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geek out
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gen
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geek code
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= G =
geek outvi.
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." Seecomputer geek; see alsopropeller head.
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gen
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gender mender
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geek out
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= G =
gen/jen/ n.,v.
Short forgenerate, used frequently in both spoken and written contexts.
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gender mender
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General Public Virus
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gen
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= G =
gender mendern.
[common] A cable connector shell with either two male or two female connectors on it, used to correct the mismatches that result when someloserdidn'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).
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General Public Virus
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generate
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gender mender
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= G =
General Public Virusn.
Pejorative name for some versions of theGNUprojectcopyleftor General Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools orapps incorporating copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same anti-proprietary 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. Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that thecopyleftlanguage is `boobytrapped' has caused many developers to avoid using GNU tools and the GPL. Changes in the language of the version 2.0 GPL did not eliminate this problem.
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generate
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Genius From Mars Technique
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General Public Virus
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= G =
generatevt.
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 ofparse. 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 generateinfiniteflamage."
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Genius From Mars Technique
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gensym
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generate
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= G =
Genius From Mars Techniquen.
[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. Comparegrok,zen.
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gensym
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Get a life!
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Genius From Mars Technique
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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 (seecruft).
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Get a life!
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Get a real computer!
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gensym
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Get a life!imp.
Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the person to whom it is directed has succumbed to terminal geekdom (seecomputer geek). Often heard onUsenet, esp. as a way of suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue oftheologytoo seriously. This exhortation was popularized by William Shatner on a 1987 "Saturday Night Live" episode in a speech that ended "Get alife!", but some respondents believe it to have been in use before then. It was certainly in wide use among hackers for years before achieving mainstream currency via the sitcom "Get A Life" in 1990.
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Get a real computer!
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GFR
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Get a life!
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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. Seebitty boxandtoy.
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GFR
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gib
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Get a real computer!
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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 IGFRed it." See alsoprowler,reaper. CompareGC, which discards only provably worthless stuff.
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gib
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GIFs at 11
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GFR
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gib/jib/
1. vi. To destroy utterly. Likefrag, but much more violent and final. "There's no trace left. You definitely gibbed that bug". 2. n. Remnants after total obliteration.
Originated first by id software in the game Quake. It's short for giblets (thus pronounced "jib"), and referred to the bloody remains of slain opponents. Eventually the word was verbed, and leaked into general usage afterward.
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GIFs at 11
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gig
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gib
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GIFs at 11
[Fidonet] Fidonet alternative tofilm at 11, especially in echoes (Fidonet topic areas) where uuencoded GIFs are permitted. Other formats, especially JPEG and MPEG, may be referenced instead.
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gig
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giga-
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GIFs at 11
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= G =
gig/jig/ or /gig/ n.
[SI] Seequantifiers.
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giga-
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GIGO
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gig
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giga-/ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ pref.
[SI] Seequantifiers.
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GIGO
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gilley
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giga-
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GIGO/gi:'goh/ [acronym]
1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' -- usually said in response tolusers 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.
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gilley
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gillion
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GIGO
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gilleyn.
[Usenet] The unit of analogicalbogosity. 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.
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gillion
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ginger
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gilley
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gillion/gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ n.
[formed fromgiga-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 speaksgiga-with a hard or soft `g'.
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ginger
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GIPS
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gillion
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= G =
gingern.
Seesaga.
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GIPS
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glark
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ginger
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GIPS/gips/ or /jips/ n.
[analogy withMIPS] Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of Instructions per Second'; seegillion). In 1991, this is used of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected to change. CompareKIPS.
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glark
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glass
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GIPS
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glark/glark/ vt.
To figure something out from context. "The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context." Interestingly, the word was originally `glork'; the context was "This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic] from context" (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his "Metamagical Themas" column in the January 1981 "Scientific American"). It is conjectured that hacker usage mutated the verb to `glark' becauseglorkwas already an established jargon term (some hackers do report using the original term). Comparegrok,zen.
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glass
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glass tty
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glark
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= G =
glassn.
[IBM] Synonym forsilicon.
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glass tty
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glassfet
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glass
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glass tty/glas T-T-Y/ or /glas ti'tee/ n.
A terminal that has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both: like a printing terminal, it can't do fancy display hacks, and like a display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy. An example is the early `dumb' version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor control). Seetube,tty; comparedumb terminal,smart terminal. See "TV Typewriters" (Appendix A) for an interesting true story about a glass tty.
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glassfet
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glitch
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glass tty
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glassfet/glas'fet/ n.
[by analogy with MOSFET, the acronym for `Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor'] Syn.firebottle, a humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.
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glitch
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glob
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glassfet
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glitch/glich/
[very common; from German `glitschig' to slip, via Yiddish `glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function. Sometimes recoverable. An interruption in electric service is specifically called a `power glitch' (alsopower hit), of grave concern because it usually crashes all the computers. In jargon, though, a hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and then forgot how he or she intended to complete it might say, "Sorry, I just glitched". 2. vi. To commit a glitch. Seegritch. 3. vt. [Stanford] To scroll a display screen, esp. several lines at a time.WAITSterminals used to do this in order to avoid continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the eye. 4. obs. Same asmagic cookie, sense 2.
All these uses of `glitch' derive from the specific technical meaning the term has in the electronic hardware world, where it is now techspeak. A glitch can occur when the inputs of a circuit change, and the outputs change to somerandomvalue for some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value. If another circuit inspects the output at just the wrong time, reading the random value, the results can be very wrong and very hard to debug (a glitch is one of many causes of electronicheisenbugs).
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glob
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glork
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glitch
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glob/glob/,not/glohb/ v.,n.
[Unix; common] To expand special characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action is also called `globbing'). The Unix conventions for filename wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly encountered include the following:
*wildcard for any string (see alsoUNX)?wildcard for any single character (generally read this way only at the beginning or in the middle of a word)[]delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters{}alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus, `foo{baz,qux}' would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux'
Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses ambiguity). "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the talk.politics subgroups onUsenet). Other examples are given under the entry forX. Note that glob patterns are similar, but not identical, to those used inregexps.
Historical note: The jargon usage derives fromglob, the name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne versions of the Unix shell.
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glork
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glue
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glob
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glork/glork/
1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of two hours of editing and finds that the system has just crashed. 2. Used as a name for just about anything. Seefoo. 3. vt. Similar toglitch, but usually used reflexively. "My program just glorked itself." 4. Syn. forglark, which see.
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glue
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gnarly
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glork
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gluen.
Generic term for any interface logic or protocol that connects two component blocks. For example,Blue Glueis IBM's SNA protocol, and hardware designers call anything used to connect large VLSI's or circuit blocks `glue logic'.