Chapter V: Rare: book (7)

:flame: 1. /vi./ To post an email message intended to insult
and provoke. 2. /vi./ To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some
relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous
attitude. 3. /vt./ Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with
hostility
at a particular person or people. 4. /n./ An instance of flaming.
When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy, one might
tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or "Stop all
that flamage!" to try to get them to cool down (so to speak).

The term may have been independently invented at several different
places. It has been reported from MIT, Carleton College and RPI
(among many other places) from as far back as 1969.

It is possible that the hackish sense of `flame' is much older than
that. The poet Chaucer was also what passed for a wizard hacker in
his time; he wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, the most advanced
computing device of the day. In Chaucer's "Troilus and
Cressida", Cressida laments her inability to grasp the proof of a
particular mathematical theorem; her uncle Pandarus then observes
that it's called "the fleminge of wrecches." This phrase seems
to have been intended in context as "that which puts the wretches
to flight" but was probably just as ambiguous in Middle English as
"the flaming of wretches" would be today. One suspects that
Chaucer would feel right at home on Usenet.

:flame bait: /n./ A posting intended to trigger a {flame
war}, or one that invites flames in reply. See also {troll}.

:flame on: vi.,/interj./ 1. To begin to {flame}. The
punning reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer
widely recognized. 2. To continue to flame. See {rave},
{burble}.

:flame war: /n./ (var. `flamewar') An acrimonious dispute,
especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as
{Usenet}.

:flamer: /n./ One who habitually {flame}s. Said esp. of
obnoxious {Usenet} personalities.

:flap: /vt./ 1. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap,
flap...). Old-time hackers at MIT tell of the days when the
disk was device 0 and {microtape}s were 1, 2,... and
attempting to flap device 0 would instead start a motor banging
inside a cabinet near the disk. 2. By extension, to unload any
magnetic tape. See also {macrotape}. Modern cartridge tapes no
longer actually flap, but the usage has remained. (The term could
well be re-applied to DEC's TK50 cartridge tape drive, a
spectacularly misengineered contraption which makes a loud flapping
sound, almost like an old reel-type lawnmower, in one of its many
tape-eating failure modes.)

:flarp: /flarp/ /n./ [Rutgers University] Yet another
{metasyntactic variable} (see {foo}). Among those who use
it, it is associated with a legend that any program not containing
the word `flarp' somewhere will not work. The legend is
discreetly silent on the reliability of programs which *do*
contain the magic word.

:flat: /adj./ 1. Lacking any complex internal structure.
"That {bitty box} has only a flat filesystem, not a
hierarchical one." The verb form is {flatten}. 2. Said of a
memory architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big
linear address space (typically with each possible value of a
processor register corresponding to a unique core address), as
opposed to a `segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in
which addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair
(segmented designs are generally considered {cretinous}).

Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually
used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a {Good Thing}.

:flat-ASCII: /adj./ Said of a text file that contains only
7-bit ASCII characters and uses only ASCII-standard control
characters (that is, has no embedded codes specific to a particular
text formatter markup language, or output device, and no
{meta}-characters). Syn. {plain-ASCII}. Compare
{flat-file}.

:flat-file: /adj./ A {flatten}ed representation of some
database or tree or network structure as a single file from which
the structure could implicitly be rebuilt, esp. one in
{flat-ASCII} form. See also {sharchive}.

:flatten: /vt./ To remove structural information, esp. to
filter something with an implicit tree structure into a simple
sequence of leaves; also tends to imply mapping to
{flat-ASCII}. "This code flattens an expression with
parentheses into an equivalent {canonical} form."

:flavor: /n./ 1. Variety, type, kind. "DDT commands come in
two flavors." "These lights come in two flavors, big red ones
and small green ones." See {vanilla}. 2. The attribute that
causes something to be {flavorful}. Usually used in the phrase
"yields additional flavor". "This convention yields additional
flavor by allowing one to print text either right-side-up or
upside-down." See {vanilla}. This usage was certainly
reinforced by the terminology of quantum chromodynamics, in which
quarks (the constituents of, e.g., protons) come in six flavors
(up, down, strange, charm, top, bottom) and three colors (red,
blue, green) -- however, hackish use of `flavor' at MIT predated
QCD. 3. The term for `class' (in the object-oriented sense) in
the LISP Machine Flavors system. Though the Flavors design has
been superseded (notably by the Common LISP CLOS facility), the
term `flavor' is still used as a general synonym for `class'
by some LISP hackers.

:flavorful: /adj./ Full of {flavor} (sense 2); esthetically
pleasing. See {random} and {losing} for antonyms. See also
the entries for {taste} and {elegant}.

:flippy: /flip'ee/ /n./ A single-sided floppy disk altered
for double-sided use by addition of a second write-notch, so called
because it must be flipped over for the second side to be
accessible. No longer common.

:flood: /v./ [IRC] To dump large amounts of text onto an
{IRC} channel. This is especially rude when the text is
uninteresting and the other users are trying to carry on a serious
conversation.

:flowchart:: /n./ [techspeak] An archaic form of visual
control-flow specification employing arrows and `speech
balloons' of various shapes. Hackers never use flowcharts,
consider them extremely silly, and associate them with {COBOL}
programmers, {card walloper}s, and other lower forms of life.
This attitude follows from the observations that flowcharts (at
least from a hacker's point of view) are no easier to read than
code, are less precise, and tend to fall out of sync with the code
(so that they either obfuscate it rather than explaining it, or
require extra maintenance effort that doesn't improve the code).
See also {pdl}, sense 3.

:flower key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.

:flush: /v./ 1. To delete something, usually superfluous, or to
abort an operation. "All that nonsense has been flushed."
2. [Unix/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an
`fflush(3)' call. This is *not* an abort or deletion as
in sense 1, but a demand for early completion! 3. To leave at the
end of a day's work (as opposed to leaving for a meal). "I'm
going to flush now." "Time to flush." 4. To exclude someone
from an activity, or to ignore a person.

`Flush' was standard ITS terminology for aborting an output
operation; one spoke of the text that would have been printed, but
was not, as having been flushed. It is speculated that this term
arose from a vivid image of flushing unwanted characters by hosing
down the internal output buffer, washing the characters away before
they could be printed. The Unix/C usage, on the other hand, was
propagated by the `fflush(3)' call in C's standard I/O library
(though it is reported to have been in use among BLISS programmers
at DEC and on Honeywell and IBM machines as far back as 1965).
Unix/C hackers find the ITS usage confusing, and vice versa.

:flypage: /fli:'payj/ /n./ (alt. `fly page') A {banner},
sense 1.

:Flyspeck 3: /n./ Standard name for any font that is so tiny as
to be unreadable (by analogy with names like `Helvetica 10' for
10-point Helvetica). Legal boilerplate is usually printed in
Flyspeck 3.

:flytrap: /n./ See {firewall machine}.

:FM: /F-M/ /n./ 1. *Not* `Frequency Modulation' but
rather an abbreviation for `Fucking Manual', the back-formation
from {RTFM}. Used to refer to the manual itself in the
{RTFM}. "Have you seen the Networking FM lately?"
2. Abbreviation for "Fucking Magic", used in the sense of
{black magic}.

:fnord: /n./ [from the "Illuminatus Trilogy"] 1. A word
used in email and news postings to tag utterances as surrealist
mind-play or humor, esp. in connection with {Discordianism} and
elaborate conspiracy theories. "I heard that David Koresh is
sharing an apartment in Argentina with Hitler. (Fnord.)" "Where
can I fnord get the Principia Discordia from?" 2. A
{metasyntactic variable}, commonly used by hackers with ties to
{Discordianism} or the {Church of the SubGenius}.

:FOAF: // /n./ [Usenet] Acronym for `Friend Of A Friend'.
The source of an unverified, possibly untrue story. This term was
not originated by hackers (it is used in Jan Brunvand's books on
urban folklore), but is much better recognized on Usenet and
elsewhere than in mainstream English.

:FOD: /fod/ /v./ [Abbreviation for `Finger of Death',
originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with
extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. From
{MUD}s where the wizard command `FOD <player>' results in the
immediate and total death of <player>, usually as punishment for
obnoxious behavior. This usage migrated to other circumstances,
such as "I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the
cycles." Compare {gun}.

In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g., what happens
when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in
flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of
what this generally does to the engine.

:fold case: /v./ See {smash case}. This term tends to be
used more by people who don't mind that their tools smash case. It
also connotes that case is ignored but case distinctions in data
processed by the tool in question aren't destroyed.

:followup: /n./ On Usenet, a {posting} generated in response
to another posting (as opposed to a {reply}, which goes by email
rather than being broadcast). Followups include the ID of the
{parent message} in their headers; smart news-readers can use
this information to present Usenet news in `conversation'
sequence rather than order-of-arrival. See {thread}.

:fontology: /n./ [XEROX PARC] The body of knowledge dealing
with the construction and use of new fonts (e.g., for window
systems and typesetting software). It has been said that fontology
recapitulates file-ogeny.

[Unfortunately, this reference to the embryological dictum that
"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is not merely a joke. On the
Macintosh, for example, System 7 has to go through contortions to
compensate for an earlier design error that created a whole
different set of abstractions for fonts parallel to `files' and
`folders' --ESR]

:foo: /foo/ 1. /interj./ Term of disgust. 2. Used very
generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs
and files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of
{metasyntactic variable}s used in syntax examples. See also
{bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux}, {corge}, {grault},
{garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh}, {xyzzy},
{thud}.

The etymology of hackish `foo' is obscure. When used in
connection with `bar' it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army
slang acronym FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Repair'), later
bowdlerized to {foobar}. (See also {FUBAR}.)

However, the use of the word `foo' itself has more complicated
antecedents, including a long history in comic strips and cartoons.
The old "Smokey Stover" comic strips by Bill Holman often
included the word `FOO', in particular on license plates of cars;
allegedly, `FOO' and `BAR' also occurred in Walt Kelly's
"Pogo" strips. In the 1938 cartoon "The Daffy Doc", a very
early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying "SILENCE IS
FOO!"; oddly, this seems to refer to some approving or positive
affirmative use of foo. It has been suggested that this might be
related to the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated
`foo'), which can mean "happiness" when spoken with the proper
tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese
restaurants are properly called "fu dogs").

Paul Dickson's excellent book "Words" (Dell, 1982, ISBN
0-440-52260-7) traces "Foo" to an unspecified British naval
magazine in 1946, quoting as follows: "Mr. Foo is a mysterious
Second World War product, gifted with bitter omniscience and
sarcasm."

Other sources confirm that `FOO' was a semi-legendary subject of
WWII British-army graffiti more-or-less equivalent to the American
Kilroy. Where British troops went, the graffito "FOO was here"
or something similar showed up. Several slang dictionaries aver
that FOO probably came from Forward Observation Officer. In this
connection, the later American military slang `foo fighters' is
interesting; at least as far back as the 1950s, radar operators
used it for the kind of mysterious or spurious trace that would
later be called a UFO (the older term resurfaced in popular
American usage in 1995 via the name of one of the better
grunge-rock bands).

Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that
hacker usage actually sprang from "FOO, Lampoons and Parody",
the title of a comic book first issued in September 1958, a joint
project of Charles and Robert Crumb. Though Robert Crumb (then in
his mid-teens) later became one of the most important and
influential artists in underground comics, this venture was hardly
a success; indeed, the brothers later burned most of the existing
copies in disgust. The title FOO was featured in large letters on
the front cover. However, very few copies of this comic actually
circulated, and students of Crumb's `oeuvre' have established
that this title was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover
comics.

An old-time member reports that in the 1959 "Dictionary of the
TMRC Language", compiled at {TMRC}, there was an entry that went
something like this:

FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE
PADME HUM." Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters
turning.

For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}. Almost
the entire staff of what later became the MIT AI Lab was involved
with TMRC, and probably picked the word up there.

Very probably, hackish `foo' had no single origin and derives
through all these channels from Yiddish `feh' and/or English
`fooey'.

:foobar: /n./ Another common {metasyntactic variable}; see
{foo}. Hackers do *not* generally use this to mean
{FUBAR} in either the slang or jargon sense.

:fool: /n./ As used by hackers, specifically describes a person
who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect
premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is
not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person
with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown. Indeed,
in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too
effectively in executing their errors. See also {cretin},
{loser}, {fool file, the}.

The Algol 68-R compiler used to initialize its storage to the
character string "F00LF00LF00LF00L..." because as a pointer or as
a floating point number it caused a crash, and as an integer or a
character string it was very recognizable in a dump. Sadly, one
day a very senior professor at Nottingham University wrote a
program that called him a fool. He proceeded to demonstrate the
correctness of this assertion by lobbying the university (not quite
successfully) to forbid the use of Algol on its computers. See
also {DEADBEEF}.

:fool file, the: /n./ [Usenet] A notional repository of all the
most dramatically and abysmally stupid utterances ever. An entire
subgenre of {sig block}s consists of the header "From the fool
file:" followed by some quote the poster wishes to represent as an
immortal gem of dimwittery; for this usage to be really effective,
the quote has to be so obviously wrong as to be laughable. More
than one Usenetter has achieved an unwanted notoriety by being
quoted in this way.

:Foonly: /n./ 1. The {PDP-10} successor that was to have
been built by the Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory along with a new operating system. The
intention was to leapfrog from the old DEC timesharing system SAIL
was then running to a new generation, bypassing TENEX which at that
time was the ARPANET standard. ARPA funding for both the Super
Foonly and the new operating system was cut in 1974. Most of the
design team went to DEC and contributed greatly to the design of
the PDP-10 model KL10. 2. The name of the company formed by Dave
Poole, one of the principal Super Foonly designers, and one of
hackerdom's more colorful personalities. Many people remember the
parrot which sat on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion.
3. Any of the machines built by Poole's company. The first was the
F-1 (a.k.a. Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used
to create the graphics in the movie "TRON". The F-1 was the
fastest PDP-10 ever built, but only one was ever made. The effort
drained Foonly of its financial resources, and the company turned
towards building smaller, slower, and much less expensive machines.
Unfortunately, these ran not the popular {TOPS-20} but a TENEX
variant called Foonex; this seriously limited their market. Also,
the machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering
prototypes requiring individual attention from more than usually
competent site personnel, and thus had significant reliability
problems. Poole's legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer
fools gladly did not help matters. By the time of the Jupiter
project cancellation in 1983, Foonly's proposal to build another
F-1 was eclipsed by the {Mars}, and the company never quite
recovered. See the {Mars} entry for the continuation and moral
of this story.

:footprint: /n./ 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece
of hardware. 2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed
program (often in plural, `footprints'). See also {toeprint}.
3. "RAM footprint": The minimum amount of RAM which an OS or other
program takes; this figure gives one one an idea of how much will
be left for other applications. How actively this RAM is used is
another matter entirely. Recent tendencies to featuritis and
software bloat can expand the RAM footprint of an OS to the point
of making it nearly unusable in practice. [This problem is,
thankfully, limited to operating systems so stupid that they don't
do virtual memory -- ESR]

:for free: /adj./ Said of a capability of a programming
language or hardware that is available by its design without
needing cleverness to implement: "In APL, we get the matrix
operations for free." "And owing to the way revisions are stored
in this system, you get revision trees for free." The term
usually refers to a serendipitous feature of doing things a certain
way (compare {big win}), but it may refer to an intentional but
secondary feature.

:for the rest of us: /adj./ [from the Mac slogan "The computer
for the rest of us"] 1. Used to describe a {spiffy} product
whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more
often) used sarcastically to describe {spiffy} but very
overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited
interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality,
inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed
to not `confuse' a naive user. This places an upper bound on
how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the
way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in
reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious
capabilities because it is thought that the poor lusers might not
be able to handle them. Becomes `the rest of *them*' when
used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive
program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program
that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface
flash. See also {WIMP environment}, {Macintrash},
{point-and-drool interface}, {user-friendly}.

:for values of: [MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is
to use any of the canonical {random numbers} as placeholders for
variables. "The max function takes 42 arguments, for arbitrary
values of 42." "There are 69 ways to leave your lover, for 69 =
50." This is especially likely when the speaker has uttered a
random number and realizes that it was not recognized as such, but
even `non-random' numbers are occasionally used in this fashion.
A related joke is that pi equals 3 -- for small values
of pi and large values of 3.

Historical note: at MIT this usage has traditionally been traced to
the programming language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an
Algol-58-like language that was the most common choice among
mainstream (non-hacker) users at MIT in the mid-60s. It inherited
from Algol-58 a control structure FOR VALUES OF X = 3, 7, 99 DO
... that would repeat the indicated instructions for each value in
the list (unlike the usual FOR that only works for arithmetic
sequences of values). MAD is long extinct, but similar
for-constructs still flourish (e.g., in Unix's shell languages).

:fora: /pl.n./ Plural of {forum}.

:foreground: /vt./ [Unix] To bring a task to the top of one's
{stack} for immediate processing, and hackers often use it in
this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your presentation is due
next week, I guess I'd better foreground writing up the design
document."

Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in
foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to
the user; oppose {background}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{Unix}}, but it appears first to have been used
in this sense on OS/360. Normally, there is only one foreground
task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes
simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way to {lose}.

:fork bomb: /n./ [Unix] A particular species of {wabbit}
that can be written in one line of C (`main()
{for(;;)fork();}') or shell (`$0 & $0 &') on any Unix system,
or occasionally created by an egregious coding bug. A fork bomb
process `explodes' by recursively spawning copies of itself
(using the Unix system call `fork(2)'). Eventually it eats
all the process table entries and effectively wedges the system.
Fortunately, fork bombs are relatively easy to spot and kill, so
creating one deliberately seldom accomplishes more than to bring
the just wrath of the gods down upon the perpetrator. See also
{logic bomb}.

:forked: /adj./ [Unix; prob. influenced by a mainstream
expletive] Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system
was slowed to a snail's pace by an inadvertent {fork bomb}.

:Fortrash: /for'trash/ /n./ Hackerism for the FORTRAN
(FORmula TRANslator) language, referring to its primitive design,
gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and
slippery, exception-filled semantics.

:fortune cookie: /n./ [WAITS, via Unix] A random quote, item of
trivia, joke, or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or
(less commonly) at logout time. Items from this lexicon have often
been used as fortune cookies. See {cookie file}.

:forum: /n./ [Usenet, GEnie, CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums']
Any discussion group accessible through a dial-in {BBS}, a
{mailing list}, or a {newsgroup} (see {network, the}). A
forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit
{posting}s for all to read and discussion ensues. Contrast
real-time chat via {talk mode} or point-to-point personal
{email}.

:fossil: /n./ 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes
understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times
past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example: the
retention of octal as default base for string escapes in {C}, in
spite of the better match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern
byte-addressable architectures. See {dusty deck}. 2. More
restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility.
Example: the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and {BSD}
Unix tty driver, designed for use with monocase terminals. (In a
perversion of the usual backward-compatibility goal, this
functionality has actually been expanded and renamed in some later
{USG Unix} releases as the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.) 3. The FOSSIL
(Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level) driver specification
for serial-port access to replace the {brain-dead} routines in
the IBM PC ROMs. Fossils are used by most MS-DOS {BBS} software
in preference to the `supported' ROM routines, which do not support
interrupt-driven operation or setting speeds above 9600; the use of
a semistandard FOSSIL library is preferable to the {bare metal}
serial port programming otherwise required. Since the FOSSIL
specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in,
drivers that use the {hook} but do not provide serial-port
access themselves are named with a modifier, as in `video
fossil'.

:four-color glossies: /n./ 1. Literature created by
{marketroid}s that allegedly contains technical specs but which
is in fact as superficial as possible without being totally
{content-free}. "Forget the four-color glossies, give me the
tech ref manuals." Often applied as an indication of
superficiality even when the material is printed on ordinary paper
in black and white. Four-color-glossy manuals are *never*
useful for solving a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to
manual pages that don't contain enough information to diagnose why
the program doesn't produce the expected or desired output.

:fragile: /adj./ Syn {brittle}.

:fred: /n./ 1. The personal name most frequently used as a
{metasyntactic variable} (see {foo}). Allegedly popular
because it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard
QWERTY keyboard. Unlike {J. Random Hacker} or `J. Random
Loser', this name has no positive or negative loading (but see
{Mbogo, Dr. Fred}). See also {barney}. 2. An acronym for
`Flipping Ridiculous Electronic Device'; other F-verbs may be
substituted for `flipping'.

:frednet: /fred'net/ /n./ Used to refer to some {random}
and uncommon protocol encountered on a network. "We're
implementing bridging in our router to solve the frednet problem."

:freeware: /n./ Free software, often written by enthusiasts and
distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local
bulletin boards, {Usenet}, or other electronic media. At one
time, `freeware' was a trademark of Andrew Fluegelman, the author
of the well-known MS-DOS comm program PC-TALK III. It wasn't
enforced after his mysterious disappearance and presumed death in
1984. See {shareware}, {FRS}.

:freeze: /v./ To lock an evolving software distribution or
document against changes so it can be released with some hope of
stability. Carries the strong implication that the item in
question will `unfreeze' at some future date. "OK, fix that
bug and we'll freeze for release."

There are more specific constructions on this term. A `feature
freeze', for example, locks out modifications intended to introduce
new features but still allows bugfixes and completion of existing
features; a `code freeze' connotes no more changes at all. At
Sun Microsystems and elsewhere, one may also hear references to
`code slush' -- that is, an almost-but-not-quite frozen state.

:fried: /adj./ 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt
out. Especially used of hardware brought down by a `power
glitch' (see {glitch}), {drop-outs}, a short, or some other
electrical event. (Sometimes this literally happens to electronic
circuits! In particular, resistors can burn out and transformers
can melt down, emitting noxious smoke -- see {friode}, {SED}
and {LER}. However, this term is also used metaphorically.)
Compare {frotzed}. 2. Of people, exhausted. Said particularly
of those who continue to work in such a state. Often used as an
explanation or excuse. "Yeah, I know that fix destroyed the file
system, but I was fried when I put it in." Esp. common in
conjunction with `brain': "My brain is fried today, I'm very
short on sleep."

:frink: /frink/ /v./ The unknown ur-verb, fill in your own
meaning. Found esp. on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.lemurs,
where it is said that the lemurs know what `frink' means, but
they aren't telling. Compare {gorets}.

:friode: /fri:'ohd/ /n./ [TMRC] A reversible (that is, fused
or blown) diode. Compare {fried}; see also {SED}, {LER}.

:fritterware: /n./ An excess of capability that serves no
productive end. The canonical example is font-diddling software on
the Mac (see {macdink}); the term describes anything that eats
huge amounts of time for quite marginal gains in function but
seduces people into using it anyway. See also {window
shopping}.

:frob: /frob/ 1. /n./ [MIT] The {TMRC} definition was
"FROB = a protruding arm or trunnion"; by metaphoric extension, a
`frob' is any random small thing; an object that you can
comfortably hold in one hand; something you can frob (sense 2).
See {frobnitz}. 2. /vt./ Abbreviated form of {frobnicate}.
3. [from the {MUD} world] A command on some MUDs that changes a
player's experience level (this can be used to make wizards); also,
to request {wizard} privileges on the `professional courtesy'
grounds that one is a wizard elsewhere. The command is actually
`frobnicate' but is universally abbreviated to the shorter form.

:frobnicate: /frob'ni-kayt/ /vt./ [Poss. derived from
{frobnitz}, and usually abbreviated to {frob}, but
`frobnicate' is recognized as the official full form.] To
manipulate or adjust, to tweak. One frequently frobs bits or other
2-state devices. Thus: "Please frob the light switch" (that is,
flip it), but also "Stop frobbing that clasp; you'll break it".
One also sees the construction `to frob a frob'. See {tweak}
and {twiddle}.

Usage: frob, twiddle, and tweak sometimes connote points along a
continuum. `Frob' connotes aimless manipulation; `twiddle'
connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper
setting; `tweak' connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a
knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it, he is
probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the
screen, he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it
because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. The variant
`frobnosticate' has been recently reported.

:frobnitz: /frob'nits/, /pl./ `frobnitzem' /frob'nit-zm/ or
`frobni' /frob'ni:/ /n./ [TMRC] An unspecified physical
object, a widget. Also refers to electronic black boxes. This
rare form is usually abbreviated to `frotz', or more commonly to
{frob}. Also used are `frobnule' (/frob'n[y]ool/) and
`frobule' (/frob'yool/). Starting perhaps in 1979, `frobozz'
/fr*-boz'/ (plural: `frobbotzim' /fr*-bot'zm/) has also
become very popular, largely through its exposure as a name via
{Zork}. These variants can also be applied to nonphysical
objects, such as data structures.

Pete Samson, compiler of the original {TMRC} lexicon, adds,
"Under the TMRC [railroad] layout were many storage boxes, managed
(in 1958) by David R. Sawyer. Several had fanciful designations
written on them, such as `Frobnitz Coil Oil'. Perhaps DRS intended
Frobnitz to be a proper name, but the name was quickly taken for
the thing". This was almost certainly the origin of the
term.

:frog: alt. `phrog' 1. /interj./ Term of disgust (we seem
to have a lot of them). 2. Used as a name for just about anything.
See {foo}. 3. /n./ Of things, a crock. 4. /n./ Of people,
somewhere in between a turkey and a toad. 5. `froggy':
/adj./ Similar to {bagbiting}, but milder. "This froggy program
is taking forever to run!"

:frogging: [University of Waterloo] /v./ 1. Partial corruption
of a text file or input stream by some bug or consistent glitch, as
opposed to random events like line noise or media failures. Might
occur, for example, if one bit of each incoming character on a tty
were stuck, so that some characters were correct and others were
not. See {terminak} for a historical example and compare
{dread high-bit disease}. 2. By extension, accidental display
of text in a mode where the output device emits special symbols or
mnemonics rather than conventional ASCII. This often happens, for
example, when using a terminal or comm program on a device like an
IBM PC with a special `high-half' character set and with the
bit-parity assumption wrong. A hacker sufficiently familiar with
ASCII bit patterns might be able to read the display anyway.

:front end: /n./ 1. An intermediary computer that does set-up
and filtering for another (usually more powerful but less friendly)
machine (a `back end'). 2. What you're talking to when you have
a conversation with someone who is making replies without paying
attention. "Look at the dancing elephants!" "Uh-huh." "Do
you know what I just said?" "Sorry, you were talking to the
front end." See also {fepped out}. 3. Software that provides
an interface to another program `behind' it, which may not be as
user-friendly. Probably from analogy with hardware front-ends (see
sense 1) that interfaced with mainframes.

:frotz: /frots/ 1. /n./ See {frobnitz}. 2. `mumble
frotz': An interjection of mildest disgust.

:frotzed: /frotst/ /adj./ {down} because of hardware
problems. Compare {fried}. A machine that is merely frotzed
may be fixable without replacing parts, but a fried machine is more
seriously damaged.

:frowney: /n./ (alt. `frowney face') See {emoticon}.

:FRS: // /n./ Abbreviation for "Freely Redistributable
Software" which entered general use on the Internet in 1995 after
years of low-level confusion over what exactly to call software
written to be passed around and shared (contending terms including
{freeware}, {shareware}, and `sourceware' were never
universally felt to be satisfactory for various subtle reasons).
The first formal conference on freely redistributable software was
held in Cambridge, Massachussetts, in February 1996 (sponsored by
the
Free Software Foundation). The conference organizers used the FRS
abbreviation heavily in its calls for papers and other literature
during 1995; this was probably critical in helping establish the
term.

:fry: 1. /vi./ To fail. Said especially of smoke-producing
hardware failures. More generally, to become non-working. Usage:
never said of software, only of hardware and humans. See
{fried}, {magic smoke}. 2. /vt./ To cause to fail; to
{roach}, {toast}, or {hose} a piece of hardware. Never
used of software or humans, but compare {fried}.

:FSF: /F-S-F/ /abbrev./ Common abbreviation (both spoken and
written) for the name of the Free Software Foundation, a nonprofit
educational association formed to support the {GNU}
project.

:FTP: /F-T-P/, *not* /fit'ip/ 1. [techspeak] /n./ The
File Transfer Protocol for transmitting files between systems on
the Internet. 2. /vt./ To {beam} a file using the File Transfer
Protocol. 3. Sometimes used as a generic even for file transfers
not using {FTP}. "Lemme get a copy of "Wuthering
Heights" ftp'd from uunet."

:FUBAR: /n./ The Failed UniBus Address Register in a VAX. A
good example of how jargon can occasionally be snuck past the
{suit}s; see {foobar}, and {foo} for a fuller etymology.

:fuck me harder: /excl./ Sometimes uttered in response to
egregious misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of
misbehaviors which seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in
by the imp of the perverse). Often theatrically elaborated:
"Aiighhh! Fuck me with a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped
wrought-iron fence *and no lubricants*!" The phrase is
sometimes heard abbreviated `FMH' in polite company.

[This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining
elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite
self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a
running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the
hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme
frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this
case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the
most anatomically absurd mental image possible -- the short forms
implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken).
Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among
hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry
ought to be included at all. As it reflects a live usage
recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is
in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all
forms of censorship to record it here. --ESR & GLS]

:FUD: /fuhd/ /n./ Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to
found his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt
that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers
who might be considering [Amdahl] products." The idea, of course,
was to persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with
competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally
accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people
who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of
competitors' equipment or software. See {IBM}.

:FUD wars: /fuhd worz/ /n./ [from {FUD}] Political
posturing engaged in by hardware and software vendors ostensibly
committed to standardization but actually willing to fragment the
market to protect their own shares. The Unix International vs.
OSF conflict is but one outstanding example.

:fudge: 1. /vt./ To perform in an incomplete but marginally
acceptable way, particularly with respect to the writing of a
program. "I didn't feel like going through that pain and
suffering, so I fudged it -- I'll fix it later." 2. /n./ The
resulting code.

:fudge factor: /n./ A value or parameter that is varied in an
ad hoc way to produce the desired result. The terms `tolerance'
and {slop} are also used, though these usually indicate a
one-sided leeway, such as a buffer that is made larger than
necessary because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be,
and it is better to waste a little space than to lose completely
for not having enough. A fudge factor, on the other hand, can
often be tweaked in more than one direction. A good example is the
`fuzz' typically allowed in floating-point calculations: two
numbers being compared for equality must be allowed to differ by a
small amount; if that amount is too small, a computation may never
terminate, while if it is too large, results will be needlessly
inaccurate. Fudge factors are frequently adjusted incorrectly by
programmers who don't fully understand their import. See also
{coefficient of X}.

:fuel up: /vi./ To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back
to hacking. "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a
{great-wall}!" See also {{oriental food}}.

:Full Monty, the: /n./ See {monty}, sense 2.

:fum: /n./ [XEROX PARC] At PARC, often the third of the
standard {metasyntactic variable}s (after {foo} and
{bar}). Competes with {baz}, which is more common outside
PARC.

:funky: /adj./ Said of something that functions, but in a
slightly strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be
difficult to change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone.
Often used to describe interfaces. The more bugs something has
that nobody has bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the
funkier it is. {TECO} and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's
exception handling is extraordinarily funky. Most standards
acquire funkiness as they age. "The new mailer is installed, but
is still somewhat funky; if it bounces your mail for no reason, try
resubmitting it." "This UART is pretty funky. The data ready
line is active-high in interrupt mode and active-low in DMA mode."

:funny money: /n./ 1. Notional `dollar' units of computing
time and/or storage handed to students at the beginning of a
computer course; also called `play money' or `purple money' (in
implicit opposition to real or `green' money). In New Zealand
and Germany the odd usage `paper money' has been recorded; in
Germany, the particularly amusing synonym `transfer ruble'
commemmorates the funny money used for trade between COMECON
countries back when the Soviet Bloc still existed. When your funny
money ran out, your account froze and you needed to go to a
professor to get more. Fortunately, the plunging cost of
timesharing cycles has made this less common. The amounts
allocated were almost invariably too small, even for the
non-hackers who wanted to slide by with minimum work. In extreme
cases, the practice led to small-scale black markets in bootlegged
computer accounts. 2. By extension, phantom money or quantity
tickets of any kind used as a resource-allocation hack within a
system. Antonym: `real money'.

:furrfu: // /excl./ [Usenet] Written-only equivalent of
"Sheesh!"; it is, in fact, "sheesh" modified by {rot13}.
Evolved in mid-1992 as a response to notably silly postings
repeating urban myths on the Usenet newsgroup
alt.folklore.urban, after some posters complained that
"Sheesh!" as a response to {newbie}s was being overused. See
also {FOAF}.

:fuzzball: /n./ [TCP/IP hackers] A DEC LSI-11 running a
particular suite of homebrewed software written by Dave Mills and
assorted co-conspirators, used in the early 1980s for Internet
protocol testbedding and experimentation. These were used as
NSFnet backbone sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few were still
active on the Internet as late as mid-1993, doing odd jobs such as
network time service.

= G = =====

:G: /pref.,suff./ [SI] See {{quantifiers}}.

:g-file: /n./ [Commodore BBS culture] Any file that is written
with the intention of being read by a human rather than a machine,
such as the Jargon File, documentation, humor files, hacker lore,
and technical materials.

This term survives from the nearly forgotten Commodore 64
underground and BBS community. In the early 80s, C-Net had emerged
as the most popular C64 BBS software for systems which encouraged
messaging (as opposed to file transfer). There were three main
options for files: Program files (p-files), which served the same
function as `doors' in today's systems, UD files (the user
upload/download section), and g-files. Anything that was meant to
be read was included in g-files.

:gabriel: /gay'bree-*l/ /n./ [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL LISP
hacker and volleyball fanatic] An unnecessary (in the opinion of
the opponent) stalling tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or
combing one's hair repeatedly, asking the time, etc. Also used to
refer to the perpetrator of such tactics. Also, `pulling a
Gabriel', `Gabriel mode'.

:gag: /vi./ Equivalent to {choke}, but connotes more
disgust. "Hey, this is FORTRAN code. No wonder the C compiler
gagged." See also {barf}.

:gang bang: /n./ The use of large numbers of loosely coupled
programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a
product in a short time. Though there have been memorable gang
bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in
Steven Levy's "Hackers"), most are perpetrated by large
companies trying to meet deadlines; the inevitable result is
enormous buggy masses of code entirely lacking in
{orthogonal}ity. When market-driven managers make a list of all
the features the competition has and assign one programmer to
implement each, the probability of maintaining a coherent (or even
functional) design goes infinitesimal. See also {firefighting},
{Mongolian Hordes technique}, {Conway's Law}.

:garbage collect: /vi./ (also `garbage collection', n.) See
{GC}.

:garply: /gar'plee/ /n./ [Stanford] Another metasyntactic
variable (see {foo}); once popular among SAIL hackers.

:gas: [as in `gas chamber'] 1. /interj./ A term of disgust
and hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous
quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation. "Some
loser just reloaded the system for no reason! Gas!" 2. /interj./
A
suggestion that someone or something ought to be flushed out of
mercy. "The system's getting {wedged} every few minutes.
Gas!" 3. /vt./ To {flush} (sense 1). "You should gas that old
crufty software." 4. [IBM] /n./ Dead space in nonsequentially
organized files that was occupied by data that has since been
deleted; the compression operation that removes it is called
`degassing' (by analogy, perhaps, with the use of the same term
in vacuum technology). 5. [IBM] /n./ Empty space on a disk that
has
been clandestinely allocated against future need.

:gaseous: /adj./ Deserving of being {gas}sed. Disseminated
by Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after
the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned
that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had supported
Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber under Proposition 7 if
convicted of first-degree murder (he was eventually convicted of
manslaughter).

:gawble: /gaw'bl/ /n./ See {chawmp}.

:GC: /G-C/ [from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect']
1. /vt./ To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll
GC the top of my desk today." When said of files, this is
equivalent to {GFR}. 2. /vt./ To recycle, reclaim, or put to
another use. 3. /n./ An instantiation of the garbage collector
process.

`Garbage collection' is computer-science techspeak for a
particular class of strategies for dynamically but transparently
reallocating computer memory (i.e., without requiring explicit
allocation and deallocation by higher-level software). One such
strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in memory and
determining what is no longer accessible; useless data items are
then discarded so that the memory they occupy can be recycled and
used for another purpose. Implementations of the LISP language
usually use garbage collection.

In jargon, the full phrase is sometimes heard but the {abbrev}
GC is more frequently used because it is shorter. Note that there
is an ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by context: "I'm
going to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to clean out the
drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or recycle the desk
itself.

:GCOS:: /jee'kohs/ /n./ A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of
System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called
GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). Later
kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction processing.
After the buyout of GE's computer division by Honeywell, the name
was changed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS).
Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen
Operating System', allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's
uninformed and snotty attitude about the superiority of their
product. All this might be of zero interest, except for two facts:
(1) The GCOS people won the political war, and this led in the
orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {{Multics}}, and (2)
GECOS/GCOS left one permanent mark on Unix. Some early Unix
systems at Bell Labs used GCOS machines for print spooling and
various other services; the field added to `/etc/passwd' to
carry GCOS ID information was called the `GECOS field' and
survives today as the `pw_gecos' member used for the user's
full name and other human-ID information. GCOS later played a
major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe
market, and was itself ditched for Unix in the late 1980s when
Honeywell retired its aging {big iron} designs.

:GECOS:: /jee'kohs/ /n./ See {{GCOS}}.

:gedanken: /g*-dahn'kn/ /adj./ Ungrounded; impractical; not
well-thought-out; untried; untested.

`Gedanken' is a German word for `thought'. A thought
experiment is one you carry out in your head. In physics, the term
`gedanken experiment' is used to refer to an experiment that is
impractical to carry out, but useful to consider because it can
be reasoned about theoretically. (A classic gedanken experiment of
relativity theory involves thinking about a man in an elevator
accelerating through space.) Gedanken experiments are very useful
in physics, but must be used with care. It's too easy to idealize
away some important aspect of the real world in constructing the
`apparatus'.

Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation.
It is typically used of a project, especially one in artificial
intelligence research, that is written up in grand detail
(typically as a Ph.D. thesis) without ever being implemented to
any great extent. Such a project is usually perpetrated by people
who aren't very good hackers or find programming distasteful or are
just in a hurry. A `gedanken thesis' is usually marked by an
obvious lack of intuition about what is programmable and what is
not, and about what does and does not constitute a clear
specification of an algorithm. See also {AI-complete},
{DWIM}.

:geef: /v./ [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken']
/vt./ Syn. {mung}. See also {blinkenlights}.

:geek code: /n./ (also "Code of the Geeks"). A set of
codes commonly used in {sig block}s to broadcast the interests,
skills, and aspirations of the poster. Features a G at the left
margin followed by numerous letter codes, often suffixed with
plusses or minuses. Because many net users are involved in
computer science, the most common prefix is `GCS'. To see a copy
of the current code, browse
http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/geek.html. Here is a
sample geek code (that or Robert Hayden, the code's inventor) from
that page:

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GED/J d-- s:++>: a- C++(++++)$ ULUO++ P+>+++ L++ !E---- W+(---) N+++
o+ K+++ w+(---) O- M+$>++ V-- PS++(+++)>$ PE++(+)>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++
X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++>$ e++$>++++ h r-- y+**
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

The geek code originated in 1993; it was inspired (according to the
inventor) by previous "bear", "smurf" and "twink"
style-and-sexual-preference codes from lesbian and gay
{newsgroup}s. It has in turn spawned imitators; there is now
even a "Saturn geek code" for owners of the Saturn car. See also
{computer geek}.

:geek out: /vi./ To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in
a non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer
equipment. Especially used when you need to do or say something
highly technical and don't have time to explain: "Pardon me while
I geek out for a moment." See {computer geek}; see also
{propeller head}.

:gen: /jen/ /n.,v./ Short for {generate}, used frequently
in both spoken and written contexts.

:gender mender: /n./ A cable connector shell with either two
male or two female connectors on it, used to correct the mismatches
that result when some {loser} didn't understand the RS232C
specification and the distinction between DTE and DCE. Used
esp. for RS-232C parts in either the original D-25 or the IBM
PC's bogus D-9 format. Also called `gender bender', `gender
blender', `sex changer', and even `homosexual adapter;'
however, there appears to be some confusion as to whether a `male
homosexual adapter' has pins on both sides (is doubly male) or
sockets on both sides (connects two males).

:General Public Virus: /n./ Pejorative name for some versions
of the {GNU} project {copyleft} or General Public License
(GPL), which requires that any tools or {app}s incorporating
copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same
counter-commercial terms as GNU stuff. Thus it is alleged that the
copyleft `infects' software generated with GNU tools, which may
in turn infect other software that reuses any of its code. The
Free Software Foundation's official position as of January 1991 is
that copyright law limits the scope of the GPL to "programs
textually incorporating significant amounts of GNU code", and that
the `infection' is not passed on to third parties unless actual
GNU source is transmitted (as in, for example, use of the Bison
parser skeleton). Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the
{copyleft} language is `boobytrapped' has caused many
developers to avoid using GNU tools and the GPL. Recent (July
1991) changes in the language of the version 2.00 license may
eliminate this problem.

:generate: /vt./ To produce something according to an algorithm
or program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side
effect of the execution of an algorithm or program. The opposite
of {parse}. This term retains its mechanistic connotations
(though often humorously) when used of human behavior. "The guy
is rational most of the time, but mention nuclear energy around him
and he'll generate {infinite} flamage."

:Genius From Mars Technique: /n./ [TMRC] A visionary quality
which enables one to ignore the standard approach and come up with
a totally unexpected new algorithm. An attack on a problem from an
offbeat angle that no one has ever thought of before, but that in
retrospect makes total sense. Compare {grok}, {zen}.

:gensym: /jen'sim/ [from MacLISP for `generated symbol']
1. /v./ To invent a new name for something temporary, in such a way
that the name is almost certainly not in conflict with one already
in use. 2. /n./ The resulting name. The canonical form of a
gensym
is `Gnnnn' where nnnn represents a number; any LISP hacker would
recognize G0093 (for example) as a gensym. 3. A freshly generated
data structure with a gensymmed name. Gensymmed names are useful
for storing or uniquely identifying crufties (see {cruft}).

:Get a life!: /imp./ Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the
person to whom it is directed has succumbed to terminal geekdom
(see {computer geek}). Often heard on {Usenet}, esp. as a
way of suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue of
{theology} too seriously. This exhortation was popularized by
William Shatner on a "Saturday Night Live" episode in a
speech that ended "Get a *life*!", but some respondents
believe it to have been in use before then. It was certainly in
wide use among hackers for at least five years before achieving
mainstream currency in early 1992.

:Get a real computer!: /imp./ Typical hacker response to news
that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a system that
(a) is single-tasking, (b) has no hard disk, or (c) has an address
space smaller than 16 megabytes. This is as of early 1996; note
that the threshold for `real computer' rises with time. See
{bitty box} and {toy}.

:GFR: /G-F-R/ /vt./ [ITS: from `Grim File Reaper', an ITS and
LISP Machine utility] To remove a file or files according to some
program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially
one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce name-space
clutter (the original GFR actually moved files to tape). Often
generalized to pieces of data below file level. "I used to have
his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it." See also
{prowler}, {reaper}. Compare {GC}, which discards only
provably worthless stuff.

:GIFs at 11: [Fidonet] Fidonet alternative to {film at
11}, especially in echoes (Fidonet topic areas) where uuencoded
GIFs are permitted. Other formats, especially JPEG and MPEG,
may be referenced instead.

:gig: /jig/ or /gig/ /n./ [SI] See {{quantifiers}}.

:giga-: /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ /pref./ [SI] See
{{quantifiers}}.

:GIGO: /gi:'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' ---
usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program
didn't "do the right thing" when given imperfect input or
otherwise mistreated in some way. Also commonly used to describe
failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or
imprecise data. 2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out': this more recent
expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have
to put excessive trust in `computerized' data.

:gilley: /n./ [Usenet] The unit of analogical bogosity.
According to its originator, the standard for one gilley was "the
act of bogotoficiously comparing the shutting down of 1000 machines
for a day with the killing of one person". The milligilley has
been found to suffice for most normal conversational exchanges.

:gillion: /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ /n./ [formed from
{giga-} by analogy with mega/million and tera/trillion]
10^9. Same as an American billion or a British `milliard'.
How one pronounces this depends on whether one speaks {giga-}
with a hard or soft `g'.

:GIPS: /gips/ or /jips/ /n./ [analogy with {MIPS}]
Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of
Instructions per Second'; see {gillion}). In 1991, this is used
of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected
to change. Compare {KIPS}.