The Jargon File v2.2.1 15 DEC 1990, part 5 of 10

Eric S. Raymond eric at snark.thyrsus.com
Sun Dec 16 13:59:24 AEST 1990


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X   cryptic message "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" appears,
X   indicating what the problem was.  An Amiga guru can figure things
X   out from the numbers.  Generally a GURU event must be followed by a
X   VULCAN NERVE PINCH.
X
X                                {= H =}
X
XH INFIX [from SF fandom] A method of "marking" common words in the
X   linguist's sense, i.e. calling attention to the fact that they are
X   being used in a nonstandard, ironic or humorous way.  Orig. in the
X   fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod" from decades
X   ago.  H-infix marking of "Ghod" and other words spread into the
X   Sixties counterculture via underground comix, and into early
X   hackerdom either from the counterculture or SF fandom (all three
X   overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has
X   become an expected feature of benchmark names, i.e.  Whetstone,
X   Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc; this is prob. patterning on the
X   original Whetstone name but influenced by the
X   fannish/counterculture H infix.
X
XHA HA ONLY SERIOUS [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK, "Ha Ha
X   Only Kidding"] A phrase that aptly captures the flavor of much
X   hacker discourse (often seen abbreviated as HHOS). Applied
X   especially to parodies, absurdities and ironic jokes that are both
X   intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of
X   truth, or truths which are constructed on in-joke and self-parody.
X   The jargon file contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in
X   both form and content.  Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is
X   often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to
X   take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an
X   outsider or one in LARVAL STAGE. For further enlightenment on this
X   subject, consult any Zen master.  See also HUMOR, HACKER and AI
X   KOANS.
X
XHACK 1. n. Originally a quick job that produces what is needed, but
X   not well.  2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very
X   time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.
X   3. The result of a hack (sense 1 or 2); 3. NEAT HACK: A clever
X   technique.  Also, a brilliant practical joke, where neatness is
X   correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value.
X   Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display switch circa 1961.  4.
X   REAL HACK: A crock (occasionally affectionate).  vt. 5. With
X   "together", to throw something together so it will work.  6. To
X   bear emotionally or physically.  "I can't hack this heat!" 7.  To
X   work on something (typically a program).  In specific sense: "What
X   are you doing?"  "I'm hacking TECO."  In general sense: "What
X   do you do around here?"  "I hack TECO."  (The former is
X   time-immediate, the latter time-extended.)  More generally, "I
X   hack x" is roughly equivalent to "x is my major interest (or
X   project)".  "I hack solid-state physics."  8. To pull a prank
X   on.  See definition 3 and HACKER (def #6).  9. v.i. To waste time
X   (as opposed to TOOL).  "Watcha up to?"  "Oh, just hacking."
X   10. HACK UP (ON): To hack, but generally implies that the result is
X   meanings 1-2.  11.  [UNIX] A dungeon game similar to ROGUE (q.v.)
X   but more elaborate, distributed in C source over USENET and very
X   popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines.  Recent versions
X   are called `nethack'.  HAPPY HACKING: A farewell.  HOW'S HACKING?:
X   A friendly greeting among hackers.  HACK HACK: A somewhat pointless
X   but friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell.  For more
X   on the meaning of HACK, see Appendix A.
X
XHACK ATTACK n. Nearly synonymous with HACKING RUN (q.v.) though the
X   latter implies an all-nighter more strongly.
X
XHACK VALUE n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for expending
X   effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being that the
X   accomplished goal is a hack.  For example, MacLISP has features for
X   reading and printing roman numerals, which was installed purely for
X   hack value.  As a musician once said of jazz, if you don't
X   understand hack value there is no way it can be explained.
X
XHACKER [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A
X   person who enjoys learning the details of programming systems and
X   how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users who
X   prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.  2. One who programs
X   enthusiastically, or who enjoys programming rather than just
X   theorizing about programming.  3. A person capable of appreciating
X   HACK VALUE (q.v.).  4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
X   Not everything a hacker produces is a hack.  5. An expert at a
X   particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on
X   it; example: "A UNIX hacker".  (Definitions 1 to 5 are
X   correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)  6.  An expert of
X   any kind.  One might be an astronomy hacker, for example.  7.
X   (deprecated) A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to
X   discover information by poking around.  Hence "password hacker",
X   "network hacker". See CRACKER.
X
XHACK MODE n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2.  More
X   specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem which
X   may be achieved when one is hacking.  Ability to enter such
X   concentration at will correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is
X   one of the most important skills learned during LARVAL STAGE.
X   Sometimes amplified as "deep hack mode". Being yanked out of hack
X   mode (see PRIORITY INTERRUPT) may be experienced as an almost
X   physical shock, and the sensation of being in it is more than a
X   little habituating.  The intensity of this experience is probably
X   by itself sufficient explanation for the existence of hackers, and
X   explains why many resist being promoted out of positions where they
X   can do code.
X
XHACKING RUN [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run'] n. A hack
X   session extended long outside `normal' working times, especially
X   one longer than 12 hours.  May cause you to CHANGE PHASE THE HARD
X   WAY (see PHASE).
X
XHACKISH /hak'ish/ adj. (also HACKISHNESS n.) 1. Being or involving a
X   hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture.  See
X   also TRUE-HACKER. It is better to be described as hackish by others
X   than to describe oneself that way.  Hackers consider themselves
X   somewhat of an elite, though one to which new members are gladly
X   welcome.  It is a meritocracy based on ability.  There is a certain
X   self-satisfaction in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you
X   claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labelled BOGUS).
X
XHACKISHNESS, HACKITUDE n.  The quality of being or involving a hack.
X   (The word HACKITUDE is considered silly; the standard term is
X   HACKISHNESS.)
X
XHAIR n. The complications which make something hairy.  "Decoding TECO
X   commands requires a certain amount of hair."  Often seen in the
X   phrase INFINITE HAIR, which connotes extreme complexity.  Also in
X   HAIRIFEROUS (tending to promote hair growth): "GNU elisp
X   encourages lusers to write complex editing modes."  "Yeah, it's
X   pretty hairiferous all right." (or just: "Hair squared!")
X
XHAIRY adj. 1. Overly complicated.  "DWIM is incredibly hairy."  2.
X   Incomprehensible.  "DWIM is incredibly hairy."  3.  Of people,
X   high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or incomprehensible.
X   Hard to explain except in context: "He knows this hairy lawyer who
X   says there's nothing to worry about."
X
XHAKMEM /hak'mem/ n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972).  A legendary
X   collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks contributed
X   by many people at MIT and elsewhere.  (The title of the memo really
X   is "HAKMEM", which is an acronym of sorts for "hacks memo".)
X   Some of them are very useful techniques or powerful theorems, but
X   most fall into the category of mathematical and computer trivia.  A
X   sampling of the entries (with authors), slightly paraphrased:
X
X   Item 41 (Gene Salamin) There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less
X   than 2 to the 18th power.
X
X   Item 46 (Rich Schroeppel) The most *probable* suit distribution in
X   bridge hands is 4-4-3-2, as compared to 4-3-3-3, which is the most
X   *evenly* distributed.  This is because the world likes to have
X   unequal numbers: a thermodynamic effect saying things will not be
X   in the state of lowest energy, but in the state of lowest
X   disordered energy.
X
X   Problem 81 (Rich Schroeppel) Count the magic squares of order 5
X   (that is, all the 5-by-5 arrangements of the numbers from 1 to 25
X   such that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same
X   number).  There are about 320 million, not counting those that
X   differ only by rotation and reflection.
X
X   Item 174 (Bill Gosper and Stuart Nelson) 21963283741 is the only
X   number such that if you represent it on the PDP-10 as both an
X   integer and a floating-point number, the bit patterns of the two
X   representations are identical.
X
XHAKMEM also contains some rather more complicated mathematical and
X   technical items, but these examples show some of its fun flavor.
X
XHAND-HACKING n. 1. The practice of translating HOT SPOTS from an HLL
X   into custom hand-optimized assembler, as opposed to trying to
X   coerce the compiler into generating better code.  Both the term and
X   the practice are becoming uncommon.  See TUNE, BUM; syn. with v.
X   CRUFT.  2. More generally, manual construction or patching of data
X   sets that would normally be ground out by a translation utility and
X   interpreted by another program, and aren't really designed to be
X   read or modified by humans.
X
XHANDWAVE 1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener;
X   to support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty
X   logic.  If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or
X   "Obviously..."  or "It is self-evident that...", you can be
X   sure he is about to handwave.  The theory behind this term is that
X   if you wave your hands at the right moment, the listener may be
X   sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you have said is
X   BOGUS. Alternatively, if a listener does object, you might try to
X   dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand. 2. n. The act of
X   handwaving.  "Boy, what a handwave!"  The use of this word is
X   often accompanied by gestures: both hands up, palms forward,
X   swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting at the elbows
X   and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the handwave);
X   alternatively, holding the forearms still while rotating the hands
X   at the wrist to make them flutter.  In context, the gestures alone
X   can suffice as a remark; if a speaker makes an outrageous
X   unsupported assumption, you might simply wave your hands in this
X   way, as an accusation more eloquent than words could express that
X   his logic is faulty
X
XHANG v. 1. To wait for some event to occur; to hang around until
X   something happens. "The program displays a menu and then hangs
X   until you type a character." 2. More commonly, to wait for an
X   event that will never occur. "The system is hanging because it
X   can't read from the crashed drive". See WEDGED.
X
XHANLON'S RAZOR n. A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's Razor that reads
X   "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained
X   by stupidity".  The derivation of the common title Hanlon's Razor
X   is unknown; a similar epigram has been attributed to William James.
X   Quoted here because it seems to be a particular favorite of
X   hackers, often showing up in FORTUNE COOKIE files and the login
X   banners of BBS systems and commercial networks.  This probably
X   reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by
X   the well-intentioned but shortsighted.
X
XHARDWARILY /hard-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to hardware.
X   "The system is hardwarily unreliable."  The adjective
X   "hardwary" is *not* used.  See SOFTWARILY.
X
XHAS THE X NATURE [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the form
X   "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"]  adj. Common hacker
X   construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis.  "Anyone
X   who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it
X   truly has the LOSER nature!"
X
XHASH COLLISION [from the technical usage] n. When used of people,
X   signifies a confusion in associative memory or imagination,
X   especially a persistent one (see THINKO). True story: one of us
X   (ESR) was once on the phone with a friend about to move out to
X   Berkeley.  When asked what he expected Berkeley to be like, the
X   friend replied "Well, I have this mental picture of naked women
X   throwing Molotov cocktails, but I think that's just a collision in
X   my hash tables." The variant "hash clash" is also reported.
X
XHCF /aych-see-eff/ n. Mnemonic for "Halt and Catch Fire", any of
X   several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with
X   destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on
X   several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360.
X   The MC6800 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcode
X   became widely known.  This instruction caused the processor to
X   toggle a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it can; in some
X   configurations this can actually cause lines to burn up.
X
XHEARTBEAT n. 1. The master clock signal propagated across an Ethernet;
X   by extension, the time-baseline synchronization signal at the
X   physical level of any network. 2. The `natural' oscillation
X   frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division
X   down to the machine's CLOCK RATE.
X
XHEAVY METAL [Cambridge] n. Syn. with BIG IRON (q.v).
X
XHEAVY WIZARDRY n. Code or designs which trade on a particularly
X   intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system
X   or language or complex application interface. Distinguished from
X   DEEP MAGIC, which trades more on arcane *theoretical* knowledge.
X   Writing device drivers is heavy wizardry; so is interfacing to X
X   (sense #2) without a toolkit. Esp. found in comments of the form
X   "Heavy wizardry begins here...".
X
XHEISENBUG /hie'sen-buhg/ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
X   quantum physics] n. A bug which disappears or alters its behavior
X   when one attempts to probe or isolate it.  Antonym of BOHR BUG
X   (q.v.). In C, 9 out of 10 heisenbugs result from either FANDANGO ON
X   CORE phenomena (esp.  lossage related to corruption of the malloc
X   ARENA) or errors which SMASH THE STACK.
X
XHELEN KELLER MODE n. State of a hardware or software system which is
X   deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e. accepting no input and generating no
X   output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion
X   into DEEP SPACE.  (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose success
X   at learning speech was triumphant.) See also GO FLATLINE.
X
XHELLO SAILOR! interj. Occasional West Coast equivalent of `Hello,
X   world!'; seems to have originated at SAIL, later associated with
X   the game ZORK. See HELLO WORLD.
X
XHELLO WALL! excl. See WALL.
X
XHELLO WORLD! interj. 1. The canonical minimal test message in the
X   C/UNIX universe.  In folklore, the first program a C coder is
X   supposed to write in a new environment is one that just prints
X   "Hello, world!" to standard output.  Environments that
X   generate an unreasonably large executable for this trivial test or
X   which require a HAIRY compiler-linker invocation to generate it are
X   considered to LOSE. 2. Greeting uttered by a hacker making an
X   entrance or requesting information from anyone present. "Hello,
X   world! Is the VAX back up yet?"
X
XHIGH BIT n. 1. See META BIT. Also meaning most significant part of
X   something other than a data byte, e.g. "Spare me the whole saga,
X   just give me the high bit."
X
XHIGH MOBY /hie mohb'ee/ n. The high half of a stock PDP-10's address
X   space; the other half was of course the LOW MOBY. This usage has
X   been generalized in a way that has outlasted the PDP-10; for
X   example, at the 1990 Washington D.C Area Science Fiction Conclave
X   (DISCLAVE) when a miscommunication resulted in two separate @-SIGN
X   PARTIES being held in commemoration of the shutdown of MIT's last
X   ITS machines, the one on the upper floor was dubbed the HIGH MOBY
X   and the other the LOW MOBY. All parties involved grokked this
X   instantly.  See MOBY in main text and Appendix B.
X
XHIRSUTE adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for HAIRY.
X
XHLL /aych-el-el/ n. [High-Level Language (as opposed to assembler)]
X   Found primarily in email and news rather than speech.  Rarely, the
X   variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found.  VHLL = `Very-High-Level
X   Language' and is used to describe a BONDAGE-AND-DISCIPLINE LANGUAGE
X   that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FP are often
X   called VHLLs. `MLL' = `Medium-Level Language' and is sometimes used
X   half-jokingly to describe C, alluding to its `structured-assembler'
X   image.  See also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE.
X
XHOG n.,v. Favored term to describe programs or hardware which seem to
X   eat far more than their share of a system's resources, esp. those
X   which noticeably degrade general timesharing response. *Not* used
X   of programs which are simply extremely large or complex or which
X   are merely painfully slow themselves (see PIG, RUN LIKE A). More
X   often than not encountered in qualified forms, e.g. "memory hog",
X   "core hog", "hog the processor", "hog the disk". Example: "A
X   controller that never gives up the I/O bus gets killed after the
X   bus hog timer expires."
X
XHOLY WARS [from USENET, but may predate it] n.  FLAME WARS over
X   RELIGIOUS ISSUES. The 1980 paper by Danny Cohen that popularized
X   the terms BIG-ENDIAN and LITTLE-ENDIAN in connection with the
X   LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled "On Holy Wars and a
X   Plea for Peace". Other perennial Holy Wars have included: EMACS vs.
X   VI, <my personal computer> vs. <everyone else's personal computer>,
X   UNIX vs. VMS, BSD UNIX vs. AT&T UNIX, C vs. Pascal, etc. etc. etc.
X   The characteristic that distinguishes HOLY WARS from normal
X   technical disputes is that (regardless of the technical merits of
X   the case on either side) most participants spend their time trying
X   to pass off personal value choices and cultural attachments as
X   objective technical evaluations.
X
XHOOK n. An extraneous piece of software or hardware included in order
X   to simplify later additions or changes by a user.  For instance, a
X   program might execute a location that is normally a JFCL, but by
X   changing the JFCL to a PUSHJ one can insert a debugging routine at
X   that point.  As another example, a simple program that prints
X   numbers might always print them in base ten, but a more flexible
X   version would let a variable determine what base to use; setting
X   the variable to 5 would make the program print numbers in base
X   five.  The variable is a simple hook.  An even more flexible
X   program might examine the variable, and treat a value of 16 or less
X   as the base to use, but treat any other number as the address of a
X   user-supplied routine for printing a number.  This is a very
X   powerful hook; one can then write a routine to print numbers as
X   roman numerals, say, or as Hebrew characters, and plug it into the
X   program through the hook.  Often the difference between a good
X   program and a superb one is that the latter has useful hooks in
X   judiciously chosen places.  Both may do the original job about
X   equally well, but the one with the hooks is much more flexible for
X   future expansion of capabilities.
X
XHOME BOX n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he owns.
X   "Yeah?  Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2BSD, so there!"
X
XHOSE 1. v. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in performance,
X   as in "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the system." See
X   HOSED.  2. n. A narrow channel through which data flows under
X   pressure.  Generally denotes data paths in a system that represent
X   performance bottlenecks.  3.  Cabling, especially thick Ethernet
X   cable.  This is sometimes called "bit hose" or "hosery" (play
X   on "hosiery").  See also WASHING MACHINES.
X
XHOSED adj. Same as DOWN. Used primarily by UNIX hackers.  Humorous:
X   also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to reverse.
X   Probably a back-formation from the Canadian slang `hoser'
X   popularized by the Bob and Doug skits on SCTV. See HOSE.
X
X   There is a story that a Cray which had been experiencing periodic
X   difficulties once CRASHED, and it was announced to have been HOSED.
X   It was discovered that the crash was due to the disconnection of
X   some coolant hoses. The problem was connected, and users were then
X   assured that everything was OK because the system had been rehosed.
X   [This is an excellent example of hackish wordplay --- ESR].
X
XHOT SPOT n. 1. [primarily C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] n.  In most
X   programs, less than 10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time;
X   if one were to graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one
X   would typically see a few huge spikes amidst a lot of low-level
X   noise.  Such spikes are called "hot spots" and are good candidates
X   for micro-optimization or HAND-HACKING. The term is especially used
X   of tight loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as
X   opposed to (say) initial set-up costs or large but infrequent I/O
X   operations.  See TUNE, BUM, HAND-HACKING.  2. The active location
X   of a cursor on a bit-map display.  "Put the mouse's hot spot on
X   the `ON' widget and click the left button."
X
XHOUSE WIZARD [prob. from ad-agency lingo, cf. `house freak'] n. A lone
X   hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D or systems position at
X   a commercial shop.  A really effective house wizard can have
X   influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and
X   still not have to wear a suit.  Used esp. of UNIX experts.  The
X   term HOUSE GURU is equivalent.
X
XHP-SUX /aych pee suhx/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX,
X   Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port.  Features some truly unique bogosities
X   in the filesystem internals and elsewhere that occasionally create
X   portability problems.  HP-UX is often referred to as "hockey-pux"
X   inside HP, and one outside correspondent claims that the proper
X   pronunciation is /aych-pee ukkkhhhh/ as though one were spitting.
X   See also TELERAT, SUN-STOOLS, TERMINAK.
X
XHUMMA excl. A filler word used on various "chat" and "talk"
X   programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was important
X   to say something.  The word apparently originated (at least with
X   this definition) on the MECC Timeshare System (MTS) a now-defunct
X   educational time-sharing system running in Michigan during the
X   1970s and early '80s, but was later sighted on early UNIX systems.
X
XHUMONGOUS /hyoo-mohng'gus/ alt. HUMUNGOUS (hyoo-muhng'gus) See HUNGUS.
X
XHUMOR, HACKER n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor
X   found among hackers, having the following marked characteristics:
X
X   1) Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
X   having to do with confusion of metalevels (see META). One way to
X   make a hacker laugh: hold an index card in front of him/her with
X   "THIS IS GREEN" written on it in bold red ink, or vice-versa
X   (note, however, that this is only funny the first time).
X
X   2) Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs such
X   as standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL) and
X   even entire scientific theories (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS,
X   COMPUTRON).
X
X   3) Jokes which involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
X   ludicrous or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.
X
X   4) Fascination with puns and wordplay.
X
X   5) A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive
X   currents of intelligence in it, for example: old Warner Brothers
X   and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, Charlie Chaplin movies, the B-52s,
X   and Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Humor which combines this trait
X   with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially favored.
X
X   6) References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas
X   in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism.  See HAS THE X NATURE,
X   DISCORDIANISM, ZEN, HA HA ONLY SERIOUS, AI KOANS.
X
X   See also FILK, COMPUTER; RETROCOMPUTING; and Appendix C.
X   If you have an itchy feeling that all six of these traits are
X   really aspects of one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk
X   about exactly, you are a) correct and b) responding like a hacker.
X   These traits are also recognizable (though in a less marked form)
X   throughout SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM.
X
XHUNG [from "hung up"] adj. Equivalent to WEDGED, q.v. but more
X   common at UNIX/C sites.  Not generally used of people. Syn. with
X   LOCKED UP, WEDGED; compare HOSED.
X
XHUNGUS /hung'ghis/ [perhaps related to current slang "humongous";
X   which one came first (if either) is unclear] adj. Large, unwieldy,
X   usually unmanageable.  "TCP is a hungus piece of code."  "This
X   is a hungus set of modifications."
X
XHYPERSPACE (hie'per-spays) n. A memory location within a virtual
X   memory machine that is many, many megabytes (or gigabytes) away
X   from where the program counter should be pointing, usually
X   inaccessible because it is not even mapped in. "Another core
X   dump... looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace somehow."
X
X                                {= I =}
X
XIBM /ie bee em/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually;
X   Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel
X   Movement; and a near-INFINITE number of even less complimentary
X   expansions, including "International Business Machines". See TLA.
X   These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most
X   hackers have long felt for the "industry leader" (see FEAR AND
X   LOATHING).  What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC
X   level isn't so much that they're underpowered and overpriced
X   (though that counts against them) but that the designs are
X   incredibly archaic, crufty and ELEPHANTINE and you can't *fix* them
X   --- source code is locked up tight and programming tools are
X   expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found
X   them.  With the release of the UNIX-based RIOS family this may have
X   begun to change --- but then, we thought that when the PC-RT came
X   out, too.  In the spirit of universal peace and brotherhood, this
X   lexicon now includes a number of entries marked `IBM'; these derive
X   from a rampantly unofficial jargon list circulated among IBM's own
X   beleaguered hacker underground.
X
XICE [from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF: notionally, "Intrusion
X   Countermeasure Electronics"] Security software (in Gibson's
X   original, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to
X   literally kill the intruder).  Also, ICEBREAKER: a program designed
X   for cracking security on a system.  Neither term is in serious use
X   yet as of 1990, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive and
X   they may be in the near future.
X
XILL-BEHAVED adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or
X   computational method that tends to blow up due to accumulated
X   roundoff error or poor convergence properties.  2. Software which
X   bypasses the defined OS interfaces to do things (like screen,
X   keyboard and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the
X   hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or
X   incompatible with other pieces of software.  In the IBM PC/MS-DOS
X   world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that
X   (due to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS
X   interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved.  Oppose
X   WELL-BEHAVED, compare PC-ISM.  See MESS-DOS.
X
XIMHO [from SF fandom via USENET] Written acronym for In My Humble
X   Opinion.  Example: "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as
X   mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect
X   errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."
X
XINCANTATION n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that must
X   be muttered at a system to attain a desired result.  Not used of
X   passwords or other explicit security features.  Especially used of
X   tricks that are so poorly documented they must be learned from a
X   WIZARD. E.g. "This compiler normally locates initialized data in
X   the data segment, but if you mutter the right incantation they will
X   be forced into text space". See MUTTER.
X
XINFINITE adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.  Used
X   very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage."
X   "He is an infinite loser." This is an abuse of the word's
X   mathematical meaning.
X
XINFINITY n. 1. The largest value that can be represented in a
X   particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type,
X   whatever).  2. MINUS INFINITY The smallest such value.  Note that
X   this is different from TIME T EQUALS MINUS INFINITY, which is
X   closer to a mathematician's usage of infinity.
X
XINFANT MORTALITY n. It is common lore among hackers that the chances
X   of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's
X   time since power-up (that is until the relatively distant time at
X   which mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in
X   components has accumulated enough for the machine to start going
X   senile). Up to half of all chip-and-wire failures happen within a
X   new system's first few weeks; such failures are often referred to
X   as "infant mortality" problems (or, occasionally, as "sudden
X   infant death syndrome").
X
XINTERCAL /in'tr-kal/ [said by the authors to stand for "Compiler
X   Language With No Pronounceable Acronym"] n. A computer language
X   designed by Don Woods and James Lyon in 1972. INTERCAL is purposely
X   different from all other computer languages in all ways but one; it
X   is purely a written language, being totally unspeakable.  An
X   excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference Manual will make the style of
X   the language clear.  In most languages, if you wanted the variable
X   A to have the value 65536, you would write something like
X
X        LET A = 65536;
X
X   The INTERCAL Reference Manual, however, explains that "It is a
X   well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose work is
X   incomprehensible is held in high esteem.  For example, if one were
X   to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536 in a
X   32-bit INTERCAL variable is:
X
X        DO :1 <- #0$#256
X
X   any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd.  Since this
X   is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look
X   foolish in front of his boss, who would of course happened to turn
X   up, as bosses are wont to do.  The effect would be no less
X   devastating for the programmer having been correct." INTERCAL has
X   many other peculiar features designed to make it even more
X   unspeakable.  The Woods/Lyons implementation was actually used by
X   many (well, at least several) people at Princeton.  The language
X   has been recently re-implemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently
X   enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an
X   alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...
X   appreciation of the language on USENET.
X
XINTERESTING adj. In hacker parlance, this word is not simply
X   synonymous with "intriguing", but has strong connotations of
X   "annoying", or "difficult", or both. Hackers relish a
X   challenge.  Oppose UNININTERESTING.
X
XINTERNET ADDRESS n. An `absolute' network address of the form
X   foo at bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a SITENAME (q.v.),
X   and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periods itself.
X   Contrasts with BANG PATH, q.v.; see also NETWORK, THE and NETWORK
X   ADDRESS. All Internet machines and most UUCP sites can now resolve
X   these addresses, thanks to a large amount of behind-the-scenes
X   magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.  See also BANG
X   PATH.
X
XINTERRUPT interj. 1. On a computer, an event which interrupts normal
X   processing and temporarily diverts flow-of-control through an
X   "interrupt handler" routine. See also TRAP.  2. A request for
X   attention from a hacker. Often explicitly spoken. "Interrupt ---
X   have you seen Joe recently?".  See PRIORITY INTERRUPT.
X
XINTERRUPTS LOCKED OUT adj. When someone is ignoring you.  In a
X   restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's
X   attention, a hacker might well observe that "She must have
X   interrupts locked out." Variations of this abound; "to have one's
X   interrupt mask bit set" is also heard.
X
XIRON n. Hardware, especially older/larger hardware of mainframe class
X   with big metal cabinets housing relatively low-density electronics
X   (but also used of modern supercomputers). Often in the phrase BIG
X   IRON.  Oppose SILICON. See also DINOSAUR.
X
XIRON BOX [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap a
X   CRACKER logging in over remote or network connections long enough
X   so he can be traced.  May include a specially-gimmicked SHELL
X   restricting the hacker's movements in unobvious ways, and `bait'
X   files designed to keep him interested and logged on.  See also BACK
X   DOOR, FIREWALL, VENUS FLYTRAP.
X
XIRONMONGER [IBM] n. A hardware specialist.  Derogatory.  Compare
X   SANDBENDER, POLYGON PUSHER.
X
XITS /ie-tee-ess/ n. Incompatible Time-Sharing System, an influential
X   but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-10s at
X   MIT and long used at the MIT AI lab; much AI-hacker slang derives
X   from ITS folklore.  After about 1982 most actual work was shifted
X   to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run essentially as
X   a hobby and service to the hacker community.  The shutdown of the
X   lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end of an era and
X   sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide.  The Royal
X   Institute of Technology in Sweden is maintaing one `live' ITS site
X   at its computer museum (right next to the only TOPS-10 system still
X   on the Internet), so ITS is still alleged to hold the record for OS
X   in longest continuous use.  See Appendix B.
X
XIWBNI [acronym] It Would Be Nice If.  No pronunciation, as this is
X   never spoken, only written.  Compare WIBNI.
X
XIYFEG [USENET] Abbreviation for "Insert Your Favourite Ethnic
X   Group".  Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes in email to
X   avoid offending anyone.
X
X                                {= J =}
X
XJ. RANDOM /jay rand'm/ n. [generalized from J. RANDOM HACKER, q.v.]
X   Arbitrary; ordinary; any one; "any old".  "Would you let J.
X   Random Loser marry your daughter?". See RANDOM.
X
XJ. RANDOM HACKER /jay rand'm hak'r/ n. A mythical figure like the
X   Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd.  See RANDOM, LITTLE
X   SUZIE COBOL.
X
XJAGGIES /jag'eez/ n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an edge
X   (esp. a linear edge of slope far from a multiple of 45 degrees) is
X   rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).
X
XJIFFY n. 1. The width of one tick of the system clock on the computer
X   (see TICK).  Often 1 AC cycle time (1/60 second in the U.S. and
X   1/50 elsewhere) but more recently 1/100 sec has become common.  2.
X   Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond
X   WALL TIME interval.  "The swapper runs every six jiffies" means
X   that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for
X   every six ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.  3.
X   Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. "I'll do it in a
X   jiffy" means certainly not now and possibly never.  This is a bit
X   contrary to the more widespread use of the word.
X
XJOCK n. 1. Programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat brute
X   force programs.  See BRUTE FORCE. 2. When modified by another noun,
X   describes a specialist in some particular computing area.  The
X   compounds `compiler jock' and `systems jock' seem to be the best
X   established examples of this.
X
XJOE CODE /joh kohd/ [said to commemmorate a notoriously bad coder
X   named Joe at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory] n. Badly written,
X   possibly buggy source code.  "Perl may be a handy program, but if
X   you look at the source, it's complete joe code." Correspondents
X   wishing to remain anonymous have fingered a particular Joe and
X   observed that usage has drifted slightly; they described his code
X   as "overly TENSE and unmaintainable".
X
X                                {= K =}
X
XKAHUNA /k at -hoo'nuh/ [IBM, from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.
X   Synonym for WIZARD, GURU (q.v.).
X
XKEN /ken/ n. A flaming user.  This noun was in use by the Software
X   Support group at Symbolics because the two greatest flamers in the
X   user community were both named Ken.
X
XKGBVAX /kay-jee-bee-vaks/ n. See KREMVAX
X
XKILL FILE [USENET] n.  Per-user file used by some USENET reading
X   programs to discard summarily (without presenting for reading)
X   articles which match some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted)
X   patterns of subject, author, or other header lines.  Thus to "add
X   a person (or subject) to one's kill file" is to arrange for that
X   person to be ignored by your newsreader in future.  By extension,
X   it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in
X   other media.
X
XKILLER MICRO [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. A microprocessor-based
X   machine that infringes on mini, mainframe or supercomputer
X   performance turf.  Often heard in "No one will survive the attack
X   of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers.  Used
X   esp. of RISC architectures.
X
XKILLER POKE n. A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine via
X   insertion of invalid values in a memory-mapped control register;
X   used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks on MMU-less BITTY
X   BOXES like the IBM PC and Commodore PET that can overload and trash
X   analog electronics in the monitor.  See also HCF.
X
XKLUGE /klooj/ alt. KLUDGE /kluhj/ [from the German "klug", clever]
X   (`klooj' is the original pronunciation, more common in the US;
X   `kluhj' is reported more common in England).  n. 1. A Rube Goldberg
X   (or Heath Robinson) device in hardware or software. (A long-ago
X   Datamation article said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly
X   matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")  2. n.  A clever
X   programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an
X   expedient, if not clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often
X   involves AD-HOCKERY and verges on being a CROCK.  3.  Something
X   that works for the wrong reason.  4.  v. To insert a kluge into a
X   program.  "I've kluged this routine to get around that weird bug,
X   but there's probably a better way."  Also KLUGE UP.  5. KLUGE
X   AROUND: To avoid by inserting a kluge.  6.  [WPI] A feature which
X   is implemented in a RUDE manner.
X
XKNIGHTS OF THE LAMBDA CALCULUS n. A semi-mythical organization of
X   wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers (the name refers to a mathematical
X   formalism invented by Alonzo Church with which LISP is intimately
X   connected). There is no enrollment list and the criteria for
X   induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known to
X   give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who they
X   are...
X
XKREMVAX /krem-vaks/ [From the then large number of USENET VAXEN with
X   names of the form "foovax"] n.  A fictitious USENET site at the
X   Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984, in a posting ostensibly from
X   Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko.  The posting was actually
X   forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke.  Other sites
X   mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and KGBVAX, which now seems to
X   be the one by which it is remembered.  This was probably the
X   funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on USENET
X   (which has negligible security against them), because the notion
X   that USENET might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally
X   absurd at the time.  But in fact, the first genuine site in Moscow
X   (demos.su) joined USENET only 6 years later --- and some readers
X   needed convincing that it wasn't a hoax.
X
X   [Ed. note: Vadim Antonov (avg), the major poster from demos.su up
X   to at least the end of 1990, was well acquainted with the kremvax
X   hoax and referred to it in his own postings --- even to the extent
X   of twitting a number of credulous netters on alt.folklore.computers
X   by blandly "admitting" that *he* was a hoax! Mr. Antonov,
X   BTW, also contributed the Russian-language material for this File
X   --- ESR]
X
X                                {= L =}
X
XLACE CARD n. obs. A Hollerith card with all holes punched (also called
X   a WHOOPEE CARD).  Card readers jammed when they got to one of
X   these, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to
X   avoid buckling inside the mechanism. When some practical joker fed
X   a LACE CARD through the reader you needed to clear the jam with a
X   card knife --- which you use on the joker first.
X
XLANGUAGE LAWYER n. A person, usually an experienced or senior software
X   engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of the
X   numerous syntactic and semantic restrictions (both useful and
X   esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming languages.
X   Compare WIZARD.
X
XLANGUAGES OF CHOICE n. C or LISP. Essentially all hackers know one of
X   these and most good ones are fluent in both.  Smalltalk and Prolog
X   are popular in small but influential communities.  Assembler used
X   to be a language of choice, but is generally no longer considered
X   interesting or appropriate for anything but compiler code
X   generation and a few time-critical uses in systems programs.
X
XLARVAL STAGE n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on
X   coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers.  Common
X   symptoms include: the perpetration of more than one 36-hour HACKING
X   RUN in a given week, neglect of all other activities including
X   usual basics like food and sex, and a chronic case of advanced
X   bleary-eye.  Can last from six months to two years, with the
X   apparent median being around eighteen months.  A few so afflicted
X   never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal seems to be
X   necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely
X   competent) programmers.  A less protracted and intense version of
X   larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when
X   learning a new OS or programming language.
X
XLASE /layz/ vt. To print a given document via a laser printer. "OK,
X   let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro calls
X   did the right things." Compare DIABLO in Appendix B.
X
XLASER CHICKEN n. Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish containing
X   chicken, peanuts, and bell peppers in a spicy pepper-oil sauce.  A
X   few hackers call it "laser chiicken" for two reasons; it can ZAP
X   you just like a laser, and the pepper-oil sauce has a red color
X   reminiscent of a laser beam.
X
XLEAK n. With qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs
X   that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations
X   on them are finished, leading to eventual exhaustion as new
X   allocation requests come in.  MEMORY LEAK and FD LEAK have their
X   own entries; one might also refer, say, to a "window handle leak"
X   in a window system.
X
XLEAKY HEAP [Cambridge] n. Syn. MEMORY LEAK (q.v.).
X
XLERP /lerp/ v.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a
X   verb or noun for the operation.  Ex. Bresenham's algorithm lerps
X   incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.
X
XLEXER /lek'sr/ n. Common hacker shorthand for "lexical analyzer",
X   the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language. "Some C
X   lexers get confused by the old-style compound ops like =-".
X
XLIFE n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway,
X   and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (Scientific
X   American, October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of
X   fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed
X   heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably
X   Bill Gosper at MIT; see GOSPERISM).  When a hacker mentions
X   "life", he is much more likely to mean this game than the
X   magazine, the breakfast cereal, or the human state of existence.
X   2. The opposite of USENET. As in "Get a life!".
X
XLIKE KICKING DEAD WHALES DOWN THE BEACH adj. A slow and disgusting
X   process.  First popularized by a famous quote about the difficulty
X   of getting work done under one of IBM's mainframe OSs. "Well, you
X   *could* write a C compiler in COBOL, but it would be like kicking
X   dead whales down the beach."
X
XLINE EATER, THE [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the
X   netnews software used to cause the first parts of articles to be
X   discarded under some circumstances.  This bug was quickly
X   personified as a mythical creature called "the line eater", and
X   postings often included a dummy line of "line eater food". The
X   practice of "sacrificing to the line eater" continued for some
X   time after the bug had been NAILED TO THE WALL, and is still
X   humorously referred to.  The bug itself is still (in mid-1990)
X   occasionally reported to be lurking in some mail-to-netnews
X   gateways.  2. The mythical NSA trawling program sometimes assumed
X   to be reading USENET for the U.S. Government's spooks.  Some
X   netters put loaded phrases like `Uzi' `nuclear materials'
X   `Palestine' `cocaine' and `assassination' in their SIG BLOCKs in an
X   attempt to confuse and overload the creature.
X
XLINE STARVE [MIT] 1. v. To feed the paper through the terminal the
X   wrong way by one line (most terminals can't do this!).  On a
X   display terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the
X   screen.  Example: "To print X squared, you just output X, line
X   starve, 2, line feed."  (The line starve causes the 2 to appear on
X   the line above the X, and the line feed gets back to the original
X   line.) 2. n. A "character" (or character sequence) that causes a
X   terminal to perform this action.  Unlike "line feed", "line
X   starve" is *not* standard ASCII terminology.  Even among hackers
X   it is considered a bit silly.  3. [proposed] A sequence like \c
X   (used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) which suppresses a
X   line feed that would normally implicitly be emitted.
X
XLINK FARM [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to files
X   in another, master directory tree of files.  Link farms save space
X   when maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same source
X   tree, e.g. when the only difference is architecture-dependent
X   object files.  Example use: `Let's freeze the source and then
X   rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms.' Link farms may
X   also be used to get around restrictions on the number of -I
X   arguments on older C preprocessors.
X
XLINT [from UNIX's lint(1), named perhaps for the bits of fluff it
X   picks from programs] v. To examine a program closely for style,
X   language usage, and portability problems, esp. if in C, esp. if via
X   use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if the UNIX utility
X   lint(1) is used.  This term used to be restricted to use of lint(1)
X   itself but (judging by references on USENET) has become a shorthand
X   for `desk-check' at some non-UNIX shops, even in some languages
X   other than C. See also DELINT.
X
XLION FOOD [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension,
X   administrative drones in general). From an old joke about two lions
X   who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their chances but
X   agreed to meet after two months.  When they do meet, one is skinny
X   and the other overweight.  The thin one says "How did you manage?
X   I ate a human just once and they turned out a small army to chase
X   me --- guns, nets, it was terrible.  Since then I've been reduced to
X   eating mice, insects, even grass." The fat one replies "Well, *I*
X   hid near an IBM office and ate a manager a day.  And nobody even
X   noticed!"
X
XLISP n. The name of AI's mother tongue, a language based on the ideas
X   of 1) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types,
X   and 2) the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa.  Invented
X   by John McCarthy at Stanford in the late 1950s, it is actually
X   older than any other HLL still in use except FORTRAN. Accordingly,
X   it has undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years;
X   modern variants (of which Scheme is perhaps the most successful)
X   are quite different in detail from the original LISP 1.5 at
X   Stanford.  The hands-down favorite of hackers until the early
X   1980s, LISP now shares the throne with C (q.v.). See LANGUAGES OF
X   CHOICE.
X
XLITTLE-ENDIAN adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within
X   a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses have lower
X   significance (the word is stored `little-end-first').  The PDP-11
X   and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot
X   of communications and networking hardware are little-endian.  See
X   BIG-ENDIAN, MIDDLE-ENDIAN.
X
XLIVE FREE OR DIE! imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire.  2. A
X   slogan associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX
X   aficionados saw themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground
X   tilting against the windmills of industry. Armando Stettner, one of
X   the early UNIX developers, used to give out fake license plates
X   bearing this motto under a large UNIX, all in New Hampshire colors
X   of green and white. These are now valued collector's items.
X
XLIVELOCK n.  A situation in which some critical stage of a task is
X   unable to finish because its clients perpetually create more work
X   for it to do after they've been serviced but before it can clear.
X   Differs from DEADLOCK in that the process is not blocked or waiting
X   for anything, but has a virtually infinite amount of work to do and
X   accomplishes nothing.
X
XLIVEWARE n. Synonym for WETWARE (q.v.) Less common.
X
XLOCKED UP adj. Syn. for HUNG, WEDGED.
X
XLOGIC BOMB n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or OS
X   which causes it to perform some destructive or
X   security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are
X   met.  Compare BACK DOOR.
X
XLOGICAL [from the technical term "logical device", wherein a
X   physical device is referred to by an arbitrary name] adj.
X   Understood to have a meaning not necessarily corresponding to
X   reality.  E.g., if a person who has long held a certain post (e.g.,
X   Les Earnest at SAIL) left and was replaced, the replacement would
X   for a while be known as the "logical Les Earnest".  Compare
X   VIRTUAL, oppose PHYSICAL. This use of LOGICAL is an extension from
X   its technical use in computer science.  A program can be written to
X   do input or output using a "logical device"; when the program is
X   run, the user can specify which "physical" (actual) device to use
X   for that logical device.  For example, a program might write all
X   its error messages to a logical device called ERROR; the user can
X   then specify whether logical device ERROR should be associated to
X   the terminal, a disk file, or the BIT BUCKET (to throw the error
X   messages away).  Perhaps the word "logical" is used because even
X   though a thing isn't the actual object in question, you can reason
X   logically about the thing as if it were the actual object.
X
X   At Stanford, "logical" compass directions denoted a coordinate
X   system in which "logical north" is toward San Francisco,
X   "logical west" is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical
X   north varies between physical (true) north near San Franscisco and
X   physical west near San Jose.  (The best rule of thumb here is that
X   El Camino Real by definition always runs logical north-and-south.)
X   In giving directions, one might say, "To get to Rincon Tarasco
X   restaurant, get onto El Camino Bignum going logical north."  Using
X   the word "logical" helps to prevent the recipient from worrying
X   about that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in
X   front of him.  The concept is perpetuated by North American
X   highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently labelled
X   with logical rather than physical directions.  A similar situation
X   exists at MIT.  Route 128 (famous for the electronics industries
X   that have grown up along it) is a three-quarters circle surrounding
X   Boston at a radius of ten miles, terminating at the coastline at
X   each end.  It would be most precise to describe the two directions
X   along this highway as being "clockwise" and "counterclockwise",
X   but the road signs all say "north" and "south", respectively.
X   A hacker would describe these directions as "logical north" and
X   "logical south", to indicate that they are conventional
X   directions not corresponding to the usual convention for those
X   words.  (If you went logical south along the entire length of route
X   128, you would start out going northwest, curve around to the
X   south, and finish headed due east!)
X
XLORD HIGH FIXER [primarily British] n. The person in an organisation
X   who knows the most about some aspect of a system.  See WIZARD.
X
XLOSE [from MIT jargon] v. 1. To fail.  A program loses when it
X   encounters an exceptional condition or fails to work in the
X   expected manner.  2. To be exceptionally unaesthetic.  3. Of
X   people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to
X   ignorant).  4. DESERVES TO LOSE: v. Said of someone who willfully
X   does the wrong thing; humorously, if one uses a feature known to be
X   marginal.  What is meant is that one deserves the consequences of
X   one's losing actions.  "Boy, anyone who tries to use MESS-DOS
X   deserves to lose!" (ITS fans used to say this of UNIX; many still
X   do) See also SCREW, CHOMP, BAGBITER.  LOSE LOSE --- a reply or
X   comment on a situation. 5. LOSE as a noun refers to something which
X   is losing, especially in the phrases "That's a lose!" or "What a
X   lose!".
X
XLOSE LOSE interj. A reply or comment on an undesirable situation.  "I
X   accidentally deleted all my files!" "Lose lose."
X
XLOSER n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or
X   person.  Someone who habitually loses (even winners can lose
X   occasionally).  Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows
X   not.  emphatic forms are "real loser", "total loser", and
X   "complete loser" (but not "moby loser", which would be a
X   contradiction in terms). See LUSER.
X
XLOSS n. Something (not a person) which loses; a situation in which
X   something is losing.  Emphatic forms include "moby loss" "total
X   loss", "complete loss".  WHAT A (MOBY) LOSS!: interjection.
X   Compare LOSSAGE.
X
XLOSSAGE /los'@j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction.  This is a
X   collective noun.  "What a loss!" and "What lossage!" are nearly
X   synonymous remarks.  The former is slightly more particular to the
SHAR_EOF
chmod 0644 jsplit.ae || echo "restore of jsplit.ae fails"
if [ $TOUCH = can ]
then
    touch -am 1215215290 jsplit.ae
fi
exit 0



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