The New Hacker's Dictionary

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Node:network address, Next:[9376]network meltdown,

Previous:[9377]netter, Up:[9378]= N =

network address n.

(also `net address') As used by hackers, means an address on `the' network (see [9379]the network; this used to include [9380]bang path addresses but now almost always implies an [9381]Internet address). Net addresses are often used in email text as a more concise substitute for personal names; indeed, hackers may come to know each other quite well by network names without ever learning each others' `legal' monikers. Indeed, display of a network address (e.g on business cards) used to function as an important hacker identification signal, like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed T-shirts among Grateful Dead fans. In the day of pervasive Internet this is less true, but you can still be fairly sure that anyone with a network address handwritten on his or her convention badge is a hacker.

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Node:network meltdown, Next:[9382]New Jersey, Previous:[9383]network address, Up:[9384]= N =

network meltdown n.

A state of complete network overload; the network equivalent of [9385]thrashing. This may be induced by a [9386]Chernobyl packet. See also [9387]broadcast storm, [9388]kamikaze packet.

Network meltdown is often a result of network designs that are optimized for a steady state of moderate load and don't cope well with the very jagged, bursty usage patterns of the real world. One amusing instance of this is triggered by the popular and very bloody shoot-'em-up game Doom on the PC. When used in multiplayer mode over a network, the game uses broadcast packets to inform other machines when bullets are fired. This causes problems with weapons like the chain gun which fire rapidly -- it can blast the network into a meltdown state just as easily as it shreds

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opposing monsters.

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Node:New Jersey, Next:[9389]New Testament, Previous:[9390]network meltdown, Up:[9391]= N =

New Jersey adj.

[primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley] Brain-damaged or of poor design. This refers to the allegedly wretched quality of such software as C, C++, and Unix (which originated at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey). "This compiler bites the bag, but what can you expect from a compiler designed in New Jersey?" Compare [9392]Berkeley Quality Software. See also [9393]Unix conspiracy.

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Node:New Testament, Next:[9394]newbie, Previous:[9395]New Jersey,

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New Testament n.

[C programmers] The second edition of K&R's "The C Programming Language" (Prentice-Hall, 1988; ISBN 0-13-110362-8), describing ANSI Standard C. See [9397]K&R; this version is also called `K&R2'.

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Node:newbie, Next:[9398]newgroup wars, Previous:[9399]New Testament, Up:[9400]= N =

newbie /n[y]oo'bee/ n.

[verry common; orig. from British public-school and military slang variant of `new boy'] A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the

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[9401]newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use (the combination "clueless newbie" is especially common). Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label `newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. See [9402]B1FF; see also [9403]gnubie.

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Node:newgroup wars, Next:[9404]newline, Previous:[9405]newbie, Up:[9406]= N =

newgroup wars /n[y]oo'groop worz/ n.

[Usenet] The salvos of dueling newgroup and rmgroup messages sometimes exchanged by persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a [9407]newsgroup should be created net-wide, or (even more frequently) whether an obsolete one should be removed. These usually settle out within a week or two as it becomes clear whether the group has a natural constituency (usually, it doesn't). At times, especially in the completely anarchic alt hierarchy, the names of newsgroups themselves become a form of comment or humor; e.g., the group alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork which originated as a birthday joke for a Muppets fan, or any number of specialized abuse groups named after particularly notorious [9408]flamers, e.g., alt.weemba.

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Node:newline, Next:[9409]NeWS, Previous:[9410]newgroup wars, Up:[9411]= N =

newline /n[y]oo'li:n/ n.

1. [techspeak, primarily Unix] The ASCII LF character (0001010), used under [9412]Unix as a text line terminator. Though the term `newline'

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appears in ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general computing world before Unix. 2. More generally, any magic character, character sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln procedure) required to terminate a text record or separate lines. See [9413]crlf, [9414]terpri.

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Node:NeWS, Next:[9415]newsfroup, Previous:[9416]newline, Up:[9417]=

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NeWS /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ n.

[acronym; the `Network Window System'] The road not taken in window systems, an elegant [9418]PostScript-based environment that would almost certainly have won the standards war with [9419]X if it hadn't been [9420]proprietary to Sun Microsystems. There is a lesson here that too many software vendors haven't yet heeded. Many hackers insist on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing NeWS from Usenet news (the [9421]netnews software).

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Node:newsfroup, Next:[9422]newsgroup, Previous:[9423]NeWS,

Up:[9424]= N =

newsfroup // n.

[Usenet] Silly synonym for [9425]newsgroup, originally a typo but now in regular use on Usenet's talk.bizarre, and other lunatic-fringe groups. Compare [9426]hing, [9427]grilf, [9428]pr0n and [9429]filk.

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Node:newsgroup, Next:[9430]nick, Previous:[9431]newsfroup, Up:[9432]=

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[from `nickel', common name for the U.S. 5-cent coin] A [9446]nybble + 1; 5 bits. Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. See also [9447]deckle, and [9448]nybble for names of other bit units.

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Node:night mode, Next:[9449]Nightmare File System,

Previous:[9450]nickle, Up:[9451]= N =

night mode n.

See [9452]phase (of people).

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Node:Nightmare File System, Next:[9453]NIL, Previous:[9454]night mode, Up:[9455]= N =

Nightmare File System n.

Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a higher [9456]spl level). Then another machine tries to reach either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is frozen -- worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great [9457]misfeature). (ITS partisans

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Node:nipple mouse, Next:[9466]NMI, Previous:[9467]Ninety-Ninety Rule, Up:[9468]= N =

nipple mouse n.

Var. `clit mouse, clitoris' Common term for the pointing device used on IBM ThinkPads and a few other laptop computers. The device, which sits between the `g' and `h' keys on the keyboard, indeed resembles a rubber nipple intended to be tweaked by a forefinger. Many hackers consider these superior to the glide pads found on most laptops, which are harder to control precisely.

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Node:NMI, Next:[9469]no-op, Previous:[9470]nipple mouse, Up:[9471]= N =

NMI /N-M-I/ n.

Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11 or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80[1234]86. In contrast with a [9472]priority interrupt (which might be ignored, although that is unlikely), an NMI is never ignored. Except, that is, on [9473]clone boxes, where NMI is often ignored on the motherboard because flaky hardware can generate many spurious ones.

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Node:no-op, Next:[9474]noddy, Previous:[9475]NMI, Up:[9476]= N =

no-op /noh'op/ n.,v.

alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] 1. A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). 2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing going on upstairs, or both.

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As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to go away. "Oh, well, that was a no-op." Hot-and-sour soup (see [9477]great-wall) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup'; so is wonton soup if everybody else is having hot-and-sour.

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Node:noddy, Next:[9478]node, Previous:[9479]no-op, Up:[9480]= N =

noddy /nod'ee/ adj.

[UK: from the children's books] 1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is [9481]hello world. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a [9482]hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy [9483]awk script to dump all the first fields." In North America this might be called a [9484]mickey mouse program. See [9485]toy program.

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Node:node, Next:[9486]Nominal Semidestructor, Previous:[9487]noddy,

Up:[9488]= N =

node n.

1. [Internet, UUCP] A host machine on the network. 2. [MS-DOS BBSes] A dial-in line on a BBS. Thus an MS-DOS [9489]sysop might say that his