The New Hacker's Dictionary
.pdf971
[Unix; often written `.sig' there] Short for `signature', used specifically to refer to the electronic signature block that most Unix mailand news-posting software will [12140]automagically append to outgoing mail and news. The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see [12141]sig quote, [12142]fool file); but many consider large sigs a waste of [12143]bandwidth, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely proportional to one's longevity and level of prestige on the net. See also [12144]doubled sig.
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sig quote /sig kwoht/ n.
[Usenet] A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's [12148]sig block and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."
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sig virus n.
A parasitic [12152]meme embedded in a [12153]sig block. There was a [12154]meme plague or fad for these on Usenet in late 1991. Most were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus. Please reproduce me in your .sig block.". Of course, the .sig virus's memetic hook is the giggle value of going along with the gag; this, however, was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more people picked up on the idea. There were creative variants on it; some people stuck `sig virus antibody' texts in their sigs, and there was at least
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one instance of a sig virus eater.
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Node:signal-to-noise ratio, Next:[12155]silicon, Previous:[12156]sig virus, Up:[12157]= S =
signal-to-noise ratio [from analog electronics] n.
Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning. `Signal' refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and `noise' to anything else on that medium. Hence a low ratio implies that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question. Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given. The term is most often applied to [12158]Usenet newsgroups during [12159]flame wars. Compare [12160]bandwidth. See also [12161]coefficient of X, [12162]lost in the noise.
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silicon n.
Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer systems (compare [12166]iron). Contrasted with software. See also [12167]sandbender.
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silly walk vi.
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[from Monty Python's Flying Circus] 1. A ridiculous procedure required to accomplish a task. Like [12171]grovel, but more [12172]random and humorous. "I had to silly-walk through half the /usr directories to find the maps file." 2. Syn. [12173]fandango on core.
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Node:silo, Next:[12174]Silver Book, Previous:[12175]silly walk, Up:[12176]= S =
silo n.
The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card. So called from [12177]DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for fungible stuff that went in at the top and came out at the bottom.
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Node:Silver Book, Next:[12178]since time T equals minus infinity, Previous:[12179]silo, Up:[12180]= S =
Silver Book n.
Jensen and Wirth's infamous "Pascal User Manual and Report", so called because of the silver cover of the widely distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of 1978 (ISBN 0-387-90144-2). See [12181]book titles, [12182]Pascal.
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since time T equals minus infinity adv.
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A long time ago; for as long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob was first designed. Usually the word `time' is omitted. See also [12186]time T; contrast [12187]epoch.
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Node:sitename, Next:[12188]skrog, Previous:[12189]since time T equals minus infinity, Up:[12190]= S =
sitename /si:t'naym/ n.
[Unix/Internet] The unique electronic name of a computer system, used to identify it in UUCP mail, Usenet, or other forms of electronic information interchange. The folklore interest of sitenames stems from the creativity and humor they often display. Interpreting a sitename is not unlike interpreting a vanity license plate; one has to mentally unpack it, allowing for mono-case and length restrictions and the lack of whitespace. Hacker tradition deprecates dull, institutional-sounding names in favor of punchy, humorous, and clever coinages (except that it is considered appropriate for the official public gateway machine of an organization to bear the organization's name or acronym). Mythological references, cartoon characters, animal names, and allusions to SF or fantasy literature are probably the most popular sources for sitenames (in roughly descending order). The obligatory comment when discussing these is Harris's Lament: "All the good ones are taken!" See also [12191]network address.
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Node:skrog, Next:[12192]skulker, Previous:[12193]sitename, Up:[12194]=
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skrog v.
Syn. [12195]scrog.
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Node:skulker, Next:[12196]slab, Previous:[12197]skrog, Up:[12198]= S =
skulker n.
Syn. [12199]prowler.
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Node:slab, Next:[12200]slack, Previous:[12201]skulker, Up:[12202]= S =
slab [Apple]
1. n. A continuous horizontal line of pixels, all with the same color. 2. vi. To paint a slab on an output device. Apple's QuickDraw, like most other professional-level graphics systems, renders polygons and lines not with Bresenham's algorithm, but by calculating `slab points' for each scan line on the screen in succession, and then slabbing in the actual image pixels.
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Node:slack, Next:[12203]slap on the side, Previous:[12204]slab, Up:[12205]= S =
slack n.
1. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used to store useful information. The techspeak equivalent is `internal fragmentation'. Antonym: [12206]hole. 2. In the theology of the [12207]Church of the SubGenius, a mystical substance or quality that is the prerequisite of all human happiness.
Since Unix files are stored compactly, except for the unavoidable wastage in the last block or fragment, it might be said that "Unix has no slack". See [12208]ha ha only serious.
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Node:slap on the side, Next:[12209]slash, Previous:[12210]slack, Up:[12211]= S =
slap on the side n.
(also called a [12212]sidecar, or abbreviated `SOTS'.) A type of external expansion hardware marketed by computer manufacturers (e.g., Commodore for the Amiga 500/1000 series and IBM for the hideous failure called `PCjr'). Various SOTS boxes provided necessities such as memory, hard drive controllers, and conventional expansion slots.
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Node:slash, Next:[12213]slashdot effect, Previous:[12214]slap on the side, Up:[12215]= S =
slash n.
Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111) character. See [12216]ASCII for other synonyms.
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slashdot effect n.
1. Also spelled "/. effect"; what is said to have happened when a website being virtually unreachable because too many people are hitting it after the site was mentioned in an interesting article on the popular [12220]Slashdot news service. The term is quite widely used by /. readers, including variants like "That site has been slashdotted again!" 2. In a perhaps inevitable generation, the term is being used to describe any similar effect from being listed on a popular site. This would better be described as a [12221]flash crowd.
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Node:sleep, Next:[12222]slim, Previous:[12223]slashdot effect, Up:[12224]= S =
sleep vi.
1. [techspeak] To relinquish a claim (of a process on a multitasking system) for service; to indicate to the scheduler that a process may be deactivated until some given event occurs or a specified time delay elapses. 2. In jargon, used very similarly to v. [12225]block; also in `sleep on', syn. with `block on'. Often used to indicate that the speaker has relinquished a demand for resources until some (possibly unspecified) external event: "They can't get the fix I've been asking for into the next release, so I'm going to sleep on it until the release, then start hassling them again."
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slim n.
A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).
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Node:slop, Next:[12229]slopsucker, Previous:[12230]slim, Up:[12231]= S
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slop n.
1. A one-sided [12232]fudge factor, that is, an allowance for error but in only one of two directions. For example, if you need a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it, you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on
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again. When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a [12233]fencepost error. 2. The percentage of `extra' code generated by a compiler over the size of equivalent assembler code produced by [12234]hand-hacking; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because you didn't do it yourself. This number is often used as a measure of the goodness of a compiler; slop below 5% is very good, and 10% is usually acceptable. With modern compiler technology, esp. on RISC machines, the compiler's slop may actually be negative; that is, humans may be unable to generate code as good. This is one of the reasons assembler programming is no longer common.
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slopsucker /slop'suhk-r/ n.
A lowest-priority task that waits around until everything else has `had its fill' of machine resources. Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is the task allowed to `suck up the slop'. Also called a `hungry puppy' or `bottom feeder'. One common variety of slopsucker hunts for large prime numbers. Compare [12238]background.
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Node:Slowlaris, Next:[12239]slurp, Previous:[12240]slopsucker,
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Slowlaris /slo'-lahr-is/ n.
[Usenet; poss. from the variety of prosimian called a "slow loris". The variant `Slowlartus' is also common, related to [12242]LART] Common hackish term for Solaris, Sun's System VR4 version of UNIX that came out of the standardization wars of the early 1990s. So named because especially
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on older hardware, responsiveness was much less crisp than under the preceding SunOS. Early releases of Solaris (that is, Solaris 2, as some [12243]marketroids at Sun retroactively rechristened SunOS as Solaris 1) were quite buggy, and Sun was forced by customer demand to support SunOS for quite some time. Newer versions are acknowledged to be among the best commercial UNIX variants in 1998, but still lose single-processor benchmarks to Sparc [12244]Linux. Compare [12245]AIDX, [12246]HP-SUX, [12247]Nominal Semidestructor, [12248]Telerat, [12249]sun-stools.
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slurp vt.
To read a large data file entirely into [12253]core before working on it. This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next piece. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT." See also [12254]sponge.
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Node:smart, Next:[12255]smart terminal, Previous:[12256]slurp, Up:[12257]= S =
smart adj.
Said of a program that does the [12258]Right Thing in a wide variety of complicated circumstances. There is a difference between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs (yet -- see [12259]AI-complete). Compare [12260]robust (smart programs can be [12261]brittle).
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Node:smart terminal, Next:[12262]smash case, Previous:[12263]smart, Up:[12264]= S =
smart terminal n.
1. A terminal that has enough computing capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing from the computer it talks to. The development of workstations and personal computers has made this term and the product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote [12265]server's storage, using local devices as displays. 2. obs. Any terminal with an addressable cursor; the opposite of a [12266]glass tty. Today, a terminal with merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the more-powerful features mentioned in sense 1, is called a [12267]dumb terminal.
There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the [12268]blit terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smartass terminal, but rather a terminal you can educate." This illustrates a common design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else) intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid `special features' that become just so much dead weight if you try to use the device in any way the designer didn't anticipate. Flexibility and programmability, on the other hand, are really smart. Compare [12269]hook.
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Node:smash case, Next:[12270]smash the stack, Previous:[12271]smart terminal, Up:[12272]= S =
smash case vi.
To lose or obliterate the uppercase/lowercase distinction in text input. "MS-DOS will automatically smash case in the names of all the files you create." Compare [12273]fold case.