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dirty powern.
Electrical mains voltage that is unfriendly to the delicate innards of computers. Spikes,drop-outs, average voltage significantly higher or lower than nominal, or just plain noise can all cause problems of varying subtlety and severity (these are collectively known aspower hits).
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disclaimer
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disclaimern.
[Usenet] Statement ritually appended to many Usenet postings (sometimes automatically, by the posting software) reiterating the fact (which should be obvious, but is easily forgotten) that the article reflects its author's opinions and not necessarily those of the organization running the machine through which the article entered the network.
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Discordianism/dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n.
The veneration ofEris, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers. Discordianism was popularized by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Illuminatus!" as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen for Westerners -- it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Consider, for example, the Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from "Principia Discordia": "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads." Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent, authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati. SeeReligionin Appendix B,Church of the SubGenius, andha ha only serious.
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disk farmn.
(alsolaundromat) A large room or rooms filled with disk drives (esp.washing machines).
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display hackn.
A program with the same approximate purpose as a kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures. Famous display hacks includemunching squares,smoking clover, the BSD Unixrain(6)program,worms(6)on miscellaneous Unixes, and theXkaleid(1)program. Display hacks can also be implemented by creating text files containing numerous escape sequences for interpretation by a video terminal; one notable example displayed, on any VT100, a Christmas tree with twinkling lights and a toy train circling its base. Thehack valueof a display hack is proportional to the esthetic value of the images times the cleverness of the algorithm divided by the size of the code. Syn.psychedelicware.
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dispressvt.
[contraction of `Dissociated Press' due to eight-character MS-DOS filenames] To apply theDissociated Pressalgorithm to a block of text. The resultant output is also referred to as a 'dispression'.
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Dissociated Pressn.
[play on `Associated Press'; perhaps inspired by a reference in the 1950 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up, Doc?"] An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through amarketroid. The algorithm starts by printing any N consecutive words (or letters) in the text. Then at every step it searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints the next word or letter.EMACShas a handy command for this. Here is a short example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier version of this Jargon File:
wart: n. A small, crockyfeaturethat sticks out of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied to the same source:
window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!
A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press to a random body of text andvgrepthe output in hopes of finding an interesting new word. (In the preceding example, `window sysIWYG' and `informash' show some promise.) Iterated applications of Dissociated Press usually yield better results. Similar techniques called `travesty generators' have been employed with considerable satirical effect to the utterances of Usenet flamers; seepseudo.
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distributionn.
1. A software source tree packaged for distribution; but seekit. Since about 1996 unqualified use of this term often implies `Linuxdistribution'. The short fordistrois often used for this sense. 2. A vague term encompassing mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups (but notBBSfora); any topic-oriented message channel with multiple recipients. 3. An information-space domain (usually loosely correlated with geography) to which propagation of a Usenet message is restricted; a much-underutilized feature.
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distron.
Synonym fordistribution, sense 1.
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disuseredadj.
[Usenet] Said of a person whose account on a computer has been removed, esp. for cause rather than through normal attrition. "He got disusered when they found out he'd been cracking through the school's Internet access." The verbal form `disuser' is live but less common. Both usages probably derive from the DISUSER account status flag on VMS; setting it disables the account. Comparestar out.
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do protocolvi.
[from network protocol programming] To perform an interaction with somebody or something that follows a clearly defined procedure. For example, "Let's do protocol with the check" at a restaurant means to ask for the check, calculate the tip and everybody's share, collect money from everybody, generate change as necessary, and pay the bill. Seeprotocol.
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doc/dok/ n.
Common spoken and written shorthand for `documentation'. Often used in the plural `docs' and in the construction `doc file' (i.e., documentation available on-line).
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documentationn.
The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded, steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern software or hardware products (see alsotree-killer). Hackers seldom read paper documentation and (too) often resist writing it; they prefer theirs to be terse and on-line. A common comment on this predilection is "You can'tgrepdead trees". Seedrool-proof paper,verbiage,treeware.
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dodgyadj.
Syn. withflaky. Preferred outside the U.S.
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dogcow/dog'kow/ n.
SeeMoof. The dogcow is a semi-legendary creature that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh Technical Notes Hypercard stack V3.1. The full story of the dogcow is told in technical note #31 (the particular dogcow illustrated is properly named `Clarus'). Option-shift-click will cause it to emit a characteristic `Moof!' or `!fooM' sound.Gettingto tech note 31 is the hard part; to discover how to do that, one must needs examine the stack script with a hackerly eye. Clue:rot13is involved. A dogcow also appears if you choose `Page Setup...' with a LaserWriter selected and click on the `Options' button. It also lurks in other Mac printer drivers, notably those for the now-discontinued Style Writers. Sadly, Apple has removed the pages that used to describe the dogcow.
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dogfoodn.
[Microsoft, Netscape] Interim software used internally for testing. "To eat one's own dogfood" (from which the slang noun derives) means to use the software one is developing, as part of one's everyday development environment (the phrase is used outside Microsoft and Netscape). The practice is normal in the Linux community and elsewhere, but the term `dogfood' is seldom used as open-source betas tend to be quite tasty and nourishing. The idea is that developers who are using their own software will quickly learn what's missing or broken. Dogfood is typically not even ofbetaquality.
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dogpilev.
[Usenet: prob. fr. mainstream "puppy pile"] When many people post unfriendly responses in short order to a single posting, they are sometimes said to "dogpile" or "dogpile on" the person to whom they're responding. For example, when a religious missionary posts a simplistic appeal toalt.atheism, he can expect to be dogpiled. It has been suggested that this derives from U.S, football slang for a tackle involving three or more people; among hackers, it seems at least as likely do derive from an `autobiographical' Bugs Bunny cartoon in which a gang of attacking canines actually yells "Dogpile on the rabbit!".
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dogwash/dog'wosh/
[From a quip in the `urgency' field of a very optional software change request, ca. 1982. It was something like "Urgency: Wash your dog first".] 1. n. A project of minimal priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. 2. v. To engage in such a project. Many games and muchfreewareget written this way.
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domainist/doh-mayn'ist/ adj.
1. [Usenet, by pointed analogy with "sexist", "racist", etc.] Someone who judges people by the domain of their email addresses; esp. someone who dismisses anyone who posts from a public internet provider. "What do you expect from an article posted fromaol.com?" 2. Said of anInternet address(as opposed to abang path) because the part to the right of the@specifies a nested series of `domains'; for example, esr@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine calledsnarkin the subdomain calledthyrsuswithin the top-level domain calledcom. See alsobig-endian, sense 2.
The meaning of this term has drifted. At one time sense 2 was primary. In elder days it was also used of a site, mailer, or routing program which knew how to handle domainist addresses; or of a person (esp. a site admin) who preferred domain addressing, supported a domainist mailer, or proselytized for domainist addressing and disdainedbang paths. These senses are now (1996) obsolete, as effectively all sites have converted.
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Don't do that then!imp.
[from an old doctor's office joke about a patient with a trivial complaint] Stock response to a user complaint. "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a halt for thirty seconds." "Don't do that, then!" (or "So don't do that!"). CompareRTFM.
Here's a classic example of "Don't do that then!" from Neil Stephenson's "In The Beginning Was The Command Line". A friend of his built a network with a load of Macs and a few high-powered database servers. He found that from time to time the whole network would lock up for no apparent reason. The problem was eventually tracked down to MacOS's cooperative multitasking: when a user held down the mouse button for too long, the network stack wouldn't get a chance to run...
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dongle/dong'gl/ n.
1. [now obs.] A security orcopy protectiondevice for proprietary software consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which must be connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program is run. Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and at programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay for each dongle. The idea was clever, but it was initially a failure, as users disliked tying up a serial port this way. By 1993, dongles would typically pass data through the port and monitor formagiccodes (and combinations of status lines) with minimal if any interference with devices further down the line -- this innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained dongles for multiple pieces of software. These devices have become rare as the industry has moved away from copy-protection schemes in general. 2. By extension, any physical electronic key or transferable ID required for a program to function. Common variations on this theme have used parallel or even joystick ports. Seedongle-disk. 3. An adaptor cable mating a special edge-type connector on a PCMCIA or on-board Ethernet card to a standard RJ45 Ethernet jack. This usage seems to have surfaced in 1999 and is now dominant. Laptop owners curse these things because they're notoriously easy to lose and the vendors commonly charge extortionate prices for replacements.
[Note: in early 1992, advertising copy from Rainbow Technologies (a manufacturer of dongles) included a claim that the word derived from "Don Gall", allegedly the inventor of the device. The company's receptionist will cheerfully tell you that the story is a myth invented for the ad copy. Nevertheless, I expect it to haunt my life as a lexicographer for at least the next ten years. :-( --ESR]
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dongle-disk/don'gl disk/ n.
A special floppy disk that is required in order to perform some task. Some contain special coding that allows an application to identify it uniquely, othersarespecial code that does something that normally-resident programs don't or can't. (For example, AT&T's "Unix PC" would only come up inroot modewith a special boot disk.) Also called a `key disk'. Seedongle.
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donutsn. obs.
A collective noun for any set of memory bits. This usage is extremely archaic and may no longer be live jargon; it dates from the days of ferrite-corememories in which each bit was implemented by a doughnut-shaped magnetic flip-flop.
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doorstopn.
Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolete equipment kept around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup. "When we get another Wyse-50 in here, that ADM 3 will turn into a doorstop." Compareboat anchor.
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DoS attack//
[Usenet,common; note that it's unrelated to `DOS' as name of an operating system] Abbreviation for Denial-Of-Service attack. This abbreviation is most often used of attempts to shut down newsgroups with floods ofspam, or to flood network links with large amounts of traffic, or to flood network links with large amounts of traffic, often by abusing network broadcast addresses Compareslashdot effect.
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