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gnarly
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GNU
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glue
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= G =
gnarly/nar'lee/ adj.
Bothobscureandhairy(sense 1). "Yow!-- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang.
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GNU
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gnubie
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gnarly
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GNU/gnoo/,not/noo/
1. [acronym: `GNU's Not Unix!', seerecursive acronym] A Unix-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman. GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools designed for this project, have become very popular in hackerdom and elsewhere. The GNU project was designed partly to proselytize for RMS's position that information is community property and all software source should be shared. One of its slogans is "Help stamp out software hoarding!" Though this remains controversial (because it implicitly denies any right of designers to own, assign, and sell the results of their labors), many hackers who disagree with RMS have nevertheless cooperated to produce large amounts of high-quality software for free redistribution under the Free Software Foundation's imprimatur. The GNU project has a web page athttp://www.gnu.org. SeeEMACS,copyleft,General Public Virus,Linux. 2. Noted Unix hacker John Gilmore, founder of Usenet's anarchic alt.* hierarchy.
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gnubie
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GNUMACS
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GNU
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gnubie/noo'bee/ n.
Written-only variant ofnewbiein common use on IRC channels, which implies specifically someone who is new to the Linux/open source/free software world.
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GNUMACS
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go flatline
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gnubie
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GNUMACS/gnoo'maks/ n.
[contraction of `GNU EMACS'] Often-heard abbreviated name for theGNUproject's flagship tool,EMACS. Used esp. in contrast withGOSMACS.
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go flatline
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go root
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GNUMACS
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go flatlinev.
[from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon brain-death] (also adjectival `flatlined'). 1. Todie, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker parlance, this is used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about. 2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You can suffer file damage if you shut down Unix but power off before the system has gone flatline." 3. Of a video tube, to fail by losing vertical scan, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line bisecting the screen.
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go root
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go-faster stripes
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go flatline
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go rootvi.
[Unix; common] To temporarily enterroot modein order to perform a privileged operation. This use is deprecated in Australia, where v. `root' is a synonym for "fuck".
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go-faster stripes
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GoAT
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go root
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= G =
go-faster stripesn.
[UK] Syn.chrome. Mainstream in some parts of UK.
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GoAT
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gobble
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go-faster stripes
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GoAT//
[Usenet] Abbreviation: "Go Away, Troll". Seetroll.
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gobble
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Godwin's Law
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GoAT
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gobblevt.
1. To consume, usu. used with `up'. "The output spy gobbles characters out of attyoutput buffer." 2. To obtain, usu. used with `down'. "I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow." See alsosnarf.
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Godwin's Law
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Godzillagram
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gobble
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Godwin's Lawprov.
[Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that anyintentionaltriggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
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Godzillagram
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golden
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Godwin's Law
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Godzillagram/god-zil'*-gram/ n.
[from Japan's national hero] 1. A network packet that in theory is a broadcast to every machine in the universe. The typical case is an IP datagram whose destination IP address is [255.255.255.255]. Fortunately, few gateways are foolish enough to attempt to implement this case! 2. A network packet of maximum size. An IP Godzillagram has 65,536 octets. Comparesuper source quench,Christmas tree packet,martian.
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golden
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golf-ball printer
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Godzillagram
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goldenadj.
[prob. from folklore's `golden egg'] When used to describe a magnetic medium (e.g., `golden disk', `golden tape'), describes one containing a tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship software version. Compareplatinum-iridium.
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golf-ball printer
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gonk
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golden
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golf-ball printern. obs.
The IBM 2741, a slow but letter-quality printing device and terminal based on the IBM Selectric typewriter. The `golf ball' was a little spherical frob bearing reversed embossed images of 88 different characters arranged on four parallels of latitude; one could change the font by swapping in a different golf ball. The print element spun and jerked alarmingly in action and when in motion was sometimes described as an `infuriated golf ball'. This was the technology that enabled APL to use a non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard character set. This put it 10 years ahead of its time -- where it stayed, firmly rooted, for the next 20, until character displays gave way to programmable bit-mapped devices with the flexibility to support other character sets.
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gonk
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gonkulator
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golf-ball printer
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gonk/gonk/ vi.,n.
1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth beyond any reasonable recognition. In German the term is (mythically) `gonken'; in Spanish the verb becomes `gonkar'. "You're gonking me. That story you just told me is a bunch of gonk." In German, for example, "Du gonkst mich" (You're pulling my leg). See alsogonkulator. 2. [British] To grab some sleep at an odd time; comparegronk out.
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gonkulator
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gonzo
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gonk
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gonkulator/gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ n.
[common; from the 1960s "Hogan's Heroes" TV series] A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite piece of computer hardware. Seegonk.
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gonzo
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Good Thing
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gonkulator
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gonzo/gon'zoh/ adj.
[from Hunter S. Thompson] 1. With total commitment, total concentration, and a mad sort of panache. (Thompson's original sense.) 2. More loosely: Overwhelming; outrageous; over the top; very large, esp. used of collections of source code, source files, or individual functions. Has some of the connotations ofmobyandhairy, but without the implication of obscurity or complexity.
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Good Thing
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gopher
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gonzo
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Good Thingn.,adj.
[very common; often capitalized; always pronounced as if capitalized.] 1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: "A language that manages dynamic memory automatically for you is a Good Thing." 2. Something that can't possibly have any ill side-effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the self-modifying code from that shared library would be a Good Thing." 3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "YACC is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load. OpposeBad Thing.
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gopher
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gopher hole
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Good Thing
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gophern.
A type of Internet service first floated around 1991 and obsolesced around 1995 by the World Wide Web. Gopher presents a menuing interface to a tree or graph of links; the links can be to documents, runnable programs, or other gopher menus arbitrarily far across the net.
Some claim that the gopher software, which was originally developed at the University of Minnesota, was named after the Minnesota Gophers (a sports team). Others claim the word derives from American slang `gofer' (from "go for", dialectal "go fer"), one whose job is to run and fetch things. Finally, observe that gophers dig long tunnels, and the idea of tunneling through the net to find information was a defining metaphor for the developers. Probably all three things were true, but with the first two coming first and the gopher-tunnel metaphor serendipitously adding flavor and impetus to the project as it developed out of its concept stage.
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gopher hole
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gorets
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gopher
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gopher holen.
1. Any access to agopher. 2. [Amateur Packet Radio] The terrestrial analog of awormhole(sense 2), from which this term was coined. A gopher hole links two amateur packet relays through some non-ham radio medium.
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gorets
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gorilla arm
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gopher hole
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gorets/gor'ets/ n.
The unknown ur-noun, fill in your own meaning. Found esp. on the Usenet newsgroupalt.gorets, which seems to be a running contest to redefine the word by implication in the funniest and most peculiar way, with the understanding that no definition is ever final. [A correspondent from the Former Soviet Union informs me that `gorets' is Russian for `mountain dweller'. Another from France informs me that `goret' is archaic French for a young pig --ESR] Comparefrink.
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gorilla arm
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gorp
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gorets
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gorilla armn.
The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s. It seems the designers of all thosespiffytouch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized -- the operator looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale to human-factors designers; "Remember the gorilla arm!" is shorthand for "How is this going to fly inrealuse?".
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gorp
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GOSMACS
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gorilla arm
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gorp/gorp/ n.
[CMU: perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good Old Raisins and Peanuts] Anothermetasyntactic variable, likefooandbar.
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GOSMACS
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Gosperism
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gorp
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GOSMACS/goz'maks/ n.
[contraction of `Gosling EMACS'] The firstEMACS-in-C implementation, predating but now largely eclipsed byGNUMACS. Originally freeware; a commercial version was modestly popular as `UniPress EMACS' during the 1980s. The author, James Gosling, went on to inventNeWSand the programming language Java; the latter earned himdemigodstatus.
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Gosperism
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gotcha
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GOSMACS
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Gosperism/gos'p*r-izm/ n.
A hack, invention, or saying due toelder daysarch-hacker R. William (Bill) Gosper. This notion merits its own term because there are so many of them. Many of the entries inHAKMEMare Gosperisms; see alsolife.
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gotcha
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GPL
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Gosperism
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gotchan.
Amisfeatureof a system, especially a programming language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because it both enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected and/or unreasonable in its outcome. For example, a classic gotcha inCis the fact thatif (a=b) {code;}is syntactically valid and sometimes even correct. It puts the value ofbintoaand then executescodeifais non-zero. What the programmer probably meant wasif (a==b) {code;}, which executescodeifaandbare equal.
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GPL
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GPV
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gotcha
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GPL/G-P-L/ n.
Abbreviation for `General Public License' in widespread use; seecopyleft,General Public Virus. Often mis-expanded as `GNU Public License'.
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GPV
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grault
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GPL
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GPV/G-P-V/ n.
Abbrev. forGeneral Public Virusin widespread use.
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grault
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gray goo
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GPV
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grault/grawlt/ n.
Yet anothermetasyntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated by theGOSMACSdocumentation. Seecorge.
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gray goo
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Great Renaming