The New Hacker's Dictionary
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*[10957]robot:
*[10958]robust:
*[10959]rococo:
*[10960]rogue:
*[10961]room-temperature IQ:
*[10962]root:
*[10963]root mode:
*[10964]rot13:
*[10965]rotary debugger:
*[10966]round tape:
*[10967]RSN:
*[10968]RTBM:
*[10969]RTFAQ:
*[10970]RTFB:
*[10971]RTFM:
*[10972]RTFS:
*[10973]RTI:
*[10974]RTM:
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*[10975]RTS:
*[10976]rude:
*[10977]runes:
*[10978]runic:
*[10979]rusty iron:
*[10980]rusty memory:
*[10981]rusty wire:
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Node:rabbit job, Next:[10982]rain dance, Previous:[10983]QWERTY, Up:[10984]= R =
rabbit job n.
[Cambridge] A batch job that does little, if any, real work, but creates one or more copies of itself, breeding like rabbits. Compare [10985]wabbit, [10986]fork bomb.
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Node:rain dance, Next:[10987]rainbow series, Previous:[10988]rabbit job, Up:[10989]= R =
rain dance n.
1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards, reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine. We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any
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arcane sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals that include both an [10990]incantation or two and physical activity or motion. Compare [10991]magic, [10992]voodoo programming, [10993]black art, [10994]cargo cult programming, [10995]wave a dead chicken; see also [10996]casting the runes.
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rainbow series n.
Any of several series of technical manuals distinguished by cover color. The original rainbow series was the NCSC security manuals (see [11000]Orange Book, [11001]crayola books); the term has also been commonly applied to the PostScript reference set (see [11002]Red Book, [11003]Green Book, [11004]Blue Book, [11005]White Book). Which books are meant by "`the' rainbow series" unqualified is thus dependent on one's local technical culture.
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Node:random, Next:[11006]Random Number God,
Previous:[11007]rainbow series, Up:[11008]= R =
random adj.
1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types." 3. (pejorative)
Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures." "That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular
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order, though deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen randomly." 6. Arbitrary. "It generates a random name for the scratch file." 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e., poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving four extra registers. What [11009]randomness! 8. n. A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n. Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. "I went to the talk, but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions". 10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See also [11010]J. Random, [11011]some random X. 11. [UK] Conversationally, a non sequitur or something similarly out-of-the-blue. As in: "Stop being so random!" This sense equates to `hatstand', taken from the Viz comic character "Roger Irrelevant - He's completely Hatstand."
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Node:Random Number God, Next:[11012]random numbers, Previous:[11013]random, Up:[11014]= R =
Random Number God
[rec.games.roguelike.angband; often abbreviated `RNG'] The malign force which lurks behind the random number generator in [11015]Angband (and by extension elsewhere). A dark god that demands sacrifices and toys with its victims. "I just found a really great item; I suppose the RNG is about to punish me..." Apparently, Angband's random number generator occasionally gets locked in a repetition, so you get something with a 3% chance happening 8 times in a row. Improbable, but far too common to be pure chance. Compare [11016]Shub-Internet.
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Node:random numbers, Next:[11017]randomness, Previous:[11018]Random Number God, Up:[11019]= R =
random numbers n.
When one wishes to specify a large but random number of things, and the context is inappropriate for [11020]N, certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily recognized as placeholders). These include the following:
17 Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see 23.
23 Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and 5).
42 The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Note that this answer is completely fortuitous. :-))
69 From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture.
105 69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.
666 The Number of the Beast.
For further enlightenment, study the "Principia Discordia", "[11021]The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Joy of Sex", and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:18). See also [11022]Discordianism or consult your pineal gland. See also [11023]for values of.
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Node:randomness, Next:[11024]rape, Previous:[11025]random numbers, Up:[11026]= R =
randomness n.
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1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance. 2. A [11027]hack or [11028]crock that depends on a complex combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction). "This hack can output characters 40-57 by putting the character in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six bits -- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing." "What randomness!" 3. Of people, synonymous with `flakiness'. The connotation is that the person so described is behaving weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons which are (a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are probably as inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are likely to pass with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe it's just randomness. See if he calls back."
Despite the negative connotations jargon uses of this term have, it is worth noting that randomness can actually be a valuable resource, very useful for applications in cryptography and elsewhere. Computers are so thoroughly deterministic that they have a hard time generating high-quality randomess, so hackers have sometimes felt the need to built special-purpose contraptions for this purpose alone. One well-known website offers random bits [11029]generated by radioactive decay. Another derives random bits from [11030]images of Lava Lite lamps. (Hackers invariably find the latter hilarious. If you have to ask why, you'll never get it.)
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Node:rape, Next:[11031]rare mode, Previous:[11032]randomness, Up:[11033]= R =
rape vt.
1. To [11034]screw someone or something, violently; in particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably. Often used in describing file-system damage. "So-and-so was running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping the master directory." 2. To strip a piece of hardware for parts. 3. [CMU/Pitt] To mass-copy files from an anonymous ftp site. "Last night I raped Simtel's dskutl directory."
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Node:rare mode, Next:[11035]raster blaster, Previous:[11036]rape, Up:[11037]= R =
rare mode adj.
[Unix] CBREAK mode (character-by-character with interrupts enabled). Distinguished from [11038]raw mode and [11039]cooked mode; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?) mode" is used in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode. Usage: rare.
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Node:raster blaster, Next:[11040]raster burn, Previous:[11041]rare mode, Up:[11042]= R =
raster blaster n.
[Cambridge] Specialized hardware for [11043]bitblt operations (a [11044]blitter). Allegedly inspired by `Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable stereo Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto blaster'.
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Node:raster burn, Next:[11045]rasterbation, Previous:[11046]raster blaster, Up:[11047]= R =
raster burn n.
Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of looking at low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp. graphics monitors. See [11048]terminal illness.
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Node:rasterbation, Next:[11049]rat belt, Previous:[11050]raster burn, Up:[11051]= R =
rasterbation n.
[portmanteau: raster + masturbation] The gratuituous use of comuputer generated images and effects in movies and graphic art which would have been better without them. Especially employed as a term of abuse by Photoshop/GIMP users and graphic artists.
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Node:rat belt, Next:[11052]rat dance, Previous:[11053]rasterbation, Up:[11054]= R =
rat belt n.
A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed, self-locking plastic kind that you can remove only by cutting (as opposed to a random twist of wire or a twist tie or one of those humongous metal clip frobs). Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.
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Node:rat dance, Next:[11055]ratio site, Previous:[11056]rat belt, Up:[11057]= R =
rat dance n.
[From the [11058]Dilbert comic strip of November 14, 1995] A [11059]hacking run that produces results which, while superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its original objectives. There are strong connotations that the coding process and the objectives themselves were pretty [11060]random. (In the original comic strip, the Ratbert is invited to dance on Dilbert's keyboard in order to produce bugs for him to fix, and authors a Web browser instead.) Compare [11061]Infinite-Monkey
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Theorem.
This term seems to have become widely recognized quite rapidly after the original strip, a fact which testifies to Dilbert's huge popularity among hackers. All too many find the perverse incentives and Kafkaesque atmosphere of Dilbert's mythical workplace reflective of their own experiences.
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Node:ratio site, Next:[11062]rave, Previous:[11063]rat dance, Up:[11064]= R =
ratio site
[warez d00dz] A FTP site storing pirated files where one must first upload something before being able to download. There is a ratio, based on bytes or files count, between the uploads and download. For instance, on a 2:1 site, to download a 4 Mb file, one must first upload at least 2 Mb of files. The hotter the contents of the server are, the smaller the ratio is. More often than not, the server refuses uploads because its disk is full, making it useless for downloading - or the connection magically breaks after one has uploaded a large amount of files, just before the downloading phase begins. See also [11065]banner site, [11066]leech mode.
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Node:rave, Next:[11067]rave on!, Previous:[11068]ratio site, Up:[11069]= R =
rave vi.
[WPI] 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject. 2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows very little. 3. To complain to a person who is not in a position to correct the difficulty. 4. To purposely annoy another person verbally. 5. To evangelize. See
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[11070]flame. 6. Also used to describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly bullshitting. `Rave' differs slightly from [11071]flame in that `rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the person speaking that is annoying, while [11072]flame implies somewhat more strongly that the tone or content is offensive as well.
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Node:rave on!, Next:[11073]ravs, Previous:[11074]rave, Up:[11075]= R =
rave on! imp.
Sarcastic invitation to continue a [11076]rave, often by someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes this is unlikely.
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Node:ravs, Next:[11077]raw mode, Previous:[11078]rave on!, Up:[11079]= R =
ravs /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' n.
[primarily MIT/Boston usage] Jiao-zi (steamed or boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried). A Chinese appetizer, known variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'. The term `rav' is short for `ravioli', and among hackers always means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind. Both consist of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good ones include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by steaming or frying. A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a potsticker is always the pan-fried kind (so called because it sticks to the frying pot and has to be scraped off). "Let's get hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs." See also [11080]oriental food.
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