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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* [12950]T:
* [12951]tail recursion:
* [12952]talk mode:
* [12953]talker system:
* [12954]tall card:
* [12955]tanked:
* [12956]TANSTAAFL:
* [12957]tape monkey:
* [12958]tar and feather:
* [12959]tarball:
* [12960]tardegy:
* [12961]taste:
* [12962]tayste:
* [12963]TCB:
* [12964]TCP/IP:
* [12965]TechRef:
* [12966]TECO:
* [12967]tee:
* [12968]teergrube:
* [12969]teledildonics:
* [12970]Telerat:
* [12971]TELNET:
* [12972]ten-finger interface:
* [12973]tense:
* [12974]tentacle:
* [12975]tenured graduate student:
* [12976]tera-:
* [12977]teraflop club:
* [12978]terminak:
* [12979]terminal brain death:
* [12980]terminal illness:
* [12981]terminal junkie:
* [12982]terpri:
* [12983]test:
* [12984]TeX:
* [12985]text:
* [12986]thanks in advance:
* [12987]That's not a bug that's a feature!:
* [12988]the literature:
* [12989]the network:
* [12990]the X that can be Y is not the true X:
* [12991]theology:
* [12992]theory:
* [12993]thinko:
* [12994]This can't happen:
* [12995]This time for sure!:
* [12996]thrash:
* [12997]thread:
* [12998]three-finger salute:
* [12999]throwaway account:
* [13000]thud:
* [13001]thumb:
* [13002]thundering herd problem:
* [13003]thunk:
* [13004]tick:
* [13005]tick-list features:
* [13006]tickle a bug:
* [13007]tiger team:
* [13008]time bomb:
* [13009]time sink:
* [13010]time T:
* [13011]times-or-divided-by:
* [13012]TINC:
* [13013]Tinkerbell program:
* [13014]TINLC:
* [13015]tip of the ice-cube:
* [13016]tired iron:
* [13017]tits on a keyboard:
* [13018]TLA:
* [13019](TM):
* [13020]TMRC:
* [13021]TMRCie:
* [13022]TMTOWTDI:
* [13023]to a first approximation:
* [13024]to a zeroth approximation:
* [13025]toad:
* [13026]toast:
* [13027]toaster:
* [13028]toeprint:
* [13029]toggle:
* [13030]tool:
* [13031]toolsmith:
* [13032]toor:
* [13033]topic drift:
* [13034]topic group:
* [13035]TOPS-10:
* [13036]TOPS-20:
* [13037]tourist:
* [13038]tourist information:
* [13039]touristic:
* [13040]toy:
* [13041]toy language:
* [13042]toy problem:
* [13043]toy program:
* [13044]trampoline:
* [13045]trap:
* [13046]trap door:
* [13047]trash:
* [13048]trawl:
* [13049]tree-killer:
* [13050]treeware:
* [13051]trit:
* [13052]trivial:
* [13053]troff:
* [13054]troglodyte:
* [13055]troglodyte mode:
* [13056]Trojan horse:
* [13057]troll:
* [13058]Troll-O-Meter:
* [13059]tron:
* [13060]true-hacker:
* [13061]tty:
* [13062]tube:
* [13063]tube time:
* [13064]tunafish:
* [13065]tune:
* [13066]turbo nerd:
* [13067]Turing tar-pit:
* [13068]turist:
* [13069]Tux:
* [13070]tweak:
* [13071]tweeter:
* [13072]TWENEX:
* [13073]twiddle:
* [13074]twiddle:
* [13075]twilight zone:
* [13076]twink:
* [13077]twirling baton:
* [13078]two pi:
* [13079]two-to-the-N:
* [13080]twonkie:
_________________________________________________________________

Node:T, Next:[13081]tail recursion, Previous:[13082]SysVile,
Up:[13083]= T =

T /T/

1. [from LISP terminology for `true'] Yes. Used in reply to a question
(particularly one asked using [13084]The -P convention). In LISP, the
constant T means `true', among other things. Some Lisp hackers use `T'
and `NIL' instead of `Yes' and `No' almost reflexively. This sometimes
causes misunderstandings. When a waiter or flight attendant asks
whether a hacker wants coffee, he may absently respond `T', meaning
that he wants coffee; but of course he will be brought a cup of tea
instead. Fortunately, most hackers (particularly those who frequent
Chinese restaurants) like tea at least as well as coffee -- so it is
not that big a problem. 2. See [13085]time T (also [13086]since time T
equals minus infinity). 3. [techspeak] In transaction-processing
circles, an abbreviation for the noun `transaction'. 4. [Purdue]
Alternate spelling of [13087]tee. 5. A dialect of [13088]LISP
developed at Yale. (There is an intended allusion to NIL, "New
Implementation of Lisp", another dialect of Lisp developed for the
[13089]VAX)
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tail recursion, Next:[13090]talk mode, Previous:[13091]T,
Up:[13092]= T =

tail recursion n.

If you aren't sick of it already, see [13093]tail recursion.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:talk mode, Next:[13094]talker system, Previous:[13095]tail
recursion, Up:[13096]= T =

talk mode n.

A feature supported by Unix, ITS, and some other OSes that allows two
or more logged-in users to set up a real-time on-line conversation. It
combines the immediacy of talking with all the precision (and
verbosity) that written language entails. It is difficult to
communicate inflection, though conventions have arisen for some of
these (see the section on writing style in the Prependices for
details).

Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
which are not used orally. Some of these are identical to (and
probably derived from) Morse-code jargon used by ham-radio amateurs
since the 1920s.

AFAIAC
as far as I am concerned

AFAIK
as far as I know

BCNU
be seeing you

BTW
by the way

BYE?
are you ready to unlink? (this is the standard way to end a
talk-mode conversation; the other person types BYE to confirm,
or else continues the conversation)

CUL
see you later

ENQ?
are you busy? (expects ACK or NAK in return)

FOO?
are you there? (often used on unexpected links, meaning also
"Sorry if I butted in ..." (linker) or "What's up?" (linkee))

FWIW
for what it's worth

FYI
for your information

FYA
for your amusement

GA
go ahead (used when two people have tried to type
simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to the other)

GRMBL
grumble (expresses disquiet or disagreement)

HELLOP
hello? (an instance of the `-P' convention)

IIRC
if I recall correctly

JAM
just a minute (equivalent to SEC....)

MIN
same as JAM

NIL
no (see [13097]NIL)

NP
no problem

O
over to you

OO
over and out

/
another form of "over to you" (from x/y as "x over y")

\
lambda (used in discussing LISPy things)

OBTW
oh, by the way

OTOH
on the other hand

R U THERE?
are you there?

SEC
wait a second (sometimes written SEC...)

SYN
Are you busy? (expects ACK, SYN|ACK, or RST in return; this is
modeled on the TCP/IP handshake sequence)

T
yes (see the main entry for [13098]T)

TNX
thanks

TNX 1.0E6
thanks a million (humorous)

TNXE6
another form of "thanks a million"

WRT
with regard to, or with respect to.

WTF
the universal interrogative particle; WTF knows what it means?

WTH
what the hell?

When the typing party has finished, he/she types two newlines
to signal that he/she is done; this leaves a blank line between
`speeches' in the conversation, making it easier to reread the
preceding text.

:
When three or more terminals are linked, it is conventional for
each typist to [13099]prepend his/her login name or handle and
a colon (or a hyphen) to each line to indicate who is typing
(some conferencing facilities do this automatically). The login
name is often shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single
letter) during a very long conversation.

/\/\/\
A giggle or chuckle. On a MUD, this usually means `earthquake
fault'.

Most of the above sub-jargon is used at both Stanford and MIT. Several
of these expressions are also common in [13100]email, esp. FYI, FYA,
BTW, BCNU, WTF, and CUL. A few other abbreviations have been reported
from commercial networks, such as GEnie and CompuServe, where on-line
`live' chat including more than two people is common and usually
involves a more `social' context, notably the following:

grin

grinning, ducking, and running

BBL
be back later

BRB
be right back

HHOJ
ha ha only joking

HHOK
ha ha only kidding

HHOS
[13101]ha ha only serious

IMHO
in my humble opinion (see [13102]IMHO)

LOL
laughing out loud

NHOH
Never Heard of Him/Her (often used in [13103]initgame)

ROTF
rolling on the floor

ROTFL
rolling on the floor laughing

AFK
away from keyboard

b4
before

CU l8tr
see you later

MORF
male or female?

TTFN
ta-ta for now

TTYL
talk to you later

OIC
oh, I see

rehi
hello again

Most of these are not used at universities or in the Unix world,
though ROTF and TTFN have gained some currency there and IMHO is
common; conversely, most of the people who know these are unfamiliar
with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, [13104]NIL, and [13105]T.

The [13106]MUD community uses a mixture of Usenet/Internet emoticons,
a few of the more natural of the old-style talk-mode abbrevs, and some
of the `social' list above; specifically, MUD respondents report use
of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF, TTFN, and WTH. The use of `rehi' is
also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re- compounds and will
frequently `rehug' or `rebonk' (see [13107]bonk/oif) people. The word
`re' by itself is taken as `regreet'. In general, though, MUDders
express a preference for typing things out in full rather than using
abbreviations; this may be due to the relative youth of the MUD
cultures, which tend to include many touch typists and to assume
high-speed links. The following uses specific to MUDs are reported:

CU l8er
see you later (mutant of CU l8tr)

FOAD
fuck off and die (use of this is generally OTT)

OTT
over the top (excessive, uncalled for)

ppl
abbrev for "people"

THX
thanks (mutant of TNX; clearly this comes in batches of 1138
(the Lucasian K)).

UOK?
are you OK?

Some [13108]B1FFisms (notably the variant spelling d00d) appear to be
passing into wider use among some subgroups of MUDders.

One final note on talk mode style: neophytes, when in talk mode, often
seem to think they must produce letter-perfect prose because they are
typing rather than speaking. This is not the best approach. It can be
very frustrating to wait while your partner pauses to think of a word,
or repeatedly makes the same spelling error and backs up to fix it. It
is usually best just to leave typographical errors behind and plunge
forward, unless severe confusion may result; in that case it is often
fastest just to type "xxx" and start over from before the mistake.

See also [13109]hakspek, [13110]emoticon.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:talker system, Next:[13111]tall card, Previous:[13112]talk mode,
Up:[13113]= T =

talker system n.

British hackerism for software that enables real-time chat or
[13114]talk mode.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tall card, Next:[13115]tanked, Previous:[13116]talker system,
Up:[13117]= T =

tall card n.

A PC/AT-size expansion card (these can be larger than IBM PC or XT
cards because the AT case is bigger). See also [13118]short card. When
IBM introduced the PS/2 model 30 (its last gasp at supporting the ISA)
they made the case lower and many industry-standard tall cards
wouldn't fit; this was felt to be a reincarnation of the
[13119]connector conspiracy, done with less style.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tanked, Next:[13120]TANSTAAFL, Previous:[13121]tall card,
Up:[13122]= T =

tanked adj.

Same as [13123]down, used primarily by Unix hackers. See also
[13124]hosed. Popularized as a synonym for `drunk' by Steve Dallas in
the late lamented "Bloom County" comic strip.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TANSTAAFL, Next:[13125]tape monkey, Previous:[13126]tanked,
Up:[13127]= T =

TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/

[acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress".] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked
when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly
[13128]heavyweight technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of
software, or at the [13129]signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet
newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back
end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you
know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high
concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in
hackerdom (see [13130]Appendix B for discussion).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tape monkey, Next:[13131]tar and feather,
Previous:[13132]TANSTAAFL, Up:[13133]= T =

tape monkey n.

A junior system administrator, one who might plausibly be assigned to
do physical swapping of tapes and subsequent storage. When a backup
needs to be restored, one might holler "Tape monkey!" (Compare
[13134]one-banana problem) Also used to dismiss jobs not worthy of a
highly trained sysadmin's ineffable talents: "Cable up her PC? You
must be joking - I'm no tape monkey."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tar and feather, Next:[13135]tarball, Previous:[13136]tape
monkey, Up:[13137]= T =

tar and feather vi.

[from Unix tar(1)] To create a transportable archive from a group of
files by first sticking them together with tar(1) (the Tape ARchiver)
and then compressing the result (see [13138]compress). The latter
action is dubbed `feathering' partly for euphony and (if only for
contrived effect) by analogy to what you do with an airplane propeller
to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce water
resistance; smaller files, after all, slip through comm links more
easily. Compare the more common [13139]tarball.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tarball, Next:[13140]tardegy, Previous:[13141]tar and feather,
Up:[13142]= T =

tarball n.

[very common; prob. based on the "tar baby" in the Uncle Remus folk
tales] An archive, created with the Unix tar(1) utility, containing
myriad related files. "Here, I'll just ftp you a tarball of the whole
project." Tarballs have been the standard way to ship around
source-code distributions since the mid-1980s; in retrospect it seems
odd that this term did not enter common usage until the late 1990s.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tardegy, Next:[13143]taste, Previous:[13144]tarball, Up:[13145]=
T =

tardegy

n. [deliberate mangling of `tragedy'] An incident in which someone who
clearly deserves to be selected out of the gene pool on grounds of
extreme stupidity meets with a messy end. Coined on the Darwin list,
which is dedicated to chronicling such incidents; but almost all
hackers would instantly recognize the intention of the term and laugh.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:taste, Next:[13146]tayste, Previous:[13147]tardegy, Up:[13148]= T
=

taste [primarily MIT] n.

1. The quality in a program that tends to be inversely proportional to
the number of features, hacks, and kluges programmed into it. Also
`tasty', `tasteful', `tastefulness'. "This feature comes in N tasty
flavors." Although `tasty' and `flavorful' are essentially synonyms,
`taste' and [13149]flavor are not. Taste refers to sound judgment on
the part of the creator; a program or feature can exhibit taste but
cannot have taste. On the other hand, a feature can have
[13150]flavor. Also, [13151]flavor has the additional meaning of
`kind' or `variety' not shared by `taste'. The marked sense of
[13152]flavor is more popular than `taste', though both are widely
used. See also [13153]elegant. 2. Alt. sp. of [13154]tayste.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tayste, Next:[13155]TCB, Previous:[13156]taste, Up:[13157]= T =

tayste /tayst/

n. Two bits; also as [13158]taste. Syn. [13159]crumb, [13160]quarter.
See [13161]nybble.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TCB, Next:[13162]TCP/IP, Previous:[13163]tayste, Up:[13164]= T =

TCB /T-C-B/ n.

[IBM] 1. Trouble Came Back. An intermittent or difficult-to-reproduce
problem that has failed to respond to neglect or [13165]shotgun
debugging. Compare [13166]heisenbug. Not to be confused with: 2.
Trusted Computing Base, an `official' jargon term from the
[13167]Orange Book.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TCP/IP, Next:[13168]TechRef, Previous:[13169]TCB, Up:[13170]= T =

TCP/IP /T'C-P I'P/ n.

1. [Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol] The
wide-area-networking protocol that makes the Internet work, and the
only one most hackers can speak the name of without laughing or
retching. Unlike such allegedly `standard' competitors such as X.25,
DECnet, and the ISO 7-layer stack, TCP/IP evolved primarily by
actually being used, rather than being handed down from on high by a
vendor or a heavily-politicized standards committee. Consequently, it
(a) works, (b) actually promotes cheap cross-platform connectivity,
and (c) annoys the hell out of corporate and governmental
empire-builders everywhere. Hackers value all three of these
properties. See [13171]creationism. 2. [Amateur Packet Radio] Formerly
expanded as "The Crap Phil Is Pushing". The reference is to Phil Karn,
KA9Q, and the context was an ongoing technical/political war between
the majority of sites still running AX.25 and the TCP/IP relays.
TCP/IP won.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TechRef, Next:[13172]TECO, Previous:[13173]TCP/IP, Up:[13174]= T
=

TechRef /tek'ref/ n.

[MS-DOS] The original "IBM PC Technical Reference Manual", including
the BIOS listing and complete schematics for the PC. The only PC
documentation in the original-issue package that was considered
serious by real hackers.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TECO, Next:[13175]tee, Previous:[13176]TechRef, Up:[13177]= T =

TECO /tee'koh/ n.,v. obs.

1. [originally an acronym for `[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector';
later, `Text Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor developed at MIT
and modified by just about everybody. With all the dialects included,
TECO may have been the most prolific editor in use before
[13178]EMACS, to which it was directly ancestral. Noted for its
powerful programming-language-like features and its unspeakably hairy
syntax. It is literally the case that every string of characters is a
valid TECO program (though probably not a useful one); one common game
used to be mentally working out what the TECO commands corresponding
to human names did. 2. vt. Originally, to edit using the TECO editor
in one of its infinite variations (see below). 3. vt.,obs. To edit
even when TECO is not the editor being used! This usage is rare and
now primarily historical.

As an example of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that takes a
list of names such as:
Loser, J. Random
Quux, The Great
Dick, Moby

sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts the
surname last, removing the comma, to produce the following:
Moby Dick
J. Random Loser
The Great Quux

The program is
[1 J^P$L$$
J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$

(where ^B means `Control-B' (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually an
[13179]alt or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).

In fact, this very program was used to produce the second, sorted list
from the first list. The first hack at it had a [13180]bug: GLS (the
author) had accidentally omitted the @ in front of F^B, which as
anyone can see is clearly the [13181]Wrong Thing. It worked fine the
second time. There is no space to describe all the features of TECO,
but it may be of interest that ^P means `sort' and J<.-Z; ... L> is an
idiomatic series of commands for `do once for every line'.

In mid-1991, TECO is pretty much one with the dust of history, having
been replaced in the affections of hackerdom by [13182]EMACS.
Descendants of an early (and somewhat lobotomized) version adopted by
DEC can still be found lurking on VMS and a couple of crufty PDP-11
operating systems, however, and ports of the more advanced MIT
versions remain the focus of some antiquarian interest. See also
[13183]retrocomputing, [13184]write-only language.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tee, Next:[13185]teergrube, Previous:[13186]TECO, Up:[13187]= T =

tee n.,vt.

[Purdue] A carbon copy of an electronic transmission. "Oh, you're
sending him the [13188]bits to that? Slap on a tee for me." From the
Unix command tee(1), itself named after a pipe fitting (see
[13189]plumbing). Can also mean `save one for me', as in "Tee a slice
for me!" Also spelled `T'.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:teergrube, Next:[13190]teledildonics, Previous:[13191]tee,
Up:[13192]= T =

teergrube /teer'groob/ n.

[German for `tar pit'] A trap set to punish spammers who use an
[13193]address harvester; a mail server deliberately set up to be
really, really slow. To activate it, scatter addresses that look like
users on the teergrube's host in places where the address harvester
will be trolling (one popular way is to embed the fake address in a
Usenet sig block next to a human-readable warning not to send mail to
it). The address harvester will dutifully collect the address. When
the spammer tries to mailbomb it, his mailer will get stuck.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:teledildonics, Next:[13194]Telerat, Previous:[13195]teergrube,
Up:[13196]= T =

teledildonics /tel`*-dil-do'-niks/ n.

Sex in a computer simulated virtual reality, esp. computer-mediated
sexual interaction between the [13197]VR presences of two humans. This
practice is not yet possible except in the rather limited form of
erotic conversation on [13198]MUDs and the like. The term, however, is
widely recognized in the VR community as a [13199]ha ha only serious
projection of things to come. "When we can sustain a multi-sensory
surround good enough for teledildonics, then we'll know we're getting
somewhere." See also [13200]hot chat.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Telerat, Next:[13201]TELNET, Previous:[13202]teledildonics,
Up:[13203]= T =

Telerat /tel'*-rat/ n. obs.

Unflattering hackerism for `Teleray', a now-extinct line of extremely
losing terminals. Compare [13204]AIDX, [13205]Macintrash
[13206]Nominal Semidestructor, [13207]ScumOS, [13208]sun-stools,
[13209]HP-SUX, [13210]Slowlaris.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TELNET, Next:[13211]ten-finger interface,
Previous:[13212]Telerat, Up:[13213]= T =

TELNET /tel'net/ vt.

(also commonly lowercased as `telnet') To communicate with another
Internet host using the TELNET ([13214]RFC 854) protocol (usually
using a program of the same name). TOPS-10 people used the word
IMPCOM, since that was the program name for them. Sometimes
abbreviated to TN /T-N/. "I usually TN over to SAIL just to read the
AP News."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:ten-finger interface, Next:[13215]tense, Previous:[13216]TELNET,
Up:[13217]= T =

ten-finger interface n.

The interface between two networks that cannot be directly connected
for security reasons; refers to the practice of placing two terminals
side by side and having an operator read from one and type into the
other.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tense, Next:[13218]tentacle, Previous:[13219]ten-finger
interface, Up:[13220]= T =

tense adj.

Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often
got that way because it was highly [13221]bummed, but sometimes it was
just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike
Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This routine is so tense it
will bring tears to your eyes." A tense programmer is one who produces
tense code.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tentacle, Next:[13222]tenured graduate student,
Previous:[13223]tense, Up:[13224]= T =

tentacle n.

A covert [13225]pseudo, sense 1. An artificial identity created in
cyberspace for nefarious and deceptive purposes. The implication is
that a single person may have multiple tentacles. This term was
originally floated in some paranoid ravings on the cypherpunks list
(see [13226]cypherpunk), and adopted in a spirit of irony by other,
saner members. It has since shown up, used seriously, in the
documentation for some remailer software, and is now (1994) widely
recognized on the net.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tenured graduate student, Next:[13227]tera-,
Previous:[13228]tentacle, Up:[13229]= T =

tenured graduate student n.

One who has been in graduate school for 10 years (the usual maximum is
5 or 6): a `ten-yeared' student (get it?). Actually, this term may be
used of any grad student beginning in his seventh year. Students don't
really get tenure, of course, the way professors do, but a tenth-year
graduate student has probably been around the university longer than
any untenured professor.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tera-, Next:[13230]teraflop club, Previous:[13231]tenured
graduate student, Up:[13232]= T =

tera- /te'r*/ pref.

[SI] See [13233]quantifiers.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:teraflop club, Next:[13234]terminak, Previous:[13235]tera-,
Up:[13236]= T =

teraflop club /te'r*-flop kluhb/ n.

[FLOP = Floating Point Operation] A mythical association of people who
consume outrageous amounts of computer time in order to produce a few
simple pictures of glass balls with intricate ray-tracing techniques.
Caltech professor James Kajiya is said to have been the founder.
Compare [13237]Knights of the Lambda Calculus.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:terminak, Next:[13238]terminal brain death,
Previous:[13239]teraflop club, Up:[13240]= T =

terminak /ter'mi-nak`/ n.

[Caltech, ca. 1979] Any malfunctioning computer terminal. A common
failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM 3a terminals caused the `L' key to
produce the `K' code instead; complaints about this tended to look
like "Terminak #3 has a bad keyboard. Pkease fix." Compare
[13241]dread high-bit disease, [13242]frogging; see also [13243]AIDX,
[13244]Nominal Semidestructor, [13245]ScumOS, [13246]sun-stools,
[13247]Telerat, [13248]HP-SUX, [13249]Slowlaris.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:terminal brain death, Next:[13250]terminal illness,
Previous:[13251]terminak, Up:[13252]= T =

terminal brain death n.

The extreme form of [13253]terminal illness (sense 1). What someone
who has obviously been hacking continuously for far too long is said
to be suffering from.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:terminal illness, Next:[13254]terminal junkie,
Previous:[13255]terminal brain death, Up:[13256]= T =

terminal illness n.

1. Syn. [13257]raster burn. 2. The `burn-in' condition your CRT tends
to get if you don't have a screen saver.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:terminal junkie, Next:[13258]terpri, Previous:[13259]terminal
illness, Up:[13260]= T =

terminal junkie n.

[UK] A [13261]wannabee or early [13262]larval stage hacker who spends
most of his or her time wandering the directory tree and writing
[13263]noddy programs just to get a fix of computer time. Variants
include `terminal jockey', `console junkie', and [13264]console
jockey. The term `console jockey' seems to imply more expertise than
the other three (possibly because of the exalted status of the
[13265]console relative to an ordinary terminal). See also
[13266]twink, [13267]read-only user. Appropriately, this term was used
in the works of William S. Burroughs to describe a heroin addict with
an unlimited supply.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:terpri, Next:[13268]test, Previous:[13269]terminal junkie,
Up:[13270]= T =

terpri /ter'pree/ vi.

[from LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP)] To output a [13271]newline. Now
rare as jargon, though still used as techspeak in Common LISP. It is a
contraction of `TERminate PRInt line', named for the fact that, on
some early OSes and hardware, no characters would be printed until a
complete line was formed, so this operation terminated the line and
emitted the output.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:test, Next:[13272]TeX, Previous:[13273]terpri, Up:[13274]= T =

test n.

1. Real users bashing on a prototype long enough to get thoroughly
acquainted with it, with careful monitoring and followup of the
results. 2. Some bored random user trying a couple of the simpler
features with a developer looking over his or her shoulder, ready to
pounce on mistakes. Judging by the quality of most software, the
second definition is far more prevalent. See also [13275]demo.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TeX, Next:[13276]text, Previous:[13277]test, Up:[13278]= T =

TeX /tekh/ n.

An extremely powerful [13279]macro-based text formatter written by
Donald E. [13280]Knuth, very popular in the computer-science community
(it is good enough to have displaced Unix [13281]troff, the other
favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist
on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all
caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such
as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster
(competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also
[13282]CrApTeX.

Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality
of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer
Programming" (see [13283]Knuth, also [13284]bible). In a manifestation
of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for
all, he began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he
would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about
8 years. The language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of
"The Art of Computer Programming" is not expected to appear until
2002. The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such that
nobody minds this very much. Many grand hackish projects have started
as a bit of [13285]toolsmithing on the way to something else; Knuth's
diversion was simply on a grander scale than most.

TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary awards to anyone who
found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as
the years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones
even harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is
so large (and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to
have unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been
compiled with.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:text, Next:[13286]thanks in advance, Previous:[13287]TeX,
Up:[13288]= T =

text n.

1. [techspeak] Executable code, esp. a `pure code' portion shared
between multiple instances of a program running in a multitasking OS.
Compare [13289]English. 2. Textual material in the mainstream sense;
data in ordinary [13290]ASCII or [13291]EBCDIC representation (see
[13292]flat-ASCII). "Those are text files; you can review them using
the editor." These two contradictory senses confuse hackers, too.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thanks in advance, Next:[13293]That's not a bug that's a
feature!, Previous:[13294]text, Up:[13295]= T =

thanks in advance

[Usenet] Conventional net.politeness ending a posted request for
information or assistance. Sometimes written `advTHANKSance' or
`aTdHvAaNnKcSe' or abbreviated `TIA'. See [13296]net.-,
[13297]netiquette.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:That's not a bug that's a feature!, Next:[13298]the literature,
Previous:[13299]thanks in advance, Up:[13300]= T =

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

The [13301]canonical first parry in a debate about a purported bug.
The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is
then at best a [13302]misfeature. See also [13303]feature.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:the literature, Next:[13304]the network, Previous:[13305]That's
not a bug that's a feature!, Up:[13306]= T =

the literature n.

Computer-science journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at
to answer a question that the speaker believes is [13307]trivial.
Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the
literature." Oppose [13308]Knuth, which has no connotation of
triviality.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:the network, Next:[13309]the X that can be Y is not the true X,
Previous:[13310]the literature, Up:[13311]= T =

the network n.

1. Historicaslly, the union of all the major noncommercial, academic,
and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the pre-1990 ARPANET,
NSFnet, [13312]BITNET, and the virtual UUCP and [13313]Usenet
`networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
time-sharing services (such as CompuServe, GEnie and AOL) that gateway
to them. A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be
reached through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
(bang-path) addresses. See [13314]Internet, [13315]bang path,
[13316]Internet address, [13317]network address. 2. Following the
mass-culture discovery of the Internet in 1994 and subsequent
proliferation of cheap TCP/IP connections, "the network" is
increasingly synonymous with the Internet itself (as it was before the
second wave of wide-area computer networking began around 1980). 3. A
fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and
anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton Wilson's
novel "Schrödinger's Cat", to which many hackers have subsequently
decided they belong (this is an example of [13318]ha ha only serious).

In sense 1, `the network' is often abbreviated to `the net'. "Are you
on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet face to
face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:the X that can be Y is not the true X, Next:[13319]theology,
Previous:[13320]the network, Up:[13321]= T =

the X that can be Y is not the true X

Yet another instance of hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical
references -- a common humorous way of making exclusive statements
about a class of things. The template is from the "Tao te Ching": "The
Tao which can be spoken of is not the true Tao." The implication is
often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the enlightened. See
the [13322]trampoline entry for an example, and compare [13323]has the
X nature.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:theology, Next:[13324]theory, Previous:[13325]the X that can be Y
is not the true X, Up:[13326]= T =

theology n.

1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to [13327]religious issues.
2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. those where the
resolution is of theoretical interest but is relatively
[13328]marginal with respect to actual use of a design or system. Used
esp. around software issues with a heavy AI or language-design
component, such as the smart-data vs. smart-programs dispute in AI.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:theory, Next:[13329]thinko, Previous:[13330]theology, Up:[13331]=
T =

theory n.

The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that is currently
being used to inform a behavior. This usage is a generalization and
(deliberate) abuse of the technical meaning. "What's the theory on
fixing this TECO loss?" "What's the theory on dinner tonight?"
("Chinatown, I guess.") "What's the current theory on letting lusers
on during the day?" "The theory behind this change is to fix the
following well-known screw...."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thinko, Next:[13332]This can't happen, Previous:[13333]theory,
Up:[13334]= T =

thinko /thing'koh/ n.

[by analogy with `typo'] A momentary, correctable glitch in mental
processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by
rote; a bubble in the stream of consciousness. Syn. [13335]braino; see
also [13336]brain fart. Compare [13337]mouso.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:This can't happen, Next:[13338]This time for sure!,
Previous:[13339]thinko, Up:[13340]= T =

This can't happen

Less clipped variant of [13341]can't happen.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:This time for sure!, Next:[13342]thrash, Previous:[13343]This
can't happen, Up:[13344]= T =

This time, for sure! excl.

Ritual affirmation frequently uttered during protracted debugging
sessions involving numerous small obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring
up a UUCP connection). For the proper effect, this must be uttered in
a fruity imitation of Bullwinkle J. Moose. Also heard: "Hey, Rocky!
Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" The [13345]canonical response
is, of course, "But that trick never works!" See [13346]hacker humor.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thrash, Next:[13347]thread, Previous:[13348]This time for sure!,
Up:[13349]= T =

thrash vi.

To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful.
Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their
time moving data into and out of core (rather than performing useful
computation) and are therefore said to thrash. Someone who keeps
changing his mind (esp. about what to work on next) is said to be
thrashing. A person frantically trying to execute too many tasks at
once (and not spending enough time on any single task) may also be
described as thrashing. Compare [13350]multitask.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thread, Next:[13351]three-finger salute, Previous:[13352]thrash,
Up:[13353]= T =

thread n.

[Usenet, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of `topic thread', a
more or less continuous chain of postings on a single topic. To
`follow a thread' is to read a series of Usenet postings sharing a
common subject or (more correctly) which are connected by Reference
headers. The better newsreaders can present news in thread order
automatically. Not to be confused with the techspeak sense of
`thread', e.g. a lightweight process.

Interestingly, this is far from a neologism. The OED says: "That which
connects the successive points in anything, esp. a narrative, train of
thought, or the like; the sequence of events or ideas continuing
throughout the whole course of anything;" Citations are given going
back to 1642!
_________________________________________________________________

Node:three-finger salute, Next:[13354]throwaway account,
Previous:[13355]thread, Up:[13356]= T =

three-finger salute n.

Syn. [13357]Vulcan nerve pinch.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:throwaway account, Next:[13358]thud, Previous:[13359]three-finger
salute, Up:[13360]= T =

throwaway account n.

1. An inexpensive Internet account purchased on a legitimate
[13361]ISP for the the sole purpose of spewing [13362]spam. 2. An
inexpensive Internet account obtained for the sole purpose of doing
something which requires a valid email address but being able to
ignore spam since the user will not look at the account again.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thud, Next:[13363]thumb, Previous:[13364]throwaway account,
Up:[13365]= T =

thud n.

1. Yet another [13366]metasyntactic variable (see [13367]foo). It is
reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of these
was `foo', `bar', `thud', `blat'. 2. Rare term for the hash character,
`#' (ASCII 0100011). See [13368]ASCII for other synonyms.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thumb, Next:[13369]thundering herd problem, Previous:[13370]thud,
Up:[13371]= T =

thumb n.

The slider on a window-system scrollbar. So called because moving it
allows you to browse through the contents of a text window in a way
analogous to thumbing through a book.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thundering herd problem, Next:[13372]thunk,
Previous:[13373]thumb, Up:[13374]= T =

thundering herd problem

Scheduler thrashing. This can happen under Unix when you have a number
of processes that are waiting on a single event. When that event (a
connection to the web server, say) happens, every process which could
possibly handle the event is awakened. In the end, only one of those
processes will actually be able to do the work, but, in the meantime,
all the others wake up and contend for CPU time before being put back
to sleep. Thus the system thrashes briefly while a herd of processes
thunders through. If this starts to happen many times per second, the
performance impact can be significant.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:thunk, Next:[13375]tick, Previous:[13376]thundering herd problem,
Up:[13377]= T =

thunk /thuhnk/ n.

1. [obs.]"A piece of coding which provides an address", according to
P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding actual
parameters to their formal definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If
a procedure is called with an expression in the place of a formal
parameter, the compiler generates a thunk which computes the
expression and leaves the address of the result in some standard
location. 2. Later generalized into: an expression, frozen together
with its environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar
to what in techspeak is called a `closure'). The process of unfreezing
these thunks is called `forcing'. 3. A [13378]stubroutine, in an
overlay programming environment, that loads and jumps to the correct
overlay. Compare [13379]trampoline. 4. People and activities scheduled
in a thunklike manner. "It occurred to me the other day that I am
rather accurately modeled by a thunk -- I frequently need to be forced
to completion." -- paraphrased from a [13380]plan file.

Historical note: There are a couple of onomatopoeic myths circulating
about the origin of this term. The most common is that it is the sound
made by data hitting the stack; another holds that the sound is that
of the data hitting an accumulator. Yet another suggests that it is
the sound of the expression being unfrozen at argument-evaluation
time. In fact, according to the inventors, it was coined after they
realized (in the wee hours after hours of discussion) that the type of
an argument in Algol-60 could be figured out in advance with a little
compile-time thought, simplifying the evaluation machinery. In other
words, it had `already been thought of'; thus it was christened a
`thunk', which is "the past tense of `think' at two in the morning".
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tick, Next:[13381]tick-list features, Previous:[13382]thunk,
Up:[13383]= T =

tick n.

1. A [13384]jiffy (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of
time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI
applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the
only constraint of interest is the ordering of events. This sort of AI
simulation is often pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick'
simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with
long, independent chains of causes is [13385]handwaved. 3. In the
FORTH language, a single quote character.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tick-list features, Next:[13386]tickle a bug,
Previous:[13387]tick, Up:[13388]= T =

tick-list features n.

[Acorn Computers] Features in software or hardware that customers
insist on but never use (calculators in desktop TSRs and that sort of
thing). The American equivalent would be `checklist features', but
this jargon sense of the phrase has not been reported.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tickle a bug, Next:[13389]tiger team, Previous:[13390]tick-list
features, Up:[13391]= T =

tickle a bug vt.

To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest itself through some known
series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the
Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by trying to set bright yellow
reverse video."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tiger team, Next:[13392]time bomb, Previous:[13393]tickle a bug,
Up:[13394]= T =

tiger team n.

[U.S. military jargon] 1. Originally, a team (of [13395]sneakers)
whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus test security
measures. These people are paid professionals who do hacker-type
tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense
installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have been
stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc. After a
successful penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the
next morning for a `security review' and finds the sign, note, etc.,
and all hell breaks loose. Serious successes of tiger teams sometimes
lead to early retirement for base commanders and security officers
(see the [13396]patch entry for an example). 2. Recently, and more
generally, any official inspection team or special [13397]firefighting
group called in to look at a problem.

A subset of tiger teams are professional [13398]crackers, testing the
security of military computer installations by attempting remote
attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels. Some of
their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the
greatest hacks of all times. The term has been adopted in commercial
computer-security circles in this more specific sense.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:time bomb, Next:[13399]time sink, Previous:[13400]tiger team,
Up:[13401]= T =

time bomb n.

A subspecies of [13402]logic bomb that is triggered by reaching some
preset time, either once or periodically. There are numerous legends
about time bombs set up by programmers in their employers' machines,
to go off if the programmer is fired or laid off and is not present to
perform the appropriate suppressing action periodically.

Interestingly, the only such incident for which we have been pointed
to documentary evidence took place in the Soviet Union in 1986! A
disgruntled programmer at the Volga Automobile Plant (where the Fiat
clones called Ladas were manufactured) planted a time bomb which, a
week after he'd left on vacation, stopped the entire main assembly
line for a day. The case attracted lots of attention in the Soviet
Union because it was the first cracking case to make it to court
there. The perpetrator got a suspended sentence of 3 years in jail and
was barred from future work as a programmer.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:time sink, Next:[13403]time T, Previous:[13404]time bomb,
Up:[13405]= T =

time sink n.

[poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or `current sink'] A project that
consumes unbounded amounts of time.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:time T, Next:[13406]times-or-divided-by, Previous:[13407]time
sink, Up:[13408]= T =

time T /ti:m T/ n.

1. An unspecified but usually well-understood time, often used in
conjunction with a later time T+1. "We'll meet on campus at time T or
at Louie's at time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner:
"We can meet on campus and go to Louie's, or we can meet at Louie's
itself a bit later." (Louie's was a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto
that was a favorite with hackers.) Had the number 30 been used instead
of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from
campus to Louie's is 30 minutes; whatever time T is (and that hasn't
been decided on yet), you can meet half an hour later at Louie's than
you could on campus and end up eating at the same time. See also
[13409]since time T equals minus infinity.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:times-or-divided-by, Next:[13410]TINC, Previous:[13411]time T,
Up:[13412]= T =

times-or-divided-by quant.

[by analogy with `plus-or-minus'] Term occasionally used when
describing the uncertainty associated with a scheduling estimate, for
either humorous or brutally honest effect. For a software project, the
scheduling uncertainty factor is usually at least 2.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TINC, Next:[13413]Tinkerbell program,
Previous:[13414]times-or-divided-by, Up:[13415]= T =

TINC //

[Usenet] Abbreviation: "There Is No Cabal". See [13416]backbone cabal
and [13417]NANA, but note that this abbreviation did not enter use
until long after the dispersal of the backbone cabal.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Tinkerbell program, Next:[13418]TINLC, Previous:[13419]TINC,
Up:[13420]= T =

Tinkerbell program n.

[Great Britain] A monitoring program used to scan incoming network
calls and generate alerts when calls are received from particular
sites, or when logins are attempted using certain IDs. Named after
`Project Tinkerbell', an experimental phone-tapping program developed
by British Telecom in the early 1980s.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TINLC, Next:[13421]tip of the ice-cube,
Previous:[13422]Tinkerbell program, Up:[13423]= T =

TINLC //

Abbreviation: "There Is No Lumber Cartel". See [13424]Lumber Cartel.
TINLC is a takeoff on [13425]TINC.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tip of the ice-cube, Next:[13426]tired iron,
Previous:[13427]TINLC, Up:[13428]= T =

tip of the ice-cube n. //

[IBM] The visible part of something small and insignificant. Used as
an ironic comment in situations where `tip of the iceberg' might be
appropriate if the subject were at all important.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tired iron, Next:[13429]tits on a keyboard, Previous:[13430]tip
of the ice-cube, Up:[13431]= T =

tired iron n.

[IBM] Hardware that is perfectly functional but far enough behind the
state of the art to have been superseded by new products, presumably
with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that the old stuff is
starting to look a bit like a [13432]dinosaur.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tits on a keyboard, Next:[13433]TLA, Previous:[13434]tired iron,
Up:[13435]= T =

tits on a keyboard n.

Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep touch-typists registered.
Usually on the 5 of a numeric keypad, and on the F and J of a
[13436]QWERTY keyboard; but older Macs, perverse as usual, had them on
the D and K keys (this changed in 1999).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TLA, Next:[13437](TM), Previous:[13438]tits on a keyboard,
Up:[13439]= T =

TLA /T-L-A/ n.

[Three-Letter Acronym] 1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species
with which computing terminology is infested. 2. Any confusing
acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU,
NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs
have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four
letters. One also hears of `ETLA' (Extended Three-Letter Acronym,
pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to describe four-letter
acronyms. The term `SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym) has also been
reported. See also [13440]YABA.

The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is often used to
bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a random of the
journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin "What do you think
will be the biggest problem in computing in the 90s?" Paul's
straight-faced response: "There are only 17,000 three-letter
acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3 = 17,576.) There is probably
some karmic justice in the fact that Paul Boutin subsequently became a
journalist.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:(TM), Next:[13441]TMRC, Previous:[13442]TLA, Up:[13443]= T =

(TM) //

[Usenet] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol appended
to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for posterity,
perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes used ironically
as a form of protest against the recent spate of software and
algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See also [13444]UN*X.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TMRC, Next:[13445]TMRCie, Previous:[13446](TM), Up:[13447]= T =

TMRC /tmerk'/ n.

The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker
culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter
Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish
vocabulary (see esp. [13448]foo, [13449]mung, and [13450]frob).

By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity
and has grown in the years since. All the features described here were
still present when the old layout was decomissioned in 1998 just
before the demolition of MIT Building 20, and will almost certainly be
retained when the old layout is rebuilt (expected in 2003). The
control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were
[13451]scram switches located at numerous places around the room that
could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as
a train going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the
system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself
something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDs and
seven-segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock
stopped and the display was replaced with the word `FOO'; at TMRC the
scram switches are therefore called `foo switches'.

Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers" (see the [13452]Bibliography in
Appendix C), gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's
Signals and Power Committee included many of the early PDP-1 hackers
and the people who later became the core of the MIT AI Lab staff.
Thirty years later that connection is still very much alive, and this
lexicon accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent
revision of the TMRC dictionary.

TMRC has a web page at [13453]http://web.mit.edu/tmrc/www/.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TMRCie, Next:[13454]TMTOWTDI, Previous:[13455]TMRC, Up:[13456]= T
=

TMRCie /tmerk'ee/, n.

[MIT] A denizen of [13457]TMRC.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TMTOWTDI, Next:[13458]to a first approximation,
Previous:[13459]TMRCie, Up:[13460]= T =

TMTOWTDI /tim-toh'-dee/

There's More Than One Way To Do It. This abbreviation of the official
motto of [13461]Perl is frequently used on newsgroups and mailing
lists related to that language.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:to a first approximation, Next:[13462]to a zeroth approximation,
Previous:[13463]TMTOWTDI, Up:[13464]= T =

to a first approximation adj.

1. [techspeak] When one is doing certain numerical computations, an
approximate solution may be computed by any of several heuristic
methods, then refined to a final value. By using the starting point of
a first approximation of the answer, one can write an algorithm that
converges more quickly to the correct result. 2. In jargon, a preface
to any comment that indicates that the comment is only approximately
true. The remark "To a first approximation, I feel good" might
indicate that deeper questioning would reveal that not all is perfect
(e.g., a nagging cough still remains after an illness).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:to a zeroth approximation, Next:[13465]toad, Previous:[13466]to a
first approximation, Up:[13467]= T =

to a zeroth approximation

[from `to a first approximation'] A really sloppy approximation; a
wild guess. Compare [13468]social science number.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toad, Next:[13469]toast, Previous:[13470]to a zeroth
approximation, Up:[13471]= T =

toad vt. [MUD]

1. Notionally, to change a [13472]MUD player into a toad. 2. To
permanently and totally exile a player from the MUD. A very serious
action, which can only be done by a MUD [13473]wizard; often involves
a lot of debate among the other characters first. See also
[13474]frog, [13475]FOD.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toast, Next:[13476]toaster, Previous:[13477]toad, Up:[13478]= T =

toast 1. n.

Any completely inoperable system or component, esp. one that has just
crashed and burned: "Uh, oh ... I think the serial board is toast." 2.
vt. To cause a system to crash accidentally, especially in a manner
that requires manual rebooting. "Rick just toasted the [13479]firewall
machine again." Compare [13480]fried.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toaster, Next:[13481]toeprint, Previous:[13482]toast, Up:[13483]=
T =

toaster n.

1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded
microprocessor controller; often used in comments that imply that a
scheme is inappropriate technology (but see [13484]elevator
controller). "[13485]DWIM for an assembler? That'd be as silly as
running Unix on your [13486]toaster!" 2. A very, very dumb computer.
"You could run this program on any dumb toaster." See [13487]bitty
box, [13488]Get a real computer!, [13489]toy, [13490]beige toaster. 3.
A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac. Some hold that this is implied by
sense 2. 4. A peripheral device. "I bought my box without toasters,
but since then I've added two boards and a second disk drive." 5. A
specialized computer used as an appliance. See [13491]web toaster,
[13492]video toaster.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toeprint, Next:[13493]toggle, Previous:[13494]toaster,
Up:[13495]= T =

toeprint n.

A [13496]footprint of especially small size.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toggle, Next:[13497]tool, Previous:[13498]toeprint, Up:[13499]= T
=

toggle vt.

To change a [13500]bit from whatever state it is in to the other
state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from `toggle
switches', such as standard light switches, though the word `toggle'
actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the switch in the position
to which it is flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two
positions. There are four things you can do to a bit: set it (force it
to be 1), clear (or zero) it, leave it alone, or toggle it.
(Mathematically, one would say that there are four distinct
boolean-valued functions of one boolean argument, but saying that is
much less fun than talking about toggling bits.)
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tool, Next:[13501]toolsmith, Previous:[13502]toggle, Up:[13503]=
T =

tool 1. n.

A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify, or analyze
other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a cross-referencing
program. Oppose [13504]app, [13505]operating system. 2. [Unix] An
application program with a simple, `transparent' (typically
text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used in programmed
combination with other tools (see [13506]filter, [13507]plumbing). 3.
[MIT: general to students there] vi. To work; to study (connotes
tedium). The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain to
the grindstone". See [13508]hack. 4. n. [MIT] A student who studies
too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student humor magazine rejoices
in the name "Tool and Die".)
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toolsmith, Next:[13509]toor, Previous:[13510]tool, Up:[13511]= T
=

toolsmith n.

The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who
specializes in making the [13512]tools with which other programmers
create applications. Many hackers consider this more fun than
applications per se; to understand why, see [13513]uninteresting. Jon
Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science" chapter of his book
"More Programming Pearls", quotes Dick Sites from [13514]DEC as saying
"I'd rather write programs to write programs than write programs".
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toor, Next:[13515]topic drift, Previous:[13516]toolsmith,
Up:[13517]= T =

toor n.

The Bourne-Again Super-user. An alternate account with UID of 0,
created on Unix machines where the root user has an inconvenient
choice of shell. Compare [13518]avatar.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:topic drift, Next:[13519]topic group, Previous:[13520]toor,
Up:[13521]= T =

topic drift n.

Term used on GEnie, Usenet and other electronic fora to describe the
tendency of a [13522]thread to drift away from the original subject of
discussion (and thus, from the Subject header of the originating
message), or the results of that tendency. The header in each post can
be changed to keep current with the posts, but usually isn't due to
forgetfulness or laziness. A single post may often result in several
posts each responding to a different point in the original. Some
subthreads will actually be in response to some off-the-cuff side
comment, possibly degenerating into a [13523]flame war, or just as
often evolving into a separate discussion. Hence, discussions aren't
really so much threads as they are trees. Except that they don't
really have leaves, or multiple branching roots; usually some lines of
discussion will just sort of die off after everyone gets tired of
them. This could take anywhere from hours to weeks, or even longer.

The term `topic drift' is often used in gentle reminders that the
discussion has strayed off any useful track. "I think we started with
a question about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the
sexual habits of the common marmoset. Now that's topic drift!"
_________________________________________________________________

Node:topic group, Next:[13524]TOPS-10, Previous:[13525]topic drift,
Up:[13526]= T =

topic group n.

Syn. [13527]forum.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TOPS-10, Next:[13528]TOPS-20, Previous:[13529]topic group,
Up:[13530]= T =

TOPS-10 /tops-ten/ n.

[13531]DEC's proprietary OS for the fabled [13532]PDP-10 machines,
long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct. A fountain of
hacker folklore; see Appendix A. See also [13533]ITS, [13534]TOPS-20,
[13535]TWENEX, [13536]VMS, [13537]operating system. TOPS-10 was
sometimes called BOTS-10 (from `bottoms-ten') as a comment on the
inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TOPS-20, Next:[13538]tourist, Previous:[13539]TOPS-10,
Up:[13540]= T =

TOPS-20 /tops-twen'tee/ n.

See [13541]TWENEX.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tourist, Next:[13542]tourist information,
Previous:[13543]TOPS-20, Up:[13544]= T =

tourist n.

1. [ITS] A guest on the system, especially one who generally logs in
over a network from a remote location for [13545]comm mode, email,
games, and other trivial purposes. One step below [13546]luser. ITS
hackers often used to spell this [13547]turist, perhaps by some sort
of tenuous analogy with [13548]luser (this usage may also have
expressed the ITS culture's penchant for six-letterisms, and-or been
some sort of tribute to Alan Turing). Compare [13549]twink,
[13550]lurker, [13551]read-only user. 2. [IRC] An [13552]IRC user who
goes from channel to channel without saying anything; see
[13553]channel hopping.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tourist information, Next:[13554]touristic,
Previous:[13555]tourist, Up:[13556]= T =

tourist information n.

Information in an on-line display that is not immediately useful, but
contributes to a viewer's gestalt of what's going on with the software
or hardware behind it. Whether a given piece of info falls in this
category depends partly on what the user is looking for at any given
time. The `bytes free' information at the bottom of an MS-DOS dir
display is tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME
information in a Unix ps(1) display.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:touristic, Next:[13557]toy, Previous:[13558]tourist information,
Up:[13559]= T =

touristic adj.

Having the quality of a [13560]tourist. Often used as a pejorative, as
in `losing touristic scum'. Often spelled `turistic' or `turistik', so
that phrase might be more properly rendered `lusing turistic scum'.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toy, Next:[13561]toy language, Previous:[13562]touristic,
Up:[13563]= T =

toy n.

A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. `nice toy': One
that supports the speaker's hacking style adequately. 2. `just a toy':
A machine that yields insufficient [13564]computrons for the speaker's
preferred uses. This is not condemnatory, as is [13565]bitty box; toys
can at least be fun. It is also strongly conditioned by one's
expectations; Cray XMP users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy',
and certainly all RISC boxes and mainframes are toys by their
standards. See also [13566]Get a real computer!.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toy language, Next:[13567]toy problem, Previous:[13568]toy,
Up:[13569]= T =

toy language n.

A language useful for instructional purposes or as a proof-of-concept
for some aspect of computer-science theory, but inadequate for
general-purpose programming. [13570]Bad Things can result when a toy
language is promoted as a general purpose solution for programming
(see [13571]bondage-and-discipline language); the classic example is
[13572]Pascal. Several moderately well-known formalisms for conceptual
tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify as toy
languages in a less negative sense. See also [13573]MFTL.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toy problem, Next:[13574]toy program, Previous:[13575]toy
language, Up:[13576]= T =

toy problem n.

[AI] A deliberately oversimplified case of a challenging problem used
to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for a real problem.
Sometimes used pejoratively. See also [13577]gedanken, [13578]toy
program.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:toy program, Next:[13579]trampoline, Previous:[13580]toy problem,
Up:[13581]= T =

toy program n.

1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a trivial program
(compare [13582]noddy). 2. One for which the effort of initial coding
dominates the costs through its life cycle. See also [13583]noddy.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trampoline, Next:[13584]trap, Previous:[13585]toy program,
Up:[13586]= T =

trampoline n.

An incredibly [13587]hairy technique, found in some [13588]HLL and
program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the Macintosh), that
involves on-the-fly generation of small executable (and, likely as
not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection between code
sections. Under BSD and possibly in other Unixes, trampoline code is
used to transfer control from the kernel back to user mode when a
signal (which has had a handler installed) is sent to a process. hese
pieces of [13589]live data are called `trampolines'. Trampolines are
notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by
those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your
brain is not the true trampoline. See also [13590]snap.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trap, Next:[13591]trap door, Previous:[13592]trampoline,
Up:[13593]= T =

trap

1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some
exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases, the OS
performs some action, then returns control to the program. 2. vi. To
cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the monitor." Also used
transitively to indicate the cause of the trap. "The monitor traps all
input/output instructions."

This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt' or
`exception' is more common among [13594]HLL programmers) and appears
to be fading into history among programmers as the role of assembler
continues to shrink. However, it is still important to computer
architects and systems hackers (see [13595]system, sense 1), who use
it to distinguish deterministically repeatable exceptions from
timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trap door, Next:[13596]trash, Previous:[13597]trap, Up:[13598]= T
=

trap door n.

(alt. `trapdoor') 1. Syn. [13599]back door -- a [13600]Bad Thing. 2.
[techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one which is easy to compute but
very difficult to compute the inverse of. Such functions are
[13601]Good Things with important applications in cryptography,
specifically in the construction of public-key cryptosystems.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trash, Next:[13602]trawl, Previous:[13603]trap door, Up:[13604]=
T =

trash vt.

To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). The most common
of the family of near-synonyms including [13605]mung, [13606]mangle,
and [13607]scribble.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trawl, Next:[13608]tree-killer, Previous:[13609]trash,
Up:[13610]= T =

trawl v.

To sift through large volumes of data (e.g., Usenet postings, FTP
archives, or the Jargon File) looking for something of interest.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tree-killer, Next:[13611]treeware, Previous:[13612]trawl,
Up:[13613]= T =

tree-killer n.

[Sun] 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes paper. This epithet should
be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper' includes the
production of [13614]spiffy but [13615]content-free documents. Thus,
most [13616]suits are tree-killers. The negative loading of this term
may reflect the epithet `tree-killer' applied by Treebeard the Ent to
the Orcs in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (see also
[13617]elvish, [13618]elder days).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:treeware, Next:[13619]trit, Previous:[13620]tree-killer,
Up:[13621]= T =

treeware /tree'weir/ n.

Printouts, books, and other information media made from pulped dead
trees. Compare [13622]tree-killer, see [13623]documentation.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trit, Next:[13624]trivial, Previous:[13625]treeware, Up:[13626]=
T =

trit /trit/ n.

[by analogy with `bit'] One base-3 digit; the amount of information
conveyed by a selection among one of three equally likely outcomes
(see also [13627]bit). Trits arise, for example, in the context of a
[13628]flag that should actually be able to assume three values --
such as yes, no, or unknown. Trits are sometimes jokingly called
`3-state bits'. A trit may be semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and
a half', although it is linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that
is, log2(3) bits).
_________________________________________________________________

Node:trivial, Next:[13629]troff, Previous:[13630]trit, Up:[13631]= T =

trivial adj.

1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not worth the speaker's time. 3.
Complex, but solvable by methods so well known that anyone not utterly
[13632]cretinous would have thought of them already. 4. Any problem
one has already solved (some claim that hackish `trivial' usually
evaluates to `I've seen it before'). Hackers' notions of triviality
may be quite at variance with those of non-hackers. See
[13633]nontrivial, [13634]uninteresting.

The physicist Richard Feynman, who had the hacker nature to an amazing
degree (see his essay "Los Alamos From Below" in "Surely You're
Joking, Mr. Feynman!"), defined `trivial theorem' as "one that has
already been proved".
_________________________________________________________________

Node:troff, Next:[13635]troglodyte, Previous:[13636]trivial,
Up:[13637]= T =

troff /T'rof/ or /trof/ n.

[Unix] The gray eminence of Unix text processing; a formatting and
phototypesetting program, written originally in PDP-11 assembler and
then in barely-structured early C by the late Joseph Ossanna, modeled
after the earlier ROFF which was in turn modeled after the
[13638]Multics and [13639]CTSS program RUNOFF by Jerome Saltzer (that
name came from the expression "to run off a copy"). A companion
program, [13640]nroff, formats output for terminals and line printers.

In 1979, Brian Kernighan modified troff so that it could drive
phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT. His paper
describing that work ("A Typesetter-independent troff," AT&T CSTR #97)
explains troff's durability. After discussing the program's "obvious
deficiencies -- a rebarbative input syntax, mysterious and
undocumented properties in some areas, and a voracious appetite for
computer resources" and noting the ugliness and extreme hairiness of
the code and internals, Kernighan concludes:

None of these remarks should be taken as denigrating Ossanna's
accomplishment with TROFF. It has proven a remarkably robust tool,
taking unbelievable abuse from a variety of preprocessors and being
forced into uses that were never conceived of in the original
design, all with considerable grace under fire.

The success of [13641]TeX and desktop publishing systems have reduced
troff's relative importance, but this tribute perfectly captures the
strengths that secured troff a place in hacker folklore; indeed, it
could be taken more generally as an indication of those qualities of
good programs that, in the long run, hackers most admire.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:troglodyte, Next:[13642]troglodyte mode, Previous:[13643]troff,
Up:[13644]= T =

troglodyte n.

[Commodore] 1. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle. The term `gnoll'
(from Dungeons & Dragons) is also reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached
to an obsolescent computing environment. The combination `ITS
troglodyte' was flung around some during the Usenet and email
wringle-wrangle attending the 2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at
least one of the people it was intended to describe adopted it with
pride.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:troglodyte mode, Next:[13645]Trojan horse,
Previous:[13646]troglodyte, Up:[13647]= T =

troglodyte mode n.

[Rice University] Programming with the lights turned off, sunglasses
on, and the terminal inverted (black on white) because you've been up
for so many days straight that your eyes hurt (see [13648]raster
burn). Loud music blaring from a stereo stacked in the corner is
optional but recommended. See [13649]larval stage, [13650]hack mode.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Trojan horse, Next:[13651]troll, Previous:[13652]troglodyte mode,
Up:[13653]= T =

Trojan horse n.

[coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards] A malicious,
security-breaking program that is disguised as something benign, such
as a directory lister, archiver, game, or (in one notorious 1990 case
on the Mac) a program to find and destroy viruses! See [13654]back
door, [13655]virus, [13656]worm, [13657]phage, [13658]mockingbird.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:troll, Next:[13659]Troll-O-Meter, Previous:[13660]Trojan horse,
Up:[13661]= T =

troll v.,n.

1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on
[13662]Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or
[13663]flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling
for [13664]newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a
style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping
for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of
newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than
they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall
for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also [13665]YHBT. 2. An
individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious
arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list,
or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a
discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real
interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to
utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they
exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized
as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just
a troll." 3. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for
CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab
policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking
in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower
category than [13666]flame bait, that a troll is categorized by
containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.
See also [13667]Troll-O-Meter.

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily
produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not
infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a
followup to troll postings.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Troll-O-Meter, Next:[13668]tron, Previous:[13669]troll,
Up:[13670]= T =

Troll-O-Meter n.

Common Usenet jargon for a notional instrument used to measure the
quality of a Usenet [13671]troll. "Come on, everyone! If the above
doesn't set off the Troll-O-Meter, we're going to have to get him to
run around with a big blinking sign saying `I am a troll, I'm only in
it for the controversy and flames' and shooting random gobs of
Jell-O(tm) at us before the point is proven." Mentions of the
Troll-O-Meter are often accompanied by an ASCII picture of an arrow
pointing at a numeric scale. Compare [13672]bogometer.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tron, Next:[13673]true-hacker, Previous:[13674]Troll-O-Meter,
Up:[13675]= T =

tron v.

[NRL, CMU; prob. fr. the movie "Tron"] To become inaccessible except
via email or talk(1), especially when one is normally available via
telephone or in person. Frequently used in the past tense, as in: "Ran
seems to have tronned on us this week" or "Gee, Ran, glad you were
able to un-tron yourself". One may also speak of `tron mode'; compare
[13676]spod.

Note that many dialects of BASIC have a TRON/TROFF command pair that
enables/disables line number tracing; this has no obvious relationship
to the slang usage.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:true-hacker, Next:[13677]tty, Previous:[13678]tron, Up:[13679]= T
=

true-hacker n.

[analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] One who exemplifies the primary
values of hacker culture, esp. competence and helpfulness to other
hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP
and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week -- manifestly the act of a
true-hacker." Compare [13680]demigod, oppose [13681]munchkin.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tty, Next:[13682]tube, Previous:[13683]true-hacker, Up:[13684]= T
=

tty /T-T-Y/, /tit'ee/ n.

The latter pronunciation was primarily ITS, but some Unix people say
it this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have
sexual undertones. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety,
characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited character
set, and poor print quality. Usage: antiquated (like the TTYs
themselves). See also [13685]bit-paired keyboard. 2. [especially Unix]
Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular
terminal controlling a given job. 3. [Unix] Any serial port, whether
or not the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because
under Unix such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between
senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tube, Next:[13686]tube time, Previous:[13687]tty, Up:[13688]= T =

tube

1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real
hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle,
Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckler
movie. 2. [IBM] To send a copy of something to someone else's
terminal. "Tube me that note?"
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tube time, Next:[13689]tunafish, Previous:[13690]tube,
Up:[13691]= T =

tube time n.

Time spent at a terminal or console. More inclusive than hacking time;
commonly used in discussions of what parts of one's environment one
uses most heavily. "I find I'm spending too much of my tube time
reading mail since I started this revision."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tunafish, Next:[13692]tune, Previous:[13693]tube time,
Up:[13694]= T =

tunafish n.

In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of an age-old joke to
be found at the bottom of the manual pages of tunefs(8) in the
original [13695]BSD 4.2 distribution. The joke was removed in later
releases once commercial sites started using 4.2, but apparently
restored on the 4.4BSD tape and in {Net,Free,Open}BSD. Tunefs relates
to the `tuning' of file-system parameters for optimum performance, and
at the bottom of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a `BUGS'
section consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but you
can't tunafish". Variants of this can be seen in other BSD versions,
though it has been excised from some versions by humorless management
[13696]droids. The [nt]roff source for SunOS 4.1.1 contains a comment
apparently designed to prevent this: "Take this out and a Unix Demon
will dog your steps from now until the time_t's wrap around."

[It has since been pointed out that indeed you can tunafish. Usually
at a canning factory... --ESR]
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tune, Next:[13697]turbo nerd, Previous:[13698]tunafish,
Up:[13699]= T =

tune vt.

[from automotive or musical usage] To optimize a program or system for
a particular environment, esp. by adjusting numerical parameters
designed as [13700]hooks for tuning, e.g., by changing #define lines
in C. One may `tune for time' (fastest execution), `tune for space'
(least memory use), or `tune for configuration' (most efficient use of
hardware). See [13701]bum, [13702]hot spot, [13703]hand-hacking.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:turbo nerd, Next:[13704]Turing tar-pit, Previous:[13705]tune,
Up:[13706]= T =

turbo nerd n.

See [13707]computer geek.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Turing tar-pit, Next:[13708]turist, Previous:[13709]turbo nerd,
Up:[13710]= T =

Turing tar-pit n.

1. A place where anything is possible but nothing of interest is
practical. Alan Turing helped lay the foundations of computer science
by showing that all machines and languages capable of expressing a
certain very primitive set of operations are logically equivalent in
the kinds of computations they can carry out, and in principle have
capabilities that differ only in speed from those of the most powerful
and elegantly designed computers. However, no machine or language
exactly matching Turing's primitive set has ever been built (other
than possibly as a classroom exercise), because it would be horribly
slow and far too painful to use. A `Turing tar-pit' is any computer
language or other tool that shares this property. That is, it's
theoretically universal -- but in practice, the harder you struggle to
get any real work done, the deeper its inadequacies suck you in.
Compare [13711]bondage-and-discipline language. 2. The perennial
[13712]holy wars over whether language A or B is the "most powerful".
_________________________________________________________________

Node:turist, Next:[13713]Tux, Previous:[13714]Turing tar-pit,
Up:[13715]= T =

turist /too'rist/ n.

Var. sp. of [13716]tourist, q.v. Also in adjectival form, `turistic'.
Poss. influenced by [13717]luser and `Turing'.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:Tux, Next:[13718]tweak, Previous:[13719]turist, Up:[13720]= T =

Tux

Tux the Penguin is the official emblem of [13721]Linux, This
eventuated after a logo contest in 1996, during which Linus Torvalds
endorsed the idea of a penguin logo in a couple of famously funny
[13722]postings. Linus explained that he was once bitten by a killer
penguin in Australia and has felt a special affinity for the species
ever since. (Linus has since admitted that he was also thinking of
Feathers McGraw, the evil-genius penguin jewel thief who appeared in a
Wallace & Grommit feature cartoon, "The Wrong Trousers".)

Larry Ewing [13723]designed the official Tux logo. It has proved a
wise choice, amenable to hundreds of recognizable variations used as
emblems of Linux-related projects, products, and user groups. In fact,
Tux has spawned an entire mythology, of which the [13724]Gospel
According to Tux and the mock-epic poem "Tuxowolf" are among the
best-known examples.

There is a `real' Tux - a black-footed penguin resident at the Bristol
Zoo. Several friends of Linux bought a zoo sponsorship for Linus as a
birthday present in 1996.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tweak, Next:[13725]tweeter, Previous:[13726]Tux, Up:[13727]= T =

tweak vt.

1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value. Also used
synonymously with [13728]twiddle. If a program is almost correct,
rather than figure out the precise problem you might just keep
tweaking it until it works. See [13729]frobnicate and [13730]fudge
factor; also see [13731]shotgun debugging. 2. To [13732]tune or
[13733]bum a program; preferred usage in the U.K.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:tweeter, Next:[13734]TWENEX, Previous:[13735]tweak, Up:[13736]= T
=

tweeter n.

[University of Waterloo] Syn. [13737]perf, [13738]chad (sense 1). This
term (like [13739]woofer) has been in use at Waterloo since 1972 but
is elsewhere unknown. In audio jargon, the word refers to the treble
speaker(s) on a hi-fi.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:TWENEX, Next:[13740]twiddle, Previous:[13741]tweeter, Up:[13742]=
T =

TWENEX /twe'neks/ n.

The TOPS-20 operating system by [13743]DEC -- the second proprietary
OS for the PDP-10 -- preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10
(that is, by those who were not [13744]ITS or [13745]WAITS partisans).
TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating
system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all
of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to
TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own. The first in-house
code name for the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating
System); when customers started asking questions, the name was changed
to SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project
called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was briefly
reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when someone
objected that `krans' meant `funeral wreath' in Swedish (though some
Swedish speakers have since said it means simply `wreath'; this part
of the story may be apocryphal). Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the
name of the operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was
marketed. The hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed
it TWENEX (a contraction of `twenty TENEX'), even though by this point
very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously to the
differences between AT&T V6 Unix and BSD). DEC people cringed when
they heard "TWENEX", but the term caught on nevertheless (the written
abbreviation `20x' was also used). TWENEX was successful and very
popular; in fact, there was a period in the early 1980s when it
commanded as fervent a culture of partisans as Unix or ITS -- but
DEC's decision to scrap all the internal rivals to the VAX
architecture and its relatively stodgy VMS OS killed the DEC-20 and
put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in the sun. DEC attempted to
convince TOPS-20 users to convert to [13746]VMS, but instead, by the
late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to Unix.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:twiddle, Next:[13747]twilight zone, Previous:[13748]TWENEX,
Up:[13749]= T =

twiddle n.

1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, ~). Also called `squiggle', `sqiggle' (sic --
pronounced /skig'l/), and `twaddle', but twiddle is the most common
term. 2. A small and insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes
one bug and generates several new ones (see also [13750]shotgun
debugging). 3. vt. To change something in a small way. Bits, for
example, are often twiddled. Twiddling a switch or [13751]knobs
implies much less sense of purpose than toggling or tweaking it; see
[13752]frobnicate. To speak of twiddling a bit connotes aimlessness,
and at best doesn't specify what you're doing to the bit; `toggling a
bit' has a more specific meaning (see [13753]bit twiddling,
[13754]toggle). 4. Uncommon name for the [13755]twirling baton prompt.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:twilight zone, Next:[13756]twink, Previous:[13757]twiddle,
Up:[13758]= T =

twilight zone n. //

[IRC] Notionally, the area of cyberspace where [13759]IRC operators
live. An [13760]op is said to have a "connection to the twilight
zone".
_________________________________________________________________

Node:twink, Next:[13761]twirling baton, Previous:[13762]twilight zone,
Up:[13763]= T =

twink /twink/ n.

1. [Berkeley] A clue-repellant user; the next step beyond a clueless
one. 2. [UCSC] A [13764]read-only user. Also reported on the Usenet
group soc.motss; may derive from gay slang for a cute young thing with
nothing upstairs (compare mainstream `chick').
_________________________________________________________________

Node:twirling baton, Next:[13765]two pi, Previous:[13766]twink,
Up:[13767]= T =

twirling baton n.

[PLATO] The overstrike sequence -/|\-/|\- which produces an animated
twirling baton. If you output it with a single backspace between
characters, the baton spins in place. If you output the sequence BS SP
between characters, the baton spins from left to right. If you output
BS SP BS BS between characters, the baton spins from right to left.
This is also occasionally called a twiddle prompt.

The twirling baton was a popular component of animated signature files
on the pioneering PLATO educational timesharing system. The archie
Internet service is perhaps the best-known baton program today; it
uses the twirling baton as an idler indicating that the program is
working on a query. The twirling baton is also used as a boot progress
indicator on several BSD variants of Unix; if it stops you're probably
going to have a long and trying day.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:two pi, Next:[13768]two-to-the-N, Previous:[13769]twirling baton,
Up:[13770]= T =

two pi quant.

The number of years it takes to finish one's thesis. Occurs in stories
in the following form: "He started on his thesis; 2 pi years later..."
_________________________________________________________________

Node:two-to-the-N, Next:[13771]twonkie, Previous:[13772]two pi,
Up:[13773]= T =

two-to-the-N quant.

An amount much larger than [13774]N but smaller than [13775]infinity.
"I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can go out for lunch" means
you probably won't show up.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:twonkie, Next:[13776]u-, Previous:[13777]two-to-the-N,
Up:[13778]= T =

twonkie /twon'kee/ n.

The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a variety of sugar-loaded junk
food, or (in gay slang with a small t) the male equivalent of
`chick'); a useless `feature' added to look sexy and placate a
[13779]marketroid (compare [13780]Saturday-night special). The term
may also be related to "The Twonky", title menace of a classic SF
short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore), first
published in the September 1942 "Astounding Science Fiction" and
subsequently much anthologized.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:= U =, Next:[13781]= V =, Previous:[13782]= T =, Up:[13783]The
Jargon Lexicon

= U =

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