom
noticed as Windows is almost incapable of staying up continuously for
that long.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:epsilon, Next:[4604]epsilon squared, Previous:[4605]epoch,
Up:[4606]= E =

epsilon

[see [4607]delta] 1. n. A small quantity of anything. "The cost is
epsilon." 2. adj. Very small, negligible; less than [4608]marginal.
"We can get this feature for epsilon cost." 3. `within epsilon of':
close enough to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes, even
closer than being `within delta of'. "That's not what I asked for, but
it's within epsilon of what I wanted." Alternatively, it may mean not
close enough, but very little is required to get it there: "My program
is within epsilon of working."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:epsilon squared, Next:[4609]era the, Previous:[4610]epsilon,
Up:[4611]= E =

epsilon squared n.

A quantity even smaller than [4612]epsilon, as small in comparison to
epsilon as epsilon is to something normal; completely negligible. If
you buy a supercomputer for a million dollars, the cost of the
thousand-dollar terminal to go with it is [4613]epsilon, and the cost
of the ten-dollar cable to connect them is epsilon squared. Compare
[4614]lost in the underflow, [4615]lost in the noise.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:era the, Next:[4616]Eric Conspiracy, Previous:[4617]epsilon
squared, Up:[4618]= E =

era n.

Syn. [4619]epoch. Webster's Unabridged makes these words almost
synonymous, but `era' more often connotes a span of time rather than a
point in time, whereas the reverse is true for [4620]epoch. The
[4621]epoch usage is recommended.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Eric Conspiracy, Next:[4622]Eris, Previous:[4623]era the,
Up:[4624]= E =

Eric Conspiracy n.

A shadowy group of mustachioed hackers named Eric first pinpointed as
a sinister conspiracy by an infamous talk.bizarre posting ca. 1987;
this was doubtless influenced by the numerous `Eric' jokes in the
Monty Python oeuvre. There do indeed seem to be considerably more
mustachioed Erics in hackerdom than the frequency of these three
traits can account for unless they are correlated in some arcane way.
Well-known examples include Eric Allman (he of the `Allman style'
described under [4625]indent style) and Erik Fair (co-author of NNTP);
your editor has heard from more than sixty others by email, and the
organization line `Eric Conspiracy Secret Laboratories' now emanates
regularly from more than one site. See the Eric Conspiracy Web Page at
[4626]http://www.ccil.org/~esr/ecsl/ for full details.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Eris, Next:[4627]erotics, Previous:[4628]Eric Conspiracy,
Up:[4629]= E =

Eris /e'ris/ n.

The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion, and Things You Know
Not Of; her name was latinized to Discordia and she was worshiped by
that name in Rome. Not a very friendly deity in the Classical
original, she was reinvented as a more benign personification of
creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the adherents of
[4630]Discordianism and has since been a semi-serious subject of
veneration in several `fringe' cultures, including hackerdom. See
[4631]Discordianism, [4632]Church of the SubGenius.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:erotics, Next:[4633]error 33, Previous:[4634]Eris, Up:[4635]= E =

erotics /ee-ro'tiks/ n.

[Helsinki University of Technology, Finland] n. English-language
university slang for electronics. Often used by hackers in Helsinki,
maybe because good electronics excites them and makes them warm.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:error 33, Next:[4636]eurodemo, Previous:[4637]erotics, Up:[4638]=
E =

error 33 [XEROX PARC] n.

1. Predicating one research effort upon the success of another. 2.
Allowing your own research effort to be placed on the critical path of
some other project (be it a research effort or not).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:eurodemo, Next:[4639]evil, Previous:[4640]error 33, Up:[4641]= E
=

eurodemo /yoor'o-dem`-o/

a [4642]demo, sense 4
_________________________________________________________________

Node:evil, Next:[4643]evil and rude, Previous:[4644]eurodemo,
Up:[4645]= E =

evil adj.

As used by hackers, implies that some system, program, person, or
institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth the bother
of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the
[4646]cretinous/[4647]losing/[4648]brain-damaged series, `evil' does
not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or
design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is
more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the
mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a [4649]Blue Glue interface
but decided it was too evil to deal with." "[4650]TECO is neat, but it
can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with
the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/. Compare [4651]evil and
rude.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:evil and rude, Next:[4652]Evil Empire, Previous:[4653]evil,
Up:[4654]= E =

evil and rude adj.

Both [4655]evil and [4656]rude, but with the additional connotation
that the rudeness was due to malice rather than incompetence. Thus,
for example: Microsoft's Windows NT is evil because it's a competent
implementation of a bad design; it's rude because it's gratuitously
incompatible with Unix in places where compatibility would have been
as easy and effective to do; but it's evil and rude because the
incompatibilities are apparently there not to fix design bugs in Unix
but rather to lock hapless customers and developers into the Microsoft
way. Hackish evil and rude is close to the mainstream sense of `evil'.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Evil Empire, Next:[4657]exa-, Previous:[4658]evil and rude,
Up:[4659]= E =

Evil Empire n.

[from Ronald Reagan's famous characterization of the communist Soviet
Union] Formerly [4660]IBM, now [4661]Microsoft. Functionally, the
company most hackers love to hate at any given time. Hackers like to
see themselves as romantic rebels against the Evil Empire, and
frequently adopt this role to the point of ascribing rather more power
and malice to the Empire than it actually has. See also [4662]Borg and
search for [4663]Evil Empire pages on the Web.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:exa-, Next:[4664]examining the entrails, Previous:[4665]Evil
Empire, Up:[4666]= E =

exa- /ek's*/ pref.

[SI] See [4667]quantifiers.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:examining the entrails, Next:[4668]EXCH, Previous:[4669]exa-,
Up:[4670]= E =

examining the entrails n.

The process of [4671]grovelling through a [4672]core dump or hex image
in an attempt to discover the bug that brought a program or system
down. The reference is to divination from the entrails of a sacrified
animal. Compare [4673]runes, [4674]incantation, [4675]black art,
[4676]desk check.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EXCH, Next:[4677]excl, Previous:[4678]examining the entrails,
Up:[4679]= E =

EXCH /eks'ch*/ or /eksch/ vt.

To exchange two things, each for the other; to swap places. If you
point to two people sitting down and say "Exch!", you are asking them
to trade places. EXCH, meaning EXCHange, was originally the name of a
PDP-10 instruction that exchanged the contents of a register and a
memory location. Many newer hackers are probably thinking instead of
the [4680]PostScript exchange operator (which is usually written in
lowercase).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:excl, Next:[4681]EXE, Previous:[4682]EXCH, Up:[4683]= E =

excl /eks'kl/ n.

Abbreviation for `exclamation point'. See [4684]bang, [4685]shriek,
[4686]ASCII.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:EXE, Next:[4687]exec, Previous:[4688]excl, Up:[4689]= E =

EXE /eks'ee/ or /eek'see/ or /E-X-E/ n.

An executable binary file. Some operating systems (notably MS-DOS,
VMS, and TWENEX) use the extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage
is also occasionally found among Unix programmers even though Unix
executables don't have any required suffix.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:exec, Next:[4690]exercise left as an, Previous:[4691]EXE,
Up:[4692]= E =

exec /eg-zek'/ or /eks'ek/ vt., n.

1. [Unix: from `execute'] Synonym for [4693]chain, derives from the
exec(2) call. 2. [from `executive'] obs. The command interpreter for
an [4694]OS (see [4695]shell); term esp. used around mainframes, and
prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC 8 operating
systems. 3. At IBM and VM/CMS shops, the equivalent of a shell command
file (among VM/CMS users).

The mainstream `exec' as an abbreviation for (human) executive is not
used. To a hacker, an `exec' is a always a program, never a person.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:exercise left as an, Next:[4696]Exon, Previous:[4697]exec,
Up:[4698]= E =

exercise, left as an adj.

[from technical books] Used to complete a proof when one doesn't mind
a [4699]handwave, or to avoid one entirely. The complete phrase is:
"The proof [or `the rest'] is left as an exercise for the reader."
This comment has occasionally been attached to unsolved research
problems by authors possessed of either an evil sense of humor or a
vast faith in the capabilities of their audiences.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Exon, Next:[4700]Exploder, Previous:[4701]exercise left as an,
Up:[4702]= E =

Exon /eks'on/ excl.

A generic obscenity that quickly entered wide use on the Internet and
Usenet after [4703]Black Thursday. From the last name of Senator James
Exon (Democrat-Nebraska), primary author of the [4704]CDA.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Exploder, Next:[4705]exploit, Previous:[4706]Exon, Up:[4707]= E =

Exploder n.

Used within Microsoft to refer to the Windows Explorer, the interface
component of Windows 95 and WinNT 4. Our spies report that most of the
heavy guns at MS came from a Unix background and use command line
utilities; even they are scornful of the over-gingerbreaded [4708]WIMP
environments that they have been called upon to create.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:exploit, Next:[4709]external memory, Previous:[4710]Exploder,
Up:[4711]= E =

exploit n.

[originally cracker slang] 1. A vulnerability in software that can be
used for breaking security or otherwise attacking an Internet host
over the network. The [4712]Ping O' Death is a famous exploit. 2. More
grammatically, a program that exploits an exploit in sense 1,
_________________________________________________________________

Node:external memory, Next:[4713]eye candy, Previous:[4714]exploit,
Up:[4715]= E =

external memory n.

A memo pad, palmtop computer, or written notes. "Hold on while I write
that to external memory". The analogy is with store or DRAM versus
nonvolatile disk storage on computers.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:eye candy, Next:[4716]eyeball search, Previous:[4717]external
memory, Up:[4718]= E =

eye candy /i:' kand`ee/ n.

[from mainstream slang "ear candy"] A display of some sort that's
presented to [4719]lusers to keep them distracted while the program
performs necessary background tasks. "Give 'em some eye candy while
the back-end [4720]slurps that [4721]BLOB into core." Reported as
mainstream usage among players of graphics-heavy computer games. We're
also told this term is mainstream slang for soft pornography, but that
sense does not appear to be live among hackers.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:eyeball search, Next:[4722]face time, Previous:[4723]eye candy,
Up:[4724]= E =

eyeball search n.,v.

To look for something in a mass of code or data with one's own native
optical sensors, as opposed to using some sort of pattern matching
software like [4725]grep or any other automated search tool. Also
called a [4726]vgrep; compare [4727]vdiff, [4728]desk check.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:= F =, Next:[4729]= G =, Previous:[4730]= E =, Up:[4731]The
Jargon Lexicon

= F =

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