random jargon terms

virtual shredder

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 21:07:23 +0200

virtual shredder n.

The jargonic equivalent of the bit bucket at shops using IBM's VM/CMS operating system. VM/CMS officially supports a whole bestiary of virtual card readers, virtual printers, and other phantom devices; these are used to supply some of the same capabilities Unix gets from pipes and I/O redirection.

sun-stools

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 19:00:27 +0200

sun-stools n.

Unflattering hackerism for SunTools, a pre-X windowing environment notorious in its day for size, slowness, and misfeatures. X, however, is larger and (some claim) slower; see second-system effect.

koan

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 09:57:17 +0200

koan /koh´an/ n.

A Zen teaching riddle. Classically, koans are attractive paradoxes to be meditated on; their purpose is to help one to enlightenment by temporarily jamming normal cognitive processing so that something more interesting can happen (this practice is associated with Rinzai Zen Buddhism). Defined here because hackers are very fond of the koan form and compose their own koans for humorous and/or enlightening effect. See Some AI Koans, has the X nature, hacker humor.

home page

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 08:57:06 +0200

home page n.

1. One's personal billboard on the World Wide Web. The term ‘home page’ is perhaps a bit misleading because home directories and physical homes in RL are private, but home pages are designed to be very public.

2. By extension, a WWW repository for information and links related to a project or organization. Compare home box.

Dilbert

admin — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 06:23:26 +0200

Dilbert

n. Name and title character of a comic strip nationally syndicated in the U.S. and enormously popular among hackers. Dilbert is an archetypical engineer-nerd who works at an anonymous high-technology company; the strips present a lacerating satire of insane working conditions and idiotic management practices all too readily recognized by hackers. Adams, who spent nine years in cube 4S700R at Pacific Bell (not DEC as often reported), often remarks that he has never been able to come up with a fictional management blunder that his correspondents didn't quickly either report to have actually happened or top with a similar but even more bizarre incident. In 1996 Adams distilled his insights into the collective psychology of businesses into an even funnier book, The Dilbert Principle (HarperCollins, ISBN 0-887-30787-6). See also pointy-haired, rat dance.