The New Hacker's Dictionary
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Node:twink, Next:[13761]twirling baton, Previous:[13762]twilight zone, Up:[13763]= T =
twink /twink/ n.
1. [Berkeley] A clue-repellant user; the next step beyond a clueless one. 2. [UCSC] A [13764]read-only user. Also reported on the Usenet group soc.motss; may derive from gay slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs (compare mainstream `chick').
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Node:twirling baton, Next:[13765]two pi, Previous:[13766]twink, Up:[13767]= T =
twirling baton n.
[PLATO] The overstrike sequence -/|\-/|\- which produces an animated twirling baton. If you output it with a single backspace between characters, the baton spins in place. If you output the sequence BS SP between characters, the baton spins from left to right. If you output BS SP BS BS between characters, the baton spins from right to left. This is also occasionally called a twiddle prompt.
The twirling baton was a popular component of animated signature files on the pioneering PLATO educational timesharing system. The archie Internet service is perhaps the best-known baton program today; it uses the twirling baton as an idler indicating that the program is working on a query. The twirling baton is also used as a boot progress indicator on several BSD variants of Unix; if it stops you're probably going to have a long and trying day.
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Node:two pi, Next:[13768]two-to-the-N, Previous:[13769]twirling baton, Up:[13770]= T =
1102
two pi quant.
The number of years it takes to finish one's thesis. Occurs in stories in the following form: "He started on his thesis; 2 pi years later..."
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Node:two-to-the-N, Next:[13771]twonkie, Previous:[13772]two pi, Up:[13773]= T =
two-to-the-N quant.
An amount much larger than [13774]N but smaller than [13775]infinity. "I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can go out for lunch" means you probably won't show up.
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Node:twonkie, Next:[13776]u-, Previous:[13777]two-to-the-N,
Up:[13778]= T =
twonkie /twon'kee/ n.
The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang with a small t) the male equivalent of `chick'); a useless `feature' added to look sexy and placate a [13779]marketroid (compare [13780]Saturday-night special). The term may also be related to "The Twonky", title menace of a classic SF short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore), first published in the September 1942 "Astounding Science Fiction" and subsequently much anthologized.
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Node:= U =, Next:[13781]= V =, Previous:[13782]= T =, Up:[13783]The Jargon Lexicon
1103
= U =
*[13784]u-:
*[13785]UBD:
*[13786]UBE:
*[13787]UCE:
*[13788]UDP:
*[13789]UN*X:
*[13790]undefined external reference:
*[13791]under the hood:
*[13792]undocumented feature:
*[13793]uninteresting:
*[13794]Unix:
*[13795]Unix brain damage:
*[13796]Unix conspiracy:
*[13797]Unix weenie:
*[13798]unixism:
*[13799]unswizzle:
*[13800]unwind the stack:
1104
*[13801]unwind-protect:
*[13802]up:
*[13803]upload:
*[13804]upthread:
*[13805]urchin:
*[13806]URL:
*[13807]Usenet:
*[13808]Usenet Death Penalty:
*[13809]user:
*[13810]user-friendly:
*[13811]user-obsequious:
*[13812]userland:
*[13813]USG Unix:
*[13814]UTSL:
*[13815]UUCPNET:
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Node:u-, Next:[13816]UBD, Previous:[13817]twonkie, Up:[13818]= U =
u- pref.
1105
Written shorthand for [13819]micro-; techspeak when applied to metric units, jargon when used otherwise. Derived from the Greek letter "mu", the first letter of "micro" (and which letter looks a lot like the English letter "u").
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Node:UBD, Next:[13820]UBE, Previous:[13821]u-, Up:[13822]= U =
UBD /U-B-D/ n.
[abbreviation for `User Brain Damage'] An abbreviation used to close out trouble reports obviously due to utter cluelessness on the user's part. Compare [13823]pilot error; oppose [13824]PBD; see also [13825]brain-damaged.
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Node:UBE, Next:[13826]UCE, Previous:[13827]UBD, Up:[13828]= U =
UBE // n.
[abbrev., Unsoliclited Bulk Email] A widespread, more formal term for email [13829]spam. Compare [13830]UCE. The UBE term recognizes that spam is uttered by nonprofit and advocacy groups whose motives are not commercial.
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Node:UCE, Next:[13831]UDP, Previous:[13832]UBE, Up:[13833]= U =
UCE n.
[abbrev., Unsolicited Commercial Email] A widespread, more formal term for email [13834]spam. Compare [13835]UBE, which may be superseding it.
1106
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Node:UDP, Next:[13836]UN*X, Previous:[13837]UCE, Up:[13838]= U =
UDP /U-D-P/ v.,n.
[Usenet] Abbreviation for [13839]Usenet Death Penalty. Common (probably now more so than the full form), and frequently verbed. Compare [13840]IDP.
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Node:UN*X, Next:[13841]undefined external reference,
Previous:[13842]UDP, Up:[13843]= U =
UN*X n.
Used to refer to the Unix operating system (a trademark of AT&T, then of Novell, then of SCO, and then of Caldera) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly [13844](TM) typography. Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating systems. Ironically, lawyers now say that the requirement for the trademark postfix has no legal force, but the asterisk usage is entrenched anyhow. It has been suggested that there may be a psychological connection to practice in certain religions (especially Judaism) in which the name of the deity is never written out in full, e.g., `YHWH' or `G-d' is used. See also [13845]glob and [13846]splat out.
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Node:undefined external reference, Next:[13847]under the hood, Previous:[13848]UN*X, Up:[13849]= U =
undefined external reference excl.
[Unix] A message from Unix's linker. Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references in an argument or discussion.
1107
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Node:under the hood, Next:[13850]undocumented feature, Previous:[13851]undefined external reference, Up:[13852]= U =
under the hood adj.
[hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or idea). Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the listener to [13853]grok it. "Let's now look under the hood to see how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we are just fork/execing the shell." 3. Inside a chassis, as in "Under the hood, this baby has a 40MHz 68030!"
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Node:undocumented feature, Next:[13854]uninteresting,
Previous:[13855]under the hood, Up:[13856]= U =
undocumented feature n.
See [13857]feature.
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Node:uninteresting, Next:[13858]Unix, Previous:[13859]undocumented feature, Up:[13860]= U =
uninteresting adj.
1. Said of a problem that, although [13861]nontrivial, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient resources at it. 2. Also said of problems for which a solution would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and code.
1108
Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. Real hackers (see [13862]toolsmith) generalize uninteresting problems enough to make them interesting and solve them -- thus solving the original problem as a special case (and, it must be admitted, occasionally turning a molehill into a mountain, or a mountain into a tectonic plate). See [13863]WOMBAT, [13864]SMOP; compare [13865]toy problem, oppose [13866]interesting.
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Node:Unix, Next:[13867]Unix brain damage,
Previous:[13868]uninteresting, Up:[13869]= U =
Unix /yoo'niks/ n.
[In the authors' words, "A weak pun on Multics"; very early on it was `UNICS'] (also `UNIX') An interactive time-sharing system invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his scavenged PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C, is considered a co-author of the system. The turning point in Unix's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during 1972-1974, making it the first source-portable OS. Unix subsequently underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and developer-friendly environment. By 1991, Unix had become the most widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world - and since 1996 the variiant called [13870]Linux has been at the cutting edge of the [13871]open source movement. Many people consider the success of Unix the most important victory yet of hackerdom over industry opposition (but see [13872]Unix weenie and [13873]Unix conspiracy for an opposing point of view). See [13874]Version 7, [13875]BSD, [13876]USG Unix, [13877]Linux.
Some people are confused over whether this word is appropriately `UNIX' or `Unix'; both forms are common, and used interchangeably. Dennis Ritchie says that the `UNIX' spelling originally happened in CACM's 1974 paper "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" because "we had a new typesetter
1109
and [13878]troff had just been invented and we were intoxicated by being able to produce small caps." Later, dmr tried to get the spelling changed to `Unix' in a couple of Bell Labs papers, on the grounds that the word is not acronymic. He failed, and eventually (his words) "wimped out" on the issue. So, while the trademark today is `UNIX', both capitalizations are grounded in ancient usage; the Jargon File uses `Unix' in deference to dmr's wishes.
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Node:Unix brain damage, Next:[13879]Unix conspiracy, Previous:[13880]Unix, Up:[13881]= U =
Unix brain damage n.
Something that has to be done to break a network program (typically a mailer) on a non-Unix system so that it will interoperate with Unix systems. The hack may qualify as `Unix brain damage' if the program conforms to published standards and the Unix program in question does not. Unix brain damage happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than it is to change all the hundreds of thousands of Unix systems out there.
An example of Unix brain damage is a [13882]kluge in a mail server to recognize bare line feed (the Unix newline) as an equivalent form to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return followed by a line feed. Such things can make even a hardened [13883]jock weep.
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Node:Unix conspiracy, Next:[13884]Unix weenie, Previous:[13885]Unix brain damage, Up:[13886]= U =
Unix conspiracy n.
1110
[ITS] According to a conspiracy theory long popular among [13887]ITS and [13888]TOPS-20 fans, Unix's growth is the result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's control. This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing upgrades from AT&T). This theory was lent a substantial impetus in 1984 by the paper referenced in the [13889]back door entry.
In this view, Unix was designed to be one of the first computer viruses (see [13890]virus) -- but a virus spread to computers indirectly by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and networks. Adherents of this `Unix virus' theory like to cite the fact that the well-known quotation "Unix is snake oil" was uttered by [13891]DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began actively promoting its own family of Unix workstations. (Olsen now claims to have been misquoted.)
[If there was ever such a conspiracy, it got thoroughly out of the plotters' control after 1990. AT&T sold its UNIX operation to Novell around the same time [13892]Linux and other free-UNIX distributions were beginning to make noise. --ESR]
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Node:Unix weenie, Next:[13893]unixism, Previous:[13894]Unix conspiracy, Up:[13895]= U =
Unix weenie n.
[ITS] 1. A derogatory play on `Unix wizard', common among hackers who use Unix by necessity but would prefer alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question may consider mastery of Unix arcana to be a wizardly skill, the only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is alleged to infest many Unix programs. "This shell script tries to parse its