3DO "company, games, standard" A set of specifications created and owned by the 3DO company, which is a partnership of seven different companies. These specs are the blueprint for making a 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and are licensed to hardware and software producers. A 3DO system has an {ARM60} 32-bit {RISC} {CPU} and a graphics engine based around two custom designed graphics and animation processors. It has 2 Megabytes of {DRAM}, 1 Megabyte of {VRAM}, and a double speed {CD-ROM} drive for main storage. The {Panasonic} 3DO system can run 3DO Interactive software, play audio CDs (including support for CD+G), view {Photo-CDs}, and will eventually be able to play {Video CDs} with a special add-on {MPEG}1 {full-motion video} cartridge. Up to 8 {controllers} can be {daisy-chain}ed on the system at once. A keyboard, mouse, light gun, and other peripherals may also some day be hooked into the system, although they are not currently available (December 1993). The 3DO can display {full-motion video}, fully {texture map}ped 3d landscapes, all in 24-bit colour. {Sanyo} and {AT&T} will also release 3DO systems. Sanyo's in mid 1994 and AT&T in late 1994. There will be a 3DO add-on cartridge based on the {PowerPC} to enable the 3DO to compete with {Sony}'s {Playstation} console and {Sega}'s {Saturn} console, both of which have a higher specification than the original 3DO. The add-on is commonly known as the M2 or Bulldog. It should hit the shops by Christmas 1995 and will (allegedly) do a million flat shaded polygons per second. {3DO Home (http://3do.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.video.3do}. (1994-12-13)
Acorn Computers Ltd. "company" A UK computer manufacturer, part of the {Acorn Computer Group} plc. Acorn was founded on 1978-12-05, on a kitchen table in a back room. Their first creation was an electronic slot machine. After the {Acorn System 1}, 2 and 3, Acorn launched the first commercial {microcomputer} - the {ATOM} in March 1980. In April 1981, Acorn won a contract from the {BBC} to provide the {PROTON}. In January 1982 Acorn launched the {BBC Microcomputer} System. At one time, 70% of microcomputers bought for UK schools were BBC Micros. The Acorn Computer Group went public on the Unlisted Securities Market in September 1983. In April 1984 Acorn won the Queen's Award for Technology for the BBC Micro and in September 1985 {Olivetti} took a controlling interest in Acorn. The {Master} 128 Series computers were launched in January 1986 and the BBC {Domesday} System in November 1986. In 1983 Acorn began to design the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM), the first low-cost, high volume {RISC} processor chip (later renamed the {Advanced RISC Machine}). In June 1987 they launched the {Archimedes} range - the first 32-bit {RISC} based {microcomputers} - which sold for under UKP 1000. In February 1989 the R140 was launched. This was the first {Unix} {workstation} under UKP 4000. In May 1989 the A3000 (the new {BBC Microcomputer}) was launched. In 1990 Acorn formed {Advanced RISC Machines} Ltd. (ARM) in partnership with {Apple Computer, Inc.} and {VLSI} to develop the ARM processor. Acorn has continued to develop {RISC} based products. With 1992 revenues of 48.2 million pounds, Acorn Computers was the premier supplier of {Information Technology} products to UK education and had been the leading provider of 32-bit RISC based {personal computers} since 1987. Acorn finally folded in the late 1990s. Their operating system, {RISC OS} was further developed by a consortium of suppliers. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.sys.acorn}, {news:comp.sys.acorn.announce}, {news:comp.sys.acorn.tech}, {news:comp.binaries.acorn}, {news:comp.sources.acorn}, {news:comp.sys.acorn.advocacy}, {news:comp.sys.acorn.games}. {Acorn's FTP server (ftp://ftp.acorn.co.uk/)}. {HENSA software archive (http://micros.hensa.ac.uk/micros/arch.html)}. {Richard Birkby's Acorn page (http://csv.warwick.ac.uk/~phudv/)}. {RiscMan's Acorn page (http://geko.com.au/riscman/)}. {Acorn On The Net (http://stir.ac.uk/~rhh01/Main.html)}. {"The Jungle" by Simon Truss (http://csc.liv.ac.uk/users/u1smt/u1smt.html)}. [Recent history?] (2000-09-26)
Acorn Online Media "company" A company formed in August 1994 by {Acorn Computer Group} plc to exploit the {ARM} RISC in television {set-top box} decoders. They planned to woo {British Telecommunications} plc to use the box in some of its {video on demand} trials. The "STB1" box was based on an {ARM8} core with additional circuits to enable {MPEG} to be decoded in software - possibly dedicated instructions for interpolation, inverse {DCT} or {Huffman} table extraction. A prototype featured audio {MPEG} chips, Acorn's {RISC OS} {operating system} and supported {Oracle Media Objects} and {Microword}. Online planned to reduce component count by transferring functions from boards into the single RISC chip. The company was origianlly wholly owned by Acorn but was expected to bring in external investment. [Article by nobody@tandem.com cross-posted from tandem.news.computergram, 1994-07-07]. In 1996 they releasd the imaginatively titled "Set Top Box 2" (STB20M) with a 32 MHz {ARM 7500} and 2 to 32 MB {RAM}. There was also a "Set Top Box 22". {(http://www.khantazi.org/Archives/MachineLst.html
Ada "language" (After {Ada Lovelace}) A {Pascal}-descended language, designed by Jean Ichbiah's team at {CII Honeywell} in 1979, made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. The original language was standardised as "Ada 83", the latest is "{Ada 95}". Ada is a large, complex, {block-structured} language aimed primarily at {embedded} applications. It has facilities for {real-time} response, {concurrency}, hardware access and reliable run-time error handling. In support of large-scale {software engineering}, it emphasises {strong typing}, {data abstraction} and {encapsulation}. The type system uses {name equivalence} and includes both {subtypes} and {derived types}. Both fixed and {floating-point} numerical types are supported. {Control flow} is fully bracketed: if-then-elsif-end if, case-is-when-end case, loop-exit-end loop, goto. Subprogram parameters are in, out, or inout. Variables imported from other packages may be hidden or directly visible. Operators may be {overloaded} and so may {enumeration} literals. There are user-defined {exceptions} and {exception handlers}. An Ada program consists of a set of packages encapsulating data objects and their related operations. A package has a separately compilable body and interface. Ada permits {generic packages} and subroutines, possibly parametrised. Ada support {single inheritance}, using "tagged types" which are types that can be extended via {inheritance}. Ada programming places a heavy emphasis on {multitasking}. Tasks are synchronised by the {rendezvous}, in which a task waits for one of its subroutines to be executed by another. The conditional entry makes it possible for a task to test whether an entry is ready. The selective wait waits for either of two entries or waits for a limited time. Ada is often criticised, especially for its size and complexity, and this is attributed to its having been designed by committee. In fact, both Ada 83 and Ada 95 were designed by small design teams to be internally consistent and tightly integrated. By contrast, two possible competitors, {Fortran 90} and {C++} have both become products designed by large and disparate volunteer committees. See also {Ada/Ed}, {Toy/Ada}. {Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/)}. {Ada FAQs (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/)} (hypertext), {text only (ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/FAQ)}. {(http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/)}, {(ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/)}, {(ftp://stars.rosslyn.unisys.com/pub/ACE_8.0)}. E-mail: "adainfo@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.ada}. {An Ada grammar (ftp://primost.cs.wisc.edu/)} including a lex scanner and yacc parser is available. E-mail: "masticol@dumas.rutgers.edu". {Another yacc grammar and parser for Ada by Herman Fischer (ftp://wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/PD2:"ADA.EXTERNAL-TOOLS"GRAM2.SRC)}. An {LR parser} and {pretty-printer} for {Ada} from NASA is available from the {Ada Software Repository}. {Adamakegen} generates {makefiles} for {Ada} programs. ["Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language", ANSI/MIL STD 1815A, US DoD (Jan 1983)]. Earlier draft versions appeared in July 1980 and July 1982. ISO 1987. [{Jargon File}] (2000-08-12)
Advanced Interactive eXecutive "operating system" (AIX) {IBM}'s version of {Unix}, taken as the basis for the {OSF} {standard}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.unix.aix}. (1994-11-24)
Advanced RISC Machine "processor" (ARM, Originally {Acorn} RISC Machine). A series of low-cost, power-efficient 32-bit {RISC} {microprocessors} for embedded control, computing, {digital signal processing}, {games}, consumer {multimedia} and portable applications. It was the first commercial RISC microprocessor (or was the {MIPS R2000}?) and was licensed for production by {Asahi Kasei Microsystems}, {Cirrus Logic}, {GEC Plessey Semiconductors}, {Samsung}, {Sharp}, {Texas Instruments} and {VLSI Technology}. The ARM has a small and highly {orthogonal instruction set}, as do most RISC processors. Every instruction includes a four-bit code which specifies a condition (of the {processor status register}) which must be satisfied for the instruction to be executed. Unconditional execution is specified with a condition "true". Instructions are split into load and store which access memory and arithmetic and logic instructions which work on {registers} (two source and one destination). The ARM has 27 registers of which 16 are accessible in any particular processor mode. R15 combines the {program counter} and processor status byte, the other registers are general purpose except that R14 holds the {return address} after a {subroutine} call and R13 is conventionally used as a {stack pointer}. There are four processor modes: user, {interrupt} (with a private copy of R13 and R14), fast interrupt (private copies of R8 to R14) and {supervisor} (private copies of R13 and R14). The {ALU} includes a 32-bit {barrel-shifter} allowing, e.g., a single-{cycle} shift and add. The first ARM processor, the ARM1 was a prototype which was never released. The ARM2 was originally called the Acorn RISC Machine. It was designed by {Acorn Computers Ltd.} and used in the original {Archimedes}, their successor to the {BBC Micro} and {BBC Master} series which were based on the eight-bit {6502} {microprocessor}. It was clocked at 8 MHz giving an average performance of 4 - 4.7 {MIPS}. Development of the ARM family was then continued by a new company, {Advanced RISC Machines Ltd.} The {ARM3} added a {fully-associative} on-chip {cache} and some support for {multiprocessing}. This was followed by the {ARM600} chip which was an {ARM6} processor {core} with a 4-kilobyte 64-way {set-associative} {cache}, an {MMU} based on the MEMC2 chip, a {write buffer} (8 words?) and a {coprocessor} interface. The {ARM7} processor core uses half the power of the {ARM6} and takes around half the {die} size. In a full processor design ({ARM700} chip) it should provide 50% to 100% more performance. In July 1994 {VLSI Technology, Inc.} released the {ARM710} processor chip. {Thumb} is an implementation with reduced code size requirements, intended for {embedded} applications. An {ARM800} chip is also planned. {AT&T}, {IBM}, {Panasonic}, {Apple Coputer}, {Matsushita} and {Sanyo} either rely on, or manufacture, ARM 32-bit processor chips. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.arm}. (1997-08-05)
advertisement ::: n. --> The act of informing or notifying; notification.
Admonition; advice; warning.
A public notice, especially a paid notice in some public print; anything that advertises; as, a newspaper containing many advertisements.
aggregator "networking" A program for watching for new content at user-specified {RSS} feeds. An example is {BottomFeeder}. {(http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Libraries/Library_and_Information_Science/Technical_Services/Cataloguing/Metadata/RDF/Applications/RSS/News_Readers/)}. (2003-09-29)
ALEF "language" A programming language from {Bell Labs}. ALEF boasts few new ideas but is instead a careful synthesis of ideas from other languages. The result is a practical general purpose programming language which was once displacing {C} as their main implementation language. Both {shared variables} and {message passing} are supported through language constructs. A {window system}, {user interface}, {operating system} network code, {news reader}, {mailer} and variety of other tools in {Plan 9} are now implemented using ALEF. (1997-02-13)
Alta Vista "web" A {website} provided by {Digital} which features a very fast Web and {Usenet} {search engine}. As of April 1996 its word index is 33GB in size. AltaVista is currently (June 1996) the largest Web index, with 30 million pages from 225,000 servers, and three million articles from 14,000 {Usenet} news groups. It is accessed over 12 million times per weekday. {(http://altavista.digital.com/)}. (1996-06-10)
alt "character" /awlt/ 1. The alt {modifier key} on many {keyboards}, including the {IBM PC}. On some keyboards and {operating systems}, (but not the IBM PC) the alt key sets bit 7 of the character generated. See {bucky bits}. 2. The "{clover}" or "Command" key on a {Macintosh}; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked PCs before coming to the Mac (see also {feature key}). Some Mac hackers, confusingly, reserve "alt" for the Option key (and it is so labelled on some Mac II keyboards). 3. (Obsolete {PDP-10}; often "ALT") An alternate name for the {ASCII} ESC character (Escape, ASCII 27), after the keycap labelling on some older {terminals}; also "altmode" (/awlt'mohd/). This character was almost never pronounced "escape" on an {ITS} system, in {TECO} or under {TOPS-10}, always alt, as in "Type alt alt to end a TECO command" or "alt-U onto the system" (for "log onto the [ITS] system"). This usage probably arose because alt is easier to say. 4. "messaging" One of the {Usenet} {newsgroup} {hierarchies}. It was founded by {John Gilmore} and {Brian Reid}. The alt hierarchy is special in that anyone can create new groups here without going though the normal voting proceduers, hence the regular appearence of new groups with names such as "alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork". [{Jargon File}] (1997-04-12)
alt.sources "messaging, programming" A {Usenet} {newsgroup} for posting program {source code}. {Archive (ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/usenet/alt.sources/)}. (1995-10-18)
amateur packet radio "communications" (PR) The use of {packet radio} by amateurs to communicate between computers. PR is a complete amateur radio computer network with "digipeaters" (relays), mailboxes (BBS) and other special nodes. In Germany, it is on HF, say, 2m (300 and 1200 BPS), 70cm (1200 to 9600 BPS), 23cm (normally 9600 BPS and up, currently most links between digipeaters) and higher frequencies. There is a KW (short wave) Packet Radio at 300 BPS, too. Satellites with OSCAR (Orbiting Sattelite Carring Amateur Radio) transponders (mostly attached to commercial satellites by the AMateur SATellite (AMSAT) group) carry Packet Radio mailboxes or {digipeaters}. There are both on-line and off-line services on the packet radio network: You can send {electronic mail}, read bulletins, chat, transfer files, connect to on-line DX-Clusters (DX=far distance) to catch notes typed in by other HAMs about the hottest international KW connections currently coming up (so you can pile up). PR uses {AX.25} (an {X.25} derivative) as its {transport layer} and sometimes even {TCP/IP} is transmitted over AX.25. AX.25 is like X.25 but the adressing uses HAM "calls" like "DG8MGV". There are special "wormholes" all over the world which "tunnel" amateur radio traffic through the {Internet} to forward mail. Sometimes mails travels over satelites. Normally amateur satellites have strange orbits, however the mail forwarding or mailbox satellites have very predictable orbits. Some wormholes allow HAMs to bridge from Internet to {AMPR-NET}, e.g. db0fho.ampr.org or db0fho.et-inf.fho-emden.de, but only if you are registered HAM. Because amateur radio is not for profit, it must not be interconnected to the {Internet} but it may be connected through the Internet. All people on the (completely free) amateur radio net must be licensed radio amateurs and must have a "call" which is unique all over the world. There is a special {domain} AMPR.ORG (44.*.*.*) for amateur radio reserved in the IP space. This domain is split between countries, which can further subdivide it. For example 44.130.*.* is Germany, 44.130.58.* is Augsburg (in Bavaria), and 44.130.58.20 is dg8mgv.ampr.org (you may verify this with {nslookup}). Mail transport is only one aspect of packet radio. You can talk interactively (as in {chat}), read files, or play silly games built in the Packet Radio software. Usually you can use the autorouter to let the digipeater network find a path to the station you want. However there are many (sometimes software incompatible) digipeaters out there, which the router cannot use. Paths over 1000 km are unlikely to be useable for {real-time} communication and long paths can introduce significant delay times (answer latency). Other uses of amateur radio for computer communication include {RTTY} ({baudot}), {AMTOR}, {PACTOR}, and {CLOVER}. {A huge hamradio archive (ftp://ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.radio.amateur.packet}. (2001-05-12)
America On-Line, Inc. "company, communications" (AOL) A US on-line service provider based in Vienna, Virginia, USA. AOL claims to be the largest and fastest growing provider of on-line services in the world, with the most active subscriber base. AOL offers its three million subscribers {electronic mail}, interactive newspapers and magazines, conferencing, software libraries, computing support, and on-line classes. In October 1994 AOL made {Internet} {FTP} available to its members and in May 1995, full Internet access including {web}. AOL's main competitors are {Prodigy} and {Compuserve}. {(http://aol.com/)}. (1997-08-26)
Amiga "computer" A range of home computers first released by {Commodore Business Machines} in early 1985 (though they did not design the original - see below). Amigas were popular for {games}, {video processing}, and {multimedia}. One notable feature is a hardware {blitter} for speeding up graphics operations on whole areas of the screen. The Amiga was originally called the Lorraine, and was developed by a company named "Amiga" or "Amiga, Inc.", funded by some doctors to produce a killer game machine. After the US game machine market collapsed, the Amiga company sold some {joysticks} but no Lorraines or any other computer. They eventually floundered and looked for a buyer. Commodore at that time bought the (mostly complete) Amiga machine, infused some money, and pushed it through the final stages of development in a hurry. Commodore released it sometime[?] in 1985. Most components within the machine were known by nicknames. The {coprocessor} commonly called the "Copper" is in fact the "{Video} Timing Coprocessor" and is split between two chips: the instruction fetch and execute units are in the "Agnus" chip, and the {pixel} timing circuits are in the "Denise" chip (A for address, D for data). "Agnus" and "Denise" were responsible for effects timed to the {real-time} position of the video scan, such as midscreen {palette} changes, {sprite multiplying}, and {resolution} changes. Different versions (in order) were: "Agnus" (could only address 512K of {video RAM}), "Fat Agnus" (in a {PLCC} package, could access 1MB of video RAM), "Super Agnus" (slightly upgraded "Fat Agnus"). "Agnus" and "Fat Agnus" came in {PAL} and {NTSC} versions, "Super Agnus" came in one version, jumper selectable for PAL or NTSC. "Agnus" was replaced by "Alice" in the A4000 and A1200, which allowed for more {DMA} channels and higher bus {bandwidth}. "Denise" outputs binary video data (3*4 bits) to the "Vidiot". The "Vidiot" is a hybrid that combines and amplifies the 12-bit video data from "Denise" into {RGB} to the {monitor}. Other chips were "Amber" (a "flicker fixer", used in the A3000 and Commodore display enhancer for the A2000), "Gary" ({I/O}, addressing, G for {glue logic}), "Buster" (the {bus controller}, which replaced "Gary" in the A2000), "Buster II" (for handling the Zorro II/III cards in the A3000, which meant that "Gary" was back again), "Ramsey" (The {RAM} controller), "DMAC" (The DMA controller chip for the WD33C93 {SCSI adaptor} used in the A3000 and on the A2091/A2092 SCSI adaptor card for the A2000; and to control the {CD-ROM} in the {CDTV}), and "Paula" ({Peripheral}, Audio, {UART}, {interrupt} Lines, and {bus Arbiter}). There were several Amiga chipsets: the "Old Chipset" (OCS), the "Enhanced Chipset" (ECS), and {AGA}. OCS included "Paula", "Gary", "Denise", and "Agnus". ECS had the same "Paula", "Gary", "Agnus" (could address 2MB of Chip RAM), "Super Denise" (upgraded to support "Agnus" so that a few new {screen modes} were available). With the introduction of the {Amiga A600} "Gary" was replaced with "Gayle" (though the chipset was still called ECS). "Gayle" provided a number of improvments but the main one was support for the A600's {PCMCIA} port. The AGA chipset had "Agnus" with twice the speed and a 24-bit palette, maximum displayable: 8 bits (256 colours), although the famous "{HAM}" (Hold And Modify) trick allows pictures of 256,000 colours to be displayed. AGA's "Paula" and "Gayle" were unchanged but AGA "Denise" supported AGA "Agnus"'s new screen modes. Unfortunately, even AGA "Paula" did not support High Density {floppy disk drives}. (The Amiga 4000, though, did support high density drives.) In order to use a high density disk drive Amiga HD floppy drives spin at half the rotational speed thus halving the data rate to "Paula". Commodore Business Machines went bankrupt on 1994-04-29, the German company {Escom AG} bought the rights to the Amiga on 1995-04-21 and the Commodore Amiga became the Escom Amiga. In April 1996 Escom were reported to be making the {Amiga} range again but they too fell on hard times and {Gateway 2000} (now called Gateway) bought the Amiga brand on 1997-05-15. Gateway licensed the Amiga operating system to a German hardware company called {Phase 5} on 1998-03-09. The following day, Phase 5 announced the introduction of a four-processor {PowerPC} based Amiga {clone} called the "{pre\box}". Since then, it has been announced that the new operating system will be a version of {QNX}. On 1998-06-25, a company called {Access Innovations Ltd} announced {plans (http://micktinker.co.uk/aaplus.html)} to build a new Amiga chip set, the {AA+}, based partly on the AGA chips but with new fully 32-bit functional core and 16-bit AGA {hardware register emulation} for {backward compatibility}. The new core promised improved memory access and video display DMA. By the end of 2000, Amiga development was under the control of a [new?] company called {Amiga, Inc.}. As well as continuing development of AmigaOS (version 3.9 released in December 2000), their "Digital Environment" is a {virtual machine} for multiple {platforms} conforming to the {ZICO} specification. As of 2000, it ran on {MIPS}, {ARM}, {PPC}, and {x86} processors. {(http://amiga.com/)}. {Amiga Web Directory (http://cucug.org/amiga.html)}. {amiCrawler (http://amicrawler.com/)}. Newsgroups: {news:comp.binaries.amiga}, {news:comp.sources.amiga}, {news:comp.sys.amiga}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.advocacy}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.announce}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.applications}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.audio}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.datacomm}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.emulations}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.games}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.graphics}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.hardware}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.introduction}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.marketplace}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.misc}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.multimedia}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.programmer}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.reviews}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.tech}, {news:comp.sys.amiga.telecomm}, {news:comp.Unix.amiga}. See {aminet}, {Amoeba}, {bomb}, {exec}, {gronk}, {guru meditation}, {Intuition}, {sidecar}, {slap on the side}, {Vulcan nerve pinch}. (2003-07-05)
Amiga E "tool" An {Amiga} {E} {compiler} by Wouter van Oortmerssen. Amiga E compiles 20000 lines/minute on a 7 Mhz Amiga. It allows {in-line} {assembly code} and has an integrated {linker}. It has a large set of integrated functions and {modules}. V2.04 includes as modules a flexible {type} system, quoted expressions, {immediate} and typed lists, low level {polymorphism} and {exception} handling. It is written in {assembly language} and E. Version 2.1b {(ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/e/AmigaE21b.lha)}. {(ftp://amiga.physik.unizh.ch/amiga/dev/lang/AmigaE21b.lha)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.amiga.programmer}. (1997-08-26)
Andrew Fluegelman "person" A successful attorney, editor of {PC World Magazine}, and author of the {MS-DOS} communications program {PC-TALK III}, written in 1982. He once owned the trademark "{freeware}" but it wasn't enforced after his disappearance. In 1985, Fluegelman was diagnosed with cancer. He was last seen a week later, on 1985-07-06, when he left his Marin County home to go to his office in Tiburon. He called his wife later that day and has not been heard from since. His car was found at Vista Point on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. [San Francisco Examiner Sunday Magazine, October 1985]. {Shareware history (http://paulspicks.com/history.asp)}. {NEWSBYTES article (http://textfiles.fisher.hu/news/freeware.txt)}. {(http://doenetwork.bravepages.com/579dmca.html)}. (2003-07-25)
Andrew Project "project" A distributed system project for support of educational and research computing at {Carnegie Mellon University}, named after Andrew Carnegie, an American philanthropist who provided money to establish CMU. See also {Andrew File System}, {Andrew Message System}, {Andrew Toolkit}, {class}. {Home FTP (ftp://emsworth.andrew.cmu.edu)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.soft-sys.andrew}. [More detail?] (1997-11-17)
animation "graphics" The creation of artificial moving images. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics.animation}. {FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.graphics.animation)}. (1995-11-24)
announcers ::: those who present, give notice and/or tell news.
Archimedes "computer" A family of {microcomputers} produced by {Acorn Computers}, Cambridge, UK. The Archimedes, launched in June 1987, was the first {RISC} based {personal computer} (predating {Apple Computer}'s {Power Mac} by some seven years). It uses the {Advanced RISC Machine} (ARM) processor and includes Acorn's {multitasking} {operating system} and {graphical user interface}, {RISC OS} on {ROM}, along with an interpreter for Acorn's enhanced {BASIC}, {BASIC V}. The Archimedes was designed as the successor to Acorn's sucessful {BBC Microcomputer} series and includes some backward compatibility and a {6502} {emulator}. Several utilities are included free on disk (later in ROM) such as a {text editor}, paint and draw programs. Software emulators are also available for the {IBM PC} as well as add-on {Intel} processor cards. There have been several series of Archimedes: A300, A400, A3000, A5000, A4000 and {RISC PC}. {Usenet FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/acorn/)}. {Archive site list (http://cs.vu.nl/~gerben/acorn/acorn-archives.txt)}. {HENSA archive (ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/)}. {Stuttgart archive (ftp://ftp.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/systems/acorn)}. See also {Crisis Software}, {Warm Silence Software}. (1998-04-03)
archive site "networking" (Or "FTP site", "FTP archive") An {Internet} {host} where program source, documents, {e-mail} or {news} messages are stored for public access via {anonymous FTP}, {Gopher}, {web} or other document distribution system. There may be several archive sites ({mirrors}) for, e.g., a {Usenet} {newsgroup} though one may be recognised as the main one. FTP servers were common on the Internet for about ten years but have been largely replaced by {web servers} since the invention of the {World-Wide Web} and its {HTTP} protocol. Some well-known archive sites included {Imperial College, UK (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/)}, {UUNET, USA (ftp://ftp.uu.net/)}, {GNU archive site}. The {archie} service attempted to index the contents of FTP archives, foreshadowing the indexing of the web by {Google} and others. (2014-07-06)
arrival ::: n. --> The act of arriving, or coming; the act of reaching a place from a distance, whether by water (as in its original sense) or by land.
The attainment or reaching of any object, by effort, or in natural course; as, our arrival at this conclusion was wholly unexpected.
The person or thing arriving or which has arrived; as, news brought by the last arrival.
article ::: n. --> A distinct portion of an instrument, discourse, literary work, or any other writing, consisting of two or more particulars, or treating of various topics; as, an article in the Constitution. Hence: A clause in a contract, system of regulations, treaty, or the like; a term, condition, or stipulation in a contract; a concise statement; as, articles of agreement.
A literary composition, forming an independent portion of a magazine, newspaper, or cyclopedia.
artificial neural network "artificial intelligence" (ANN, commonly just "neural network" or "neural net") A network of many very simple processors ("units" or "neurons"), each possibly having a (small amount of) local memory. The units are connected by unidirectional communication channels ("connections"), which carry numeric (as opposed to symbolic) data. The units operate only on their local data and on the inputs they receive via the connections. A neural network is a processing device, either an {algorithm}, or actual hardware, whose design was inspired by the design and functioning of animal brains and components thereof. Most neural networks have some sort of "training" rule whereby the weights of connections are adjusted on the basis of presented patterns. In other words, neural networks "learn" from examples, just like children learn to recognise dogs from examples of dogs, and exhibit some structural capability for generalisation. Neurons are often elementary non-linear signal processors (in the limit they are simple threshold discriminators). Another feature of NNs which distinguishes them from other computing devices is a high degree of interconnection which allows a high degree of parallelism. Further, there is no idle memory containing data and programs, but rather each neuron is pre-programmed and continuously active. The term "neural net" should logically, but in common usage never does, also include biological neural networks, whose elementary structures are far more complicated than the mathematical models used for ANNs. See {Aspirin}, {Hopfield network}, {McCulloch-Pitts neuron}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.ai.neural-nets}. (1997-10-13)
Association of Lisp Users "body" (ALU) A user group which aims to promote {Lisp}, help inform and educate Lisp users in general, and help represent Lisp users as a group to the vendors. The ALU holds an annual conference and supports the formation of inter-vendor standards. ALU has international membership and is incorporated in the US. {(http://cs.rochester.edu/u/miller/ALU/home.html)}. {Usenet} {newsgroups}: {news:comp.org.lisp-users} {news:comp.std.lisp}. Mailing list: "alu@ai.sri.com". (1996-12-07)
Atari "company, computer" A maker of arcade games, home video game systems, and home computers, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Atari are best known for their range of 16- and 32-bit {microcomputers}, notable for having a built-in {MIDI} interface. As of February 1994 the range included the Atari 520ST, 1040ST, Mega ST, STe, STacy, Mega STe, TT, and Falcon. There are also emulators that run on the Apple {Macintosh} and {IBM PC}/XT/AT. Atari ceased to be a separate company in 1996 when merged with {JTS}. In 1998, JTS sold the Atari assets to Hasbro. In 2001, {Infogrames} North America operations officially changed their name to Atari. {(http://atarigames.com/)}. {Usenet newsgroups}: {news:comp.binaries.atari.st}, {news:comp.sys.atari.st.tech}, {news:comp.sources.atari.st}, {news:comp.sys.atari.st}, {news:comp.sys.atari.advocacy}, {news:comp.sys.atari.programmer}. {Michigan U (ftp://atari.archive.umich.edu)}, {UK (ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/)}, {Germany (ftp://ftp.Germany.EU.net)} [192.76.144.75], {Netherlands (ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/)} [131.211.80.17], {UK (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/systems/atari/umich)}. (2008-07-23)
athenaeum ::: n. --> A temple of Athene, at Athens, in which scholars and poets were accustomed to read their works and instruct students.
A school founded at Rome by Hadrian.
A literary or scientific association or club.
A building or an apartment where a library, periodicals, and newspapers are kept for use.
Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation "messaging" (ARMM) A {Usenet} robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio. ARMM was intended to automatically cancel posts from anonymous-posting sites. Unfortunately, the robot's recogniser for anonymous postings triggered on its own automatically-generated control messages! Transformed by this stroke of programming ineptitude into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on the night of 1993-03-31 and proceeded to {spam} {news:news.admin.policy} with a recursive explosion of over 200 messages. Reactions varied from amusement to outrage. The pathological messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people paying line charges for their {Usenet} feeds. One poster described the ARMM debacle as "instant {Usenet} history" (also establishing the term {despew}), and it has since been widely cited as a cautionary example of the havoc the combination of good intentions and incompetence can wreak on a network. Compare {Great Worm}; {sorcerer's apprentice mode}. See also {software laser}, {network meltdown}. (1996-01-08)
balaam ::: n. --> A paragraph describing something wonderful, used to fill out a newspaper column; -- an allusion to the miracle of Balaam&
bash Bourne Again SHell. {GNU}'s {command interpreter} for {Unix}. Bash is a {Posix}-compatible {shell} with full {Bourne shell} syntax, and some {C shell} commands built in. The Bourne Again Shell supports {Emacs}-style command-line editing, job control, functions, and on-line help. Written by Brian Fox of {UCSB}. The latest version is 1.14.1. It includes a {yacc} parser, the interpreter and documentation. {(ftp://ftp.gnu.org/bash-1.14.1.tar.gz)} or from a {GNU archive site}. E-mail: "bug-bash@gnu.org". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:gnu.bash.bug}. (1994-07-15)
BeBox "computer" A {microcomputer} produced by {Be Inc}, containing between two and eight {PowerPCs} (the initial model has two {PPC} 603s). The BeBox can take standard {IBM PC} {peripherals}, such as {ISA} and {PCI} cards, {IDE} and {SCSI} disks, and a standard {PS/2} keyboard. Newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.be}. {(http://be.com/)}. [Dates?] (1996-10-05)
benchmark "benchmark" A standard program or set of programs which can be run on different computers to give an inaccurate measure of their performance. "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." A benchmark may attempt to indicate the overall power of a system by including a "typical" mixture of programs or it may attempt to measure more specific aspects of performance, like graphics, I/O or computation (integer or {floating-point}). Others measure specific tasks like {rendering} polygons, reading and writing files or performing operations on matrices. The most useful kind of benchmark is one which is tailored to a user's own typical tasks. While no one benchmark can fully characterise overall system performance, the results of a variety of realistic benchmarks can give valuable insight into expected real performance. Benchmarks should be carefully interpreted, you should know exactly which benchmark was run (name, version); exactly what configuration was it run on (CPU, memory, compiler options, single user/multi-user, peripherals, network); how does the benchmark relate to your workload? Well-known benchmarks include {Whetstone}, {Dhrystone}, {Rhealstone} (see {h}), the {Gabriel benchmarks} for {Lisp}, the {SPECmark} suite, and {LINPACK}. See also {machoflops}, {MIPS}, {smoke and mirrors}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.benchmarks}. {Tennessee BenchWeb (http://netlib.org/benchweb/)}. [{Jargon File}] (2002-03-26)
BiCapitalisation The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such as {PostScript}, {NeXT}, {NeWS}, {VisiCalc}, {FrameMaker}, {TK!solver}, {EasyWriter}) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalisation. Too many {marketroid} types think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Compare {studlycaps}. (1995-02-23)
Bigloo "language" A {Scheme} {interpreter}, {compiler} and {run-time system} by Manuel Serrano "Manuel.Serrano@inria.fr" which aims to deliver small, fast stand-alone {applications}. It supports {modules} and {optimisation}. Bigloo's features enable Scheme programs to be used where {C} or {C++} might usually be required. The Bigloo compiler produces {ANSI C} which is compiled into {stand-alone executables}, {JVM} {bytecode}, or .{NET bytecode}. Hence Bigloo enables Scheme programs to interwork with C, {Java} and {C
bit bucket "jargon" 1. (Or "{write-only memory}", "WOM") The universal data sink (originally, the mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a {register} during a {shift} instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to have "gone to the bit bucket". On {Unix}, often used for {/dev/null}. Sometimes amplified as "the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky". 2. The place where all lost mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed according to {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely to end up in the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost 100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all unwanted mail responses: "Flames about this article to the bit bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I mailed you those figures last week; they must have landed in the bit bucket." Compare {black hole}. This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the fanciful notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term "bit box", about which the same legend was current; old-time hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them "out of the bit box". Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the "parity preservation law", the number of 1 bits that go to the bit bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance. In contrast, a "{chad box}" is a real container used to catch {chad}. This may be related to the origin of the term "bit bucket" [Comments ?]. (1996-11-20)
black hole 1. An expression which depends on its own value or a technique to detect such expressions. In graph reduction, when the reduction of an expression is begun, the root of the expression can be overwritten with a black hole. If the expression depends on its own value, e.g. x = x + 1 then it will try to evaluate the black hole which will usually print an error message and abort the program. A secondary effect is that, once the root of the expression has been black-holed, parts of the expression which are no longer required may be freed for garbage collection. Without black holes the usual result of attempting to evaluate an expression which depends on itself would be a stack overflow. If the expression is evaluated successfully then the black hole will be updated with the value. Expressions such as ones = 1 : ones are not black holes because the list constructor, : is lazy so the reference to ones is not evaluated when evaluating ones to WHNF. 2. Where an {electronic mail} message or {news} aritcle has gone if it disappears mysteriously between its origin and destination sites without returning a {bounce message}. Compare {bit bucket}. [{Jargon File}]
blow away "operating system, jargon" To remove (files and directories) from permanent storage, generally by accident. "He reformatted the wrong partition and blew away last night's netnews". Compare: {nuke}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-05)
news-book ::: n. --> A newspaper.
newsboy ::: n. --> A boy who distributes or sells newspaper.
newsfroup "messaging, humour" A silly synonym for {Usenet} {newsgroup}, originally a typo but now in regular use on {Usenet}'s {news:talk.bizarre} and other lunatic-fringe groups. Compare {hing}, {grilf}, and {filk}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-13)
newsgroup "messaging" One of {Usenet}'s huge collection of topic groups or {fora}. {Usenet} groups can be "unmoderated" (anyone can post) or "moderated" (submissions are automatically directed to a {moderator}, who edits or filters and then posts the results). Some newsgroups have parallel {mailing lists} for {Internet} people with no netnews access, with postings to the group automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed {Internet} {mailing lists}) are distributed as "{digests}", with groups of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with an index. Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the {C}-language forum), comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.Unix.wizards (for {Unix wizards}), rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political discussions and {flamage}). Barry Shein "bzs@world.std.com" is alleged to have said, "Remember the good old days when you could read all the group names in one day?" This gives a good idea of the growth and size of {Usenet}. See also {netiquette}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-13)
news-letter ::: n. --> A circular letter, written or printed for the purpose of disseminating news. This was the name given to the earliest English newspapers.
newsletter "publication" A periodically published work containing news and announcements on some subject, typically with a small circulation. Newsletters are a common application for {DTP} and may be distributed by {electronic mail}. (1996-12-10)
newsman ::: n. --> One who brings news.
A man who distributes or sells newspapers.
newsmen ::: pl. --> of Newsman
newsmonger ::: n. --> One who deals in news; one who is active in hearing and telling news.
news ::: n --> A report of recent occurences; information of something that has lately taken place, or of something before unknown; fresh tindings; recent intelligence.
Something strange or newly happened.
A bearer of news; a courier; a newspaper.
news {netnews}
newspaper ::: n. --> A sheet of paper printed and distributed, at stated intervals, for conveying intelligence of passing events, advocating opinions, etc.; a public print that circulates news, advertisements, proceedings of legislative bodies, public announcements, etc.
news reader "messaging" A {browser} program which enables a user to read articles posted to {Usenet}. Articles may be stored in a local (or {NFS}-mounted) {spool} directory, or retrieved via {NNTP}. Examples are {rn}, {GNUS}, and {nn}. (1996-04-09)
newsroom ::: n. --> A room where news is collected and disseminated, or periodicals sold; a reading room supplied with newspapers, magazines, etc.
news-vnder ::: n. --> A seller of newspapers.
news-writer ::: n. --> One who gathered news for, and wrote, news-letters.
newsy ::: a. --> Full of news; abounding in information as to current events.
board 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes used even for {Usenet} newsgroups. 2. An electronic circuit board.
bookwork ::: n. --> Work done upon a book or books (as in a printing office), in distinction from newspaper or job work.
Study; application to books.
Brian Reid "person" The person who cofounded {Usenet}'s anarchic alt.* {newsgroup} {hierarchy} with {John Gilmore}. (1997-04-12)
British Broadcasting Corporation "company" (BBC) The non-commercial UK organisation that commissions, produces and broadcasts television and radio programmes. The BBC commissioned the "{BBC Micro}" from {Acorn Computers} for use in a television series about using computers. They also have one of the world's most respected news websites (on which I work!). {BBC Home (http://bbc.co.uk/)}. {BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/)}. (2003-07-02)
bulletin board system "communications, application" (BBS, bboard /bee'bord/, message board, forum; plural: BBSes) A computer and associated software which typically provides an electronic message database where people can log in and leave messages. Messages are typically split into {topic groups} similar to the {newsgroups} on {Usenet} (which is like a distributed BBS). Any user may submit or read any message in these public areas. The term comes from physical pieces of board on which people can pin messages written on paper for general consumption - a "physical bulletin board". {Ward Christensen}, the programmer and operator of the first BBS (on-line 1978-02-16) called it a CBBS for "computer bulletin board system". Since the rise of the {World-Wide Web}, the term has become antiquated, though the concept is more popular than ever, with many {websites} featuring discussion areas where users can post messages for public consumption. Apart from public message areas, some BBSes provided archives of files, personal {electronic mail} and other services of interest to the system operator ({sysop}). Thousands of BBSes around the world were run from amateurs' homes on {MS-DOS} boxes with a single {modem} line each. Although BBSes were traditionally the domain of hobbyists, many connected directly to the {Internet} (accessed via {telnet}), others were operated by government, educational, and research institutions. Fans of {Usenet} or the big commercial {time-sharing} bboards such as {CompuServe}, {CIX} and {GEnie} tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they helped connect hackers and users in the personal-{micro} and let them exchange code. Use of this term for a {Usenet} newsgroup generally marks one either as a {newbie} fresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating {Usenet}. (2005-09-20)
bulletin ::: n. --> A brief statement of facts respecting some passing event, as military operations or the health of some distinguished personage, issued by authority for the information of the public.
Any public notice or announcement, especially of news recently received.
A periodical publication, especially one containing the proceeding of a society.
bus "architecture, networking" A set of electrical conductors (wires, PCB tracks or connections in an {integrated circuit}) connecting various "stations", which can be {functional units} in a computer or {nodes} in a {network}. A bus is a {broadcast} channel, meaning that each station receives every other station's transmissions and all stations have equal access to the bus. Various schemes have been invented to solve the problem of collisions: multiple stations trying to transmit at once, e.g. {CSMA/CD}, {bus master}. The term is almost certainly derived from the electrical engineering term "bus bar" - a substantial, rigid power supply conductor to which several connections are made. This was once written "'bus bar" as it was a contraction of "omnibus bar" - a connection bar "for all", by analogy with the passenger omnibus - a conveyance "for all". {More on derivation (/pub/misc/omnibus.html)}. There are busses both within the {CPU} and connecting it to external {memory} and {peripheral} devices. The data bus, address bus and control signals, despite their names, really constitute a single bus since each is useless without the others. The width of the data bus is usually specified in {bits} and is the number of parallel connectors. This and the {clock rate} determine the bus's data rate (the number of {bytes} per second which it can carry). This is one of the factors limiting a computer's performance. Most current {microprocessors} have 32-bit busses both internally and externally. 100 or 133 {megahertz} bus clock rates are common. The bus clock is typically slower than the processor clock. Some processors have internal busses which are wider than their external busses (usually twice the width) since the width of the internal bus affects the speed of all operations and has less effect on the overall system cost than the width of the external bus. Various bus designs have been used in the {PC}, including {ISA}, {EISA}, {Micro Channel}, {VL-bus} and {PCI}. Other peripheral busses are NuBus, TURBOchannel, VMEbus, MULTIBUS and STD bus. See also {bus network}. {Ukranian (http://open-taxi.com/mynews/~adrian/10)}. (2010-07-10)
bwBASIC Bywater BASIC interpreter. A {BASIC} {interpreter} by Ted A. Campbell "tcamp@delphi.com" which implements a large superset of the {ANSI Standard for Minimal BASIC} (X3.60-1978) in {ANSI C}, and offers a simple interactive environment including some {shell} program facilities as an extension of BASIC. The interpreter source has been compiled successfully on a range of {ANSI C} {compilers} on varying {platforms} including {MS-DOS}, {Unix}, and {Acorn} {RISC OS}. Version 2.10 was posted to {news:comp.sources.misc}, volume 40. (1993-10-29)
c2man "tool" An automatic {documentation} extraction tool by Graham Stoney. c2man extracts comments from {C} source code to generate functional interface documentation in the same format as sections 2 and 3 of the {Unix} Programmer's Manual. It looks for comments near the objects they document, rather than imposing a rigid {syntax} or requiring the programmer to use a typesetting language. Acceptable documentation can often be generated from existing code with no modifications. c2man supports both {K&R} and {ISO}/{ANSI C} coding styles. Output can be in {nroff} -man, {Texinfo} or {LaTeX} format. It {automagically} documents {enum} parameter and return values, it handles both {C} (/* */) and {C++} (//) style comments, but not C++ grammar (yet). It requires {yacc}, {byacc} or {bison} for syntax analysis; {lex} or {flex} for {lexical analysis} and {nroff}, {groff}, {texinfo} or {LaTeX} to format the output. It runs under {Unix}, {OS/2} and {MS-DOS}. Version 2.0 patchlevel 25 (1995-10-25). {Washington FTP (ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/usenet/comp.sources.reviewed/volume03/)}. {Stuttgart FTP (ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/archive/comp.sources/reviewed/)}. {Patches (ftp://lth.se/pub/netnews/sources.bugs/volume93/sep/)}. Patches posted to {Usenet} newsgroups {news:comp.sources.bugs} and {news:comp.sources.reviewed}. (2003-05-02)
camera ready "publication" A final edition of a document or graphic (e.g. a newspaper advertisement or a technical paper for a journal) that is of suitable quality for mass reproduction by making printing plates from the negatives by photoengraving. (1996-11-15)
Caml Light A small portable implementation of a version of {CAML} by Xavier Leroy "Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr" and Damien Doligez of {INRIA}. Caml Light uses a {bytecode interpreter} written in {C}. It adds a {Modula-2}-like {module} system, {separate compilation}, {lazy streams} for parsing and printing, graphics primitives and an interface with {C}. Version 0.6 runs on {Unix}, {MS-DOS}, {Macintosh}, {Atari ST} and {Amiga}. It includes an {interpreter}, {compiler}, {Emacs} mode, libraries, {scanner generator}, {parser generator}, {run-time support} and an interactive development environment. The latest version, as of April 2003, is 0.75 and runs on {Unix}, {Macintosh} and {Windows}. The development of Caml Light has been stopped; current development is on {Objective Caml}. {(http://caml.inria.fr/distrib-caml-light-eng.html)}. {(ftp://ftp.inria.fr/lang/caml-light/)}. E-mail: "caml@inria.fr". Mailing list: "caml-list@inria.fr". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.ml}. (2003-04-12)
canard ::: n. --> An extravagant or absurd report or story; a fabricated sensational report or statement; esp. one set afloat in the newspapers to hoax the public.
card ::: n. --> A piece of pasteboard, or thick paper, blank or prepared for various uses; as, a playing card; a visiting card; a card of invitation; pl. a game played with cards.
A published note, containing a brief statement, explanation, request, expression of thanks, or the like; as, to put a card in the newspapers. Also, a printed programme, and (fig.), an attraction or inducement; as, this will be a good card for the last day of the fair.
A paper on which the points of the compass are marked; the
cellular automaton "algorithm, parallel" (CA, plural "- automata") A regular spatial lattice of "cells", each of which can have any one of a finite number of states. The state of all cells in the lattice are updated simultaneously and the state of the entire lattice advances in discrete time steps. The state of each cell in the lattice is updated according to a local rule which may depend on the state of the cell and its neighbors at the previous time step. Each cell in a cellular automaton could be considered to be a {finite state machine} which takes its neighbours' states as input and outputs its own state. The best known example is J.H. Conway's game of {Life}. {FAQ (http://alife.santafe.edu/alife/topics/cas/ca-faq/ca-faq.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.theory.cell-automata}, {news:comp.theory.self-org-sys}. (1995-03-03)
channel "chat" (Or "chat room", "room", depending on the system in question) The basic unit of group discussion in {chat} systems like {IRC}. Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel. Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings that begin with a "
channel ::: n. --> The hollow bed where a stream of water runs or may run.
The deeper part of a river, harbor, strait, etc., where the main current flows, or which affords the best and safest passage for vessels.
A strait, or narrow sea, between two portions of lands; as, the British Channel.
That through which anything passes; means of passing, conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to us by
chat "chat, messaging" Any system that allows any number of logged-in users to have a typed, real-time, on-line conversation via a {network}. The medium of {chat} is descended from {talk}, but the terms (and the media) have been distinct since at least the early 1990s. {talk} is prototypically for a small number of people, generally with no provision for {channels}. In {chat} systems, however, there are many {channels} in which any number of people can talk; and users may send private (one-to-one) messages. Some early chat systems (in use 1998) include {IRC}, {ICQ} and {Palace}. More recent alternatives include {MSN Messenger} and {Google Talk}. Chat systems have given rise to a distinctive style combining the immediacy of talking with all the precision (and verbosity) that written language entails. It is difficult to communicate inflection, though conventions have arisen to help with this. The conventions of chat systems include special items of jargon, generally abbreviations meant to save typing, which are not used orally. E.g. {BCNU}, {BBL}, {BTW}, {CUL}, {FWIW}, {FYA}, {FYI}, {IMHO}, {OT}, {OTT}, {TNX}, {WRT}, {WTF}, {WTH}, {"g"}, {"gr&d"}, {BBL}, {HHOK}, {NHOH}, {ROTFL}, {AFK}, {b4}, {TTFN}, {TTYL}, {OIC}, {re}. Much of the chat style is identical to (and probably derived from) {Morse code} jargon used by ham-radio amateurs since the 1920s, and there is, not surprisingly, some overlap with {TDD} jargon. Most of the jargon was in use in {talk} systems. Many of these expressions are also common in {Usenet} {news} and {electronic mail} and some have seeped into popular culture, as with {emoticons}. The {MUD} community uses a mixture of {emoticons}, a few of the more natural of the old-style {talk mode} abbreviations, and some of the "social" list above. In general, though, MUDders express a preference for typing things out in full rather than using abbreviations; this may be due to the relative youth of the MUD cultures, which tend to include many touch typists. Abbreviations specific to MUDs include: {FOAD}, ppl (people), THX (thanks), UOK? (are you OK?). Some {BIFF}isms (notably the variant spelling "d00d") and aspects of {ASCIIbonics} appear to be passing into wider use among some subgroups of MUDders and are already pandemic on {chat} systems in general. See also {hakspek}. {Suck article "Screaming in a Vacuum" (http://suck.com/daily/96/10/23/)}. (2006-05-31)
chess "games" A two-player {game} with {perfect information}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.chess}. See also {Internet Chess Server}. (1995-03-25)
CHIP-48 A reimplementation of {CHIP-8} for the {HP-48} calculator by Andreas Gustafson "gson@niksula.hut.fi". Posted to {news:comp.sys.handhelds} in Sep 1990. {(ftp://vega.hut.fi/pub/misc/hp48sx/asap)}. (1994-12-02)
Chip Scale Packaging "hardware" (CSP) A type of {surface mount} {integrated circuit} packaging that provides pre-speed-sorted, pre-tested and pre-packaged {die} without requiring special testing. An example is {Motorola}'s {Micro SMT} packaging. See also: {chip-on-board}, {flip chip}, {multichip module}, {known good die}, {ball grid array}. ["Chip scale packaging gains at SMI. (Surface Mount International)", Bernard Levine, Electronic News (1991), Sept 4, 1995 v41 n2081 p1(2)]. (2006-08-14)
C++ "language" One of the most used {object-oriented} languages, a superset of {C} developed primarily by {Bjarne Stroustrup} "bs@alice.att.com" at {AT&T} {Bell Laboratories} in 1986. In C++ a {class} is a user-defined {type}, syntactically a {struct} with {member functions}. {Constructors} and {destructors} are member functions called to create or destroy {instances}. A {friend} is a nonmember function that is allowed to access the private portion of a class. C++ allows {implicit type conversion}, {function inlining}, {overloading} of operators and function names, and {default function arguments}. It has {streams} for I/O and {references}. C++ 2.0 (May 1989) introduced {multiple inheritance}, {type-safe linkage}, pointers to members, and {abstract classes}. C++ 2.1 was introduced in ["Annotated C++ Reference Manual", B. Stroustrup et al, A-W 1990]. {MS-DOS (ftp://grape.ecs.clarkson.edu/pub/msdos/djgpp/djgpp.zip)}, {Unix ANSI C++ (ftp://gnu.org/pub/gnu/g++-1.39.0.tar.Z)} - X3J16 committee. (They're workin' on it). See also {cfront}, {LEDA}, {uC++}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.c++}. ["The C++ Programming Language", Bjarne Stroustrup, A-W, 1986]. (1996-06-06)
client-server "programming" A common form of {distributed system} in which software is split between {server} tasks and {client} tasks. A client sends requests to a server, according to some {protocol}, asking for information or action, and the server responds. This is analogous to a customer (client) who sends an order (request) on an order form to a supplier (server) who despatches the goods and an invoice (response). The order form and invoice are part of the "protocol" used to communicate in this case. There may be either one centralised server or several distributed ones. This model allows clients and servers to be placed independently on {nodes} in a {network}, possibly on different {hardware} and {operating systems} appropriate to their function, e.g. fast server/cheap client. Examples are the name-server/name-resolver relationship in {DNS}, the file-server/file-client relationship in {NFS} and the screen server/client application split in the {X Window System}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.client-server}. ["The Essential Client/Server Survival Guide", 2nd edition, 1996]. (1998-01-25)
Clipper 1. "hardware, cryptography" An {integrated circuit} which implements the {SkipJack} {algorithm}. The Clipper is manufactured by the US government to encrypt telephone data. It has the added feature that it can be decrypted by the US government, which has tried to make the chip compulsory in the United States. Phil Zimmerman (inventor of {PGP}) remarked, "This doesn't even pass the sniff test" (i.e. it stinks). {(http://wired.com/clipper/)}. {news:alt.privacy.clipper} 2. A compiled {dBASE} dialect from Nantucket Corp, LA. Versions: Winter 85, Spring 86, Autumn 86, Summer 87, 4.5 (Japanese Kanji), 5.0. It uses the {Xbase} programming language. (2004-09-01)
collagen ::: n. --> The chemical basis of ordinary connective tissue, as of tendons or sinews and of bone. On being boiled in water it becomes gelatin or glue.
COmmon Business Oriented Language "language, business" /koh'bol/ (COBOL) A programming language for simple computations on large amounts of data, designed by the {CODASYL} Committee in April 1960. COBOL's {natural language} style is intended to be largely self-documenting. It introduced the {record} structure. COBOL was probably the most widely used programming language during the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the major programs that required repair or replacement due to {Year 2000} {software rot} issues were originally written in COBOL, and this was responsible for a short-lived increased demand for COBOL programmers. Even in 2002 though, new COBOL programs are still being written in some organisations and many old COBOL programs are still running in {dinosaur} shops. Major revisions in 1968 (ANS X3.23-1968), 1974 (ANS X3.23-1974) and 1985. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.cobol}. ["Initial Specifications for a Common Business Oriented Language" DoD, US GPO, Apr 1960]. (2002-02-21)
Commonwealth Hackish "jargon" Hacker jargon as spoken outside the US, especially in the British Commonwealth. It is reported that Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like "char" and "soc", etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/. Dots in {newsgroup} names (especially two-component names) tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/). The prefix {meta} may be pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is usually /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth. Preferred {metasyntactic variables} include {blurgle}, "eek", "ook", "frodo", and "bilbo"; "wibble", "wobble", and in emergencies "wubble"; "banana", "tom", "dick", "harry", "wombat", "frog", {fish}, and so on and on (see {foo}). Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes "-o-rama", "frenzy" (as in feeding frenzy), and "city" (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms "parens", "brackets", and "braces" for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers "brackets", "square brackets", and "curly brackets". Also, the use of "pling" for {bang} is common outside the United States. See also {attoparsec}, {calculator}, {chemist}, {console jockey}, {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek}, {heavy metal}, {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {loose bytes}, {muddie}, {nadger}, {noddy}, {psychedelicware}, {plingnet}, {raster blaster}, {RTBM}, {seggie}, {spod}, {sun lounge}, {terminal junkie}, {tick-list features}, {weeble}, {weasel}, {YABA}, and notes or definitions under {Bad Thing}, {barf}, {bum}, {chase pointers}, {cosmic rays}, {crippleware}, {crunch}, {dodgy}, {gonk}, {hamster}, {hardwarily}, {mess-dos}, {nibble}, {proglet}, {root}, {SEX}, {tweak} and {xyzzy}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-18)
complexion ::: n. --> The state of being complex; complexity.
A combination; a complex.
The bodily constitution; the temperament; habitude, or natural disposition; character; nature.
The color or hue of the skin, esp. of the face.
The general appearance or aspect; as, the complexion of the sky; the complexion of the news.
compression 1. "application" (Or "compaction") The coding of data to save storage space or transmission time. Although data is already coded in digital form for computer processing, it can often be coded more efficiently (using fewer bits). For example, {run-length encoding} replaces strings of repeated characters (or other units of data) with a single character and a count. There are many compression {algorithms} and utilities. Compressed data must be decompressed before it can be used. The standard {Unix} compression utilty is called {compress} though {GNU}'s superior {gzip} has largely replaced it. Other compression utilties include {pack}, {zip} and {PKZIP}. When compressing several similar files, it is usually better to join the files together into an {archive} of some kind (using {tar} for example) and then compress them, rather than to join together individually compressed files. This is because some common compression {algorithms} build up tables based on the data from their current input which they have already compressed. They then use this table to compress subsequent data more efficiently. See also {TIFF}, {JPEG}, {MPEG}, {Lempel-Ziv Welch}, "{lossy}", "{lossless}". {Compression FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/compression-faq/)}. {Web Content Compression FAQ (http://perl.apache.org/docs/tutorials/client/compression/compression.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.compression}, {news:comp.compression.research}. 2. "multimedia" Reducing the dynamic range of an audio signal, making quiet sounds louder and loud sounds quieter. Thus, when discussing digital audio, the preferred term for reducing the total amount of data is "compaction". Some advocate this term in all contexts. (2004-04-26)
CompuServe Information Service "company" (CIS, CompuServe Interactive Services). An ISP and on-line service {portal} based in Columbus, Ohio, USA; part of {AOL} since February 1998. CIS was founded in 1969 as a computer {time-sharing service}. Along with {AOL} and {Prodigy}, CIS was one of the first pre-Internet, on-line services for consumers, providing {bulletin boards}, on-line conferencing, business news, sports and weather, financial transactions, {electronic mail}, {Usenet} news, travel and entertainment data and on-line editions of computer publications. CIS was originally run by {CompuServe Corporation}. In 1979, CompuServe was the first service to offer {electronic mail} and technical support to personal computer users. In 1980 they were the first to offer {real-time} {chat} with its CB Simulator. By 1982, the company had formed its Network Services Division to provide wide-area networking to corporate clients. Initially mostly serving the USA, in 1986 they developed a Japanese version called NIFTYSERVE. In 1989, they expanded into Europe and became a leading {Internet service provider}. In 2001 they released version 7.0 of their client program. {CompuServe home (http://compuserve.com/)}. (2009-04-02)
computer ethics "philosophy" Ethics is the field of study that is concerned with questions of value, that is, judgments about what human behaviour is "good" or "bad". Ethical judgments are no different in the area of computing from those in any other area. Computers raise problems of privacy, ownership, theft, and power, to name but a few. Computer ethics can be grounded in one of four basic world-views: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, or Existentialism. Idealists believe that reality is basically ideas and that ethics therefore involves conforming to ideals. Realists believe that reality is basically nature and that ethics therefore involves acting according to what is natural. Pragmatists believe that reality is not fixed but is in process and that ethics therefore is practical (that is, concerned with what will produce socially-desired results). Existentialists believe reality is self-defined and that ethics therefore is individual (that is, concerned only with one's own conscience). Idealism and Realism can be considered ABSOLUTIST worldviews because they are based on something fixed (that is, ideas or nature, respectively). Pragmatism and Existentialism can be considered RELATIVIST worldviews because they are based or something relational (that is, society or the individual, respectively). Thus ethical judgments will vary, depending on the judge's world-view. Some examples: First consider theft. Suppose a university's computer is used for sending an e-mail message to a friend or for conducting a full-blown private business (billing, payroll, inventory, etc.). The absolutist would say that both activities are unethical (while recognising a difference in the amount of wrong being done). A relativist might say that the latter activities were wrong because they tied up too much memory and slowed down the machine, but the e-mail message wasn't wrong because it had no significant effect on operations. Next consider privacy. An instructor uses her account to acquire the cumulative grade point average of a student who is in a class which she instructs. She obtained the password for this restricted information from someone in the Records Office who erroneously thought that she was the student's advisor. The absolutist would probably say that the instructor acted wrongly, since the only person who is entitled to this information is the student and his or her advisor. The relativist would probably ask why the instructor wanted the information. If she replied that she wanted it to be sure that her grading of the student was consistent with the student's overall academic performance record, the relativist might agree that such use was acceptable. Finally, consider power. At a particular university, if a professor wants a computer account, all she or he need do is request one but a student must obtain faculty sponsorship in order to receive an account. An absolutist (because of a proclivity for hierarchical thinking) might not have a problem with this divergence in procedure. A relativist, on the other hand, might question what makes the two situations essentially different (e.g. are faculty assumed to have more need for computers than students? Are students more likely to cause problems than faculty? Is this a hold-over from the days of "in loco parentis"?). {"Philosophical Bases of Computer Ethics", Professor Robert N. Barger (http://nd.edu/~rbarger/metaethics.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:bit.listserv.ethics-l}, {news:alt.soc.ethics}. (1995-10-25)
computer vision "application" A branch of {artificial intelligence} and {image processing} concerned with computer processing of images from the real world. Computer vision typically requires a combination of low level {image processing} to enhance the image quality (e.g. remove noise, increase contrast), {pattern recognition} to recognise features such as lines, areas and colours and {image understanding} to translate these features into knowledge about the objects in the scene. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.ai.vision}. (2012-12-25)
consoling ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Console ::: a. --> Adapted to console or comfort; cheering; as, this is consoling news.
constraint "programming, mathematics" A {Boolean} {relation}, often an equality or {ineqality} relation, between the values of one or more mathematical {variables}. E.g. x"3 is a constraint on x. The process of {constraint satisfaction} attempts to assign values to variables so that all constraints are true. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.constraints}. {FAQ (http://cs.unh.edu/ccc/archive/)}. (2002-06-08)
contributer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, contributes; specifically, one who writes articles for a newspaper or magazine.
copyright "legal" The exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright on a work to make and distribute copies, prepare derivative works, and perform and display the work in public (these last two mainly apply to plays, films, dances and the like, but could also apply to software). A work, including a piece of software, is under copyright by default in most coutries, whether of not it displays a copyright notice. However, a copyright notice may make it easier to assert ownership. The copyright owner is the person or company whose name appears in the copyright notice on the box, or the disk or the screen or wherever. Most countries have agreed to uphold each others' copyrights. A copyright notice has three parts. The first can be either the {copyright symbol} (a letter C in a circle), the word "Copyright" or the abbreviation "Copr". Only the first of these is recognised internationally and the common {ASCII} rendering "(C)" is not valid anywhere. This is followed by the name of the copyright holder and the year of publication. The year should be the year of _first_ publication, it is not necessary as some believe to update this every year to the current year. Copyright protection in most countries extends for 50 years after the author's death. Originally, most of the computer industry assumed that only the program's underlying instructions were protected under copyright law but, beginning in the early 1980s, a series of lawsuits involving the video screens of game programs extended protections to the appearance of programs. Use of copyright to restrict redistribution is immoral, unethical and illegitimate. It is a result of brainwashing by monopolists and corporate interests and it violates everyone's rights. Such use of copyrights and patents hamper technological progress by making a naturally abundant resource scarce. Many, from communists to right wing libertarians, are trying to abolish intellectual property myths. See also {public domain}, {copyleft}, {software law}. {Universal Copyright Convention (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/creative-industries/copyright/)}. {US Copyright Office (http://copyright.gov/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:misc.legal.computing}. [Is this definition correct in the UK? In the US? Anywhere?] (2014-01-08)
correspondent ::: a. --> Suitable; adapted; fit; corresponding; congruous; conformable; in accord or agreement; obedient; willing. ::: n. --> One with whom intercourse is carried on by letter.
One who communicates information, etc., by letter or telegram to a newspaper or periodical.
courant ::: a. --> Represented as running; -- said of a beast borne in a coat of arms. ::: p. pr. --> A piece of music in triple time; also, a lively dance; a coranto.
A circulating gazette of news; a newspaper.
cross-post [{Usenet}] To post a single article simultaneously to several {newsgroups}. Distinguished from posting the article repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it multiple times (which is very bad form). Gratuitous cross-posting without a Followup-To line directing responses to a single followup group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause {followup} articles to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one part of the original posting. [{Jargon File}]
cross-reading ::: n. --> The reading of the lines of a newspaper directly across the page, instead of down the columns, thus producing a ludicrous combination of ideas.
cryptography "cryptography" The practise and study of {encryption} and {decryption} - encoding data so that it can only be decoded by specific individuals. A system for encrypting and decrypting data is a cryptosystem. These usually involve an {algorithm} for combining the original data ("{plaintext}") with one or more "keys" - numbers or strings of characters known only to the sender and/or recipient. The resulting output is known as "{ciphertext}". The security of a cryptosystem usually depends on the secrecy of (some of) the keys rather than with the supposed secrecy of the {algorithm}. A strong cryptosystem has a large range of possible keys so that it is not possible to just try all possible keys (a "{brute force}" approach). A strong cryptosystem will produce ciphertext which appears random to all standard statistical tests. A strong cryptosystem will resist all known previous methods for breaking codes ("{cryptanalysis}"). See also {cryptology}, {public-key encryption}, {RSA}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:sci.crypt}, {news:sci.crypt.research}. {FAQ} {MIT (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/cryptography-faq/)}. {Cryptography glossary (http://io.com/~ritter/GLOSSARY.HTM
CryptoLocker "security" The best known example of the kind of {malware} known as {ransomware}. CryptoLocker {encrypts} files on your computer and then demands that you send the malware operator money in order to have the files decrypted. According to FBI estimates, CryptoLocker had more than 500,000 victims between September 2013 and May 2014. Around 1.3 percent paid to free their files, earning the malware makers around $3 million. The criminal network was smashed by authorities and security researchers in May 2014 and a tool put online to decryt victim's files for free. {(http://thehackernews.com/2014/08/CryptoLocker-Decryption-Keys-Tool.html)}. (2015-01-22)
deboursification "jargon" Removal of irrelevant {newsgroups} from the Newsgroups header of a {followup}. The term applies particularly to the removal of frivolous groups added by one of the Kooks. See also: {sneck}. [Sam Spade anti-{spam} software]. (1999-09-15)
Demon Internet Ltd. "company" One of the first company to provide public {Internet} access in the UK. The staff of Demon Systems Ltd., an established software house, started Demon Internet on 1992-06-01 and it was the first system in the United Kingdom to offer low cost full {Internet} access. It was started with the support of about 100 founder members who discussed the idea on {Compulink Information Exchange}, and were brave enough to pay a year's subscription in advance. They aimed to have 200 members in the first year to cover costs, ignoring any time spent. After about two weeks they realised they needed nearer 400. By November 1993 they had over 2000 subscribers and by August 1994 they had about 11000 with 20% per month growth. All revenues have been reinvested in resources and expansion of service. Demon link to {Sprintlink} in the United States making them totally independent. They peer with {EUNet} and {PIPEX} to ensure good connectivity in Great Britain as well as having links to the {JANET}/{JIPS} UK academic network. A direct line into the {Department of Computing, Imperial College, London (http://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk)} from their Central London {Point of Presence} (PoP) (styx.demon.co.uk) gives access to the biggest {FTP} and {Archie} site in Europe. Demon provide local call access to a large proportion of the UK. The central London {PoP} provides {leased line} connections at a cheaper rate for those customers in the central 0171 area. Further lines and {PoPs} are being added continuously. Subscribers get allocated an {Internet Address} and can choose a {hostname} within the demon.co.uk {domain}. They can have any number of e-mail address at that host. In October 1994 Demon confirmed a large contract with the major telecommunications provider {Energis}. They will supply guaranteed bandwidth to Demon's 10Mb/s {backbone} from several cities and towns. Several {PoPs} will be phased out and replaced with others during 1995. E-mail: "internet@demon.net". {(ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/)}. {(http://demon.co.uk/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:demon.announce}. Telephone: +44 (181) 349 0063. Address: Demon Internet Ltd., 42 Hendon Lane, Finchley, London N3 1TT, UK. (1994-11-08)
desktop publishing "text, application" (DTP) Using computers to lay out text and graphics for printing in magazines, newsletters, brochures, etc. A good DTP system provides precise control over templates, styles, fonts, sizes, colour, paragraph formatting, images and fitting text into irregular shapes. Example programs include {FrameMaker}, {PageMaker}, {InDesign} and {GeoPublish}. {(http://cs.purdue.edu/homes/gwp/dtp/dtp.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.text.desktop}. (2005-03-14)
digerati "jargon" (Or "digirati". By analogy with "literati" - people knowledgeable about literature) People knowledgeable about computers, "computer literate". [Newsweek, March 1995?]. (1995-05-07)
digest A periodical collection of messages which have been posted to a {newsgroup} or {mailing list}. A digest is prepared by a {moderator} who selects articles from the group or list, formats them and adds a contents list. The digest is then either mailed to an alternative {mailing list} or posted to an alternative newsgroup. Some {news readers} and {electronic mail} programs provide commands to "undigestify" a digest, i.e. to split it up into individual articles which may then be read and saved or discarded separately.
digital audio "multimedia, file format" A sequence of discrete samples taken from a continuous sound ({audio}) waveform. Tens of thousands of samples are taken each second. Each sample represents the intensity of the sound pressure wave at that instant. Apart from the sampling frequency, the other parameter is the digital encoding of each sample including the number of {bits} used. The encoding may be linear, logarithmic or {mu-law}. Digital audio is typically created by taking 16-bit samples over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (kHz), this means that CD quality sound requires 1.4 million bits of data per second. Digital telephone systems use lower sample rates. {Filename extension}: .au ({Unix}), .snd ({MS-DOS}, {MS Windows}). See also {Audio IFF}, {MP3}, {wav}. {Usenet} newsgroups: alt.binaries.sounds.*. A {FAQ} on audio file formats is available. {Part 1 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part1)}, {Part 2 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/AudioFormats.part2)}. (1999-07-30)
digital dashboard "software" A personalised desktop {portal} that focuses on {business intelligence} and {knowledge management}. {Microsoft}'s version has a launch screen including stock quotes, voice mail and e-mail messages, a calendar, a weather forecast, traffic information, access to news feeds, customer and sales data, and Internet conferences. A digital dashboard might previously have been thought of as an executive information system. In the future, digital dashboards could be available on {personal digital assistants} and mobile phones. ["Gates pitches 'digital dashboards' to bevy of top CEOs", Bob Trott, pub. InfoWorld Electric, 1999-05-19]. (1999-09-14)
Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) An architecture consisting of {standard} programming interfaces, conventions and {server} functionalities (e.g. naming, distributed file system, {remote procedure call}) for distributing applications transparently across networks of {heterogeneous} computers. DCE is promoted and controlled by the {Open Software Foundation} (OSF). {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.soft-sys.dce}. {(http://dstc.edu.au/AU/research_news/dce/dce.html)}. (1994-12-07)
distributed system A collection of (probably heterogeneous) automata whose distribution is transparent to the user so that the system appears as one local machine. This is in contrast to a network, where the user is aware that there are several machines, and their location, storage replication, load balancing and functionality is not transparent. Distributed systems usually use some kind of {client-server} organisation. Distributed systems are considered by some to be the "next wave" of computing. {Distributed Computing Environment} is the {Open Software Foundation}'s software architecture for distributed systems. {(http://dstc.edu.au/AU/research_news/dist-env.html)}. (1994-12-06)
distribution 1. "software" A software source tree packaged for distribution; but see {kit}. 2. "messaging" A vague term encompassing {mailing lists} and {Usenet} {newsgroups} (but not {BBS} {fora}); any topic-oriented message channel with multiple recipients. 3. "messaging" An information-space domain (usually loosely correlated with geography) to which propagation of a {Usenet} message is restricted; a much-underused feature. [{Jargon File}]
Domestic Communications Assistance Center "body" (DCAC) A joint effort between the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency. The DCAC is charged with developing customised hardware for intercepting {Internet} and wireless communications. The DCAC is under the control and budget of the FBI. {CNET article (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57439734-83/fbi-quietly-forms-secretive-net-surveillance-unit/)}. (2012-06-24)
DOOM "games" A simulated 3D moster-hunting action game for {IBM PCs}, created and published by {id Software}. The original press release was dated January 1993. A cut-down shareware version v1.0 was released on 10 December 1993 and again with some bug-fixes, as v1.4 in June 1994. DOOM is similar to Wolfenstein 3d (id Software, Apogee) but has better {texture mapping}; walls can be at any angle, of any thickness and have windows; lighting can fade into the distance or come from point sources; floors and ceilings can be of any height; many surfaces are animated; up to four players can play over a network or two by serial link; it has a high {frame rate} (comparable to TV on a {486}/33); DOOM isn't just a collection of connected closed rooms like Wolfenstein but sounds can travel anywhere and alert monsters of your approach. The shareware version is available from these sites: {Cactus (ftp://cactus.org/pub/IHHD/multi-player/)}, {Manitoba (ftp://ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca/pub/doom/)}, {UK (ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/games/id/)}, {South Africa (ftp://ftp.sun.ac.za/pub/msdos/games/id/)}, {UWP ftp (ftp://archive.uwp.edu/pub/msdos/games/id/)}, {UWP http (http://archive.uwp.edu/pub/msdos/games/id/)}, {Finland (ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/games/id)}, {Washington (ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/games/doom)}. A {FAQ} by Hank Leukart: {UWP (ftp://ftp.uwp.edu/pub/msdos/games/id/home-brew/doom)}, {Washington (ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/games/doomstuff)}. {FAQ on WWW (http://venom.st.hmc.edu/~tkelly/doomfaq/intro.html)}. {Other links (http://gamesdomain.co.uk/descript/doom.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:rec.games.computer.doom.announce}, {news:rec.games.computer.doom.editing}, {news:rec.games.computer.doom.help}, {news:rec.games.computer.doom.misc}, {news:rec.games.computer.doom.playing}, {news:alt.games.doom}, {news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action}, {news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.announce}, {news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.misc}. Mailing List: "listserv@cedar.univie.ac.at" ("sub DOOML" in the message body, no subject). Telephone: +44 (1222) 362 361 - the UK's first multi-player DOOM and games server. (1994-12-14)
dot file "operating system, convention" A {Unix} {application program} configuration file. On {Unix}, files named with a leading dot are not normally shown in directory listings. Many programs define one or more dot files in which startup or configuration information may be optionally recorded; a user can customise the program's behaviour by creating the appropriate file in the current or {home directory}. Dot files tend to proliferate - with every nontrivial application program defining at least one, a user's home directory can be filled with scores of dot files, without the user really being aware of it. Common examples are .profile, .cshrc, .login, .emacs, .mailrc, .forward, .newsrc, .plan, .rhosts, .sig, .xsession. See also {profile}, {rc file}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-07)
Douglas Engelbart "person" Douglas C. Engelbart, the inventor of the {mouse}. On 1968-12-09, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the {Augmentation Research Center} at {Stanford Research Institute} in Menlo Park, California, USA, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, {NLS}, they had been working on since 1962. The presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer {mouse}, {hypertext}, object addressing, dynamic file linking and shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video: {Hyperlinks (http://vodreal.stanford.edu/engel/08engel200.ram)}, {Mouse (http://vodreal.stanford.edu/engel/12engel200.ram)}, {Web-board (http://vodreal.stanford.edu/engel/23engel200.ram)}. {Biography (http://www2.bootstrap.org/dce-bio.htm)}. {Tia O'Brien, "The Mouse", Silicon Valley News (http://mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/special/engelbart/)}. {(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081898.htm)}. (2003-08-06)
drop on the floor To react to an error condition by silently discarding messages or other valuable data. "The gateway ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the floor." Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay sites that lose messages. See also {black hole}, {bit bucket}.
Dylperl A {dynamic linking} package for {Perl} by Roberto Salama "rs@fi.gs.com". Dynamically loaded functions are accessed as if they were user-defined functions. This code is based on Oliver Sharp's May 1993 article in Dr. Dobbs Journal ("Dynamic Linking under Berkeley Unix"). Posted to {news:comp.lang.perl} on 1993-08-11. (1993-08-11)
dynamitard ::: n. --> A political dynamiter. [A form found in some newspapers.]
echo 1. A {topic group} on {FidoNet}'s {echomail} system. Compare {newsgroup}. 2. A {Unix} command that just prints its arguments. [{Jargon File}]
editorial ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to an editor; written or sanctioned by an editor; as, editorial labors; editorial remarks. ::: n. --> A leading article in a newspaper or magazine; an editorial article; an article published as an expression of the views of the editor.
editor ::: n. --> One who edits; esp., a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper, etc., for publication.
edit ::: v. t. --> To superintend the publication of; to revise and prepare for publication; to select, correct, arrange, etc., the matter of, for publication; as, to edit a newspaper.
E-Forth "language" A {Forth} {interpreter} written in {Motorla 6809} assembly code by Lennart Benschop "lennart@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl". Posted to {Usenet} newsgroup {alt.sources} on 1993-11-03 with a {Motorola 6809} {assembler}. (1993-11-03)
electrocute ::: v. t. --> To execute or put to death by electricity. -- E*lec`tro*cu"tion, n. [Recent; Newspaper words]
elm "messaging" A {full-screen} {MUA} for {Unix}, {MS-DOS}, {MS Windows}, and {OS/2}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.mail.elm}. {FAQ (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/elm/FAQ/faq.html)}. (1996-03-20)
Emacs "text, tool" /ee'maks/ (Editing MACroS, or Extensible MACro System, GNU Emacs) A popular {screen editor} for {Unix} and most other {operating systems}. Emacs is distributed by the {Free Software Foundation} and was {Richard Stallman}'s first step in the {GNU} project. Emacs is extensible - it is easy to add new functions; customisable - you can rebind keys, and modify the behaviour of existing functions; self-documenting - there is extensive on-line, context-sensitive help; and has a real-time "what you see is what you get" display. Emacs is writen in {C} and the higher levels are programmed in {Emacs Lisp}. Emacs has an entire {Lisp} system inside it. It was originally written in {TECO} under {ITS} at the {MIT} {AI lab}. AI Memo 554 described it as "an advanced, self-documenting, customisable, extensible real-time display editor". It includes facilities to view directories, run compilation subprocesses and send and receive {electronic mail} and {Usenet} {news} ({GNUS}). {W3} is a {web browser}, the ange-ftp package provides transparent access to files on remote {FTP} {servers}. {Calc} is a calculator and {symbolic mathematics} package. There are "modes" provided to assist in editing most well-known programming languages. Most of these extra functions are configured to load automatically on first use, reducing start-up time and memory consumption. Many hackers (including {Denis Howe}) spend more than 80% of their {tube time} inside Emacs. GNU Emacs is available for {Unix}, {VMS}, {GNU}/{Linux}, {FreeBSD}, {NetBSD}, {OpenBSD}, {MS Windows}, {MS-DOS}, and other systems. Emacs has been re-implemented more than 30 times. Other variants include {GOSMACS}, CCA Emacs, UniPress Emacs, Montgomery Emacs, and {XEmacs}. {Jove}, {epsilon}, and {MicroEmacs} are limited look-alikes. Some Emacs versions running under {window managers} iconify as an overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the editor does not (yet) include. Indeed, some hackers find Emacs too {heavyweight} and {baroque} for their taste, and expand the name as "Escape Meta Alt Control Shift" to spoof its heavy reliance on keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}. Other spoof expansions include "Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping", "Eventually "malloc()'s All Computer Storage", and "Emacs Makes A Computer Slow" (see {recursive acronym}). See also {vi}. Version 21.1 added a redisplay engine with support for {proportional text}, images, {toolbars}, {tool tips}, toolkit scroll bars and a mouse-sensitive mode line. {FTP} from your nearest {GNU archive site}. E-mail: (bug reports only) "bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org". {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:gnu.emacs.help}, {news:gnu.emacs.bug}, {news:alt.religion.emacs}, {news:gnu.emacs.sources}, {news:gnu.emacs.announce}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-04)
embedded system "computer" Hardware and software which forms a component of some larger system and which is expected to function without human intervention. A typical embedded system consists of a single-board {microcomputer} with software in {ROM}, which starts running some special purpose {application program} as soon as it is turned on and will not stop until it is turned off (if ever). An embedded system may include some kind of {operating system} but often it will be simple enough to be written as a single program. It will not usually have any of the normal {peripherals} such as a keyboard, monitor, serial connections, mass storage, etc. or any kind of user interface software unless these are required by the overall system of which it is a part. Often it must provide {real-time} response. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.arch.embedded}. (1995-04-12)
emoticon "messaging" /ee-moh'ti-kon/ (Or "smiley") An {ASCII} {glyph} used to indicate an emotional state in text-only {electronic messaging} systems such as {chat}, {electronic mail}, {SMS} or {news}. Although originally intended mostly as jokes, emoticons are widely recognised if not expected; the lack of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause non-serious comments to be misinterpreted, resulting in offence, arguments and {flame wars}. Hundreds of emoticons have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include: :-) "smiley face" (for humour, laughter, friendliness, occasionally sarcasm) :-( "frowney face" (for sadness, anger, or upset) ;-) "half-smiley" (ha ha only serious); also known as "semi-smiley" or "winkey face". :-/ "wry face" These are more recognisable if you tilt your head to the left. The first two are by far the most frequently encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are also common. The acronym "{lol}" is also often used in the same context for the same effect (and is easier to type). The emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on the {CMU} {bboard} systems on 1982-09-19. He later wrote: "I had no idea that I was starting something that would soon pollute all the world's communication channels." {GLS} confirms that he remembers this original posting, which has subsequently been {retrieved from a backup (http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/BBoard_Contents.html)}. As with exclamation marks, overuse of the smiley is a mark of loserhood! More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that you've gone over the line. [{Jargon File}] (2010-05-16)
Envoy {Motorola}'s integrated personal wireless communicator. Envoy is a {personal digital assistant} which incorporates two-way wireless and wireline communication. It was announced on 7 March 1994 and released in the third quarter of 1994. It runs {Genral Magic}'s {Magic Cap} {operating system} and Telescript(TM) communications language on Motorola's {Dragon} chip set. This includes the highly integrated {Motorola 68349} processor and a special purpose {application specific integrated circuit} (ASIC) referred to as Astro. This chip set was designed specifically for {Magic Cap} and {Telescript}. A user can write on the Envoy communicator with the accompanying stylus or a finger, to type and select or move objects on its screen. An on-screen keyboard can be used to input information, draw or write personal notations, or send handwritten messages and faxes. Envoy can send a wireless message to another Envoy, {PC} or fax; broadcast a message to a group, with each member of that group receiving the message in their preferred format; gather information based on your requirements; schedule a meeting and automatically invite attendees; screen, route and organise messages; send a business card to another Envoy across a conference room table; access real-time scheduling and pricing information for US airline flights, then order tickets via fax or {electronic mail}; keep track of contacts through an address book; receive daily news summaries and stock information; capture, organize and review business and personal expenses on-the-go; gather, edit and analyze information in spreadsheets and graphs compatible with {Lotus 1-2-3} and {Excel}; shop in an electronic mall. {(http://motorola.com/MIMS/WDG/Technology/Envoy/)}. [Was it released in Q3 '94?] (1995-01-18)
Ethernet "networking" A {local area network} first described by Metcalfe & Boggs of {Xerox PARC} in 1976. Specified by {DEC}, {Intel} and {XEROX} (DIX) as {IEEE 802.3} and now recognised as the industry standard. Data is broken into {packets} and each one is transmitted using the {CSMA/CD} {algorithm} until it arrives at the destination without colliding with any other packet. The first {contention slot} after a transmission is reserved for an {acknowledge} packet. A {node} is either transmitting or receiving at any instant. The {bandwidth} is about 10 Mbit/s. Disk-Ethernet-Disk transfer rate with {TCP/IP} is typically 30 kilobyte per second. Version 2 specifies that {collision} detect of the transceiver must be activated during the {inter-packet gap} and that when transmission finishes, the differential transmit lines are driven to 0V (half step). It also specifies some {network management} functions such as reporting {collisions}, retries and {deferrals}. Ethernet cables are classified as "XbaseY", e.g. 10base5, where X is the data rate in {Mbps}, "base" means "{baseband}" (as opposed to {radio frequency}) and Y is the category of cabling. The original cable was {10base5} ("full spec"), others are {10base2} ("thinnet") and {10baseT} ("twisted pair") which is now (1998) very common. {100baseT} ("{Fast Ethernet}") is also increasingly common. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.ethernet}. {(http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/ethernet/ethernet-home.html)}. (1997-04-16)
EUnet Ltd. EUnet Ltd. is jointly owned by the EUnet national service providers and {EurOpen}, the European Forum for Open Systems. EUnet services include {electronic mail} ({Internet}-style {RFC 822} as well as {X.400}), {InterEUnet} ({Internet Protocol}) connectivity and services such as {remote login} and {file transfer} over {leased lines}, {dial-up lines}, {X.25} and {Integrated Services Digital Network}. EUnet is the primary European region provider of {network news} and the top-level European distributor of {Internet Talk Radio}. EUnet operates its own infrastructure across Europe and is the largest European component of the {Internet}. EUnet is a member of {Commercial Internet Exchange} and {Ebone93}, a research network consortium. E-mail: "info@EU.net". {(http://eu.net/)}.
evangel ::: good news or tidings.
evangel ::: n. --> Good news; announcement of glad tidings; especially, the gospel, or a gospel.
evolutionary computation Computer-based problem solving systems that use computational models of evolutionary processes as the key elements in design and implementation. A number of evolutionary computational models have been proposed, including {evolutionary algorithms}, {genetic algorithms}, the {evolution strategy}, {evolutionary programming}, and {artificial life}. {The Hitchhiker's Guide to Evolutionary Computation (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/comp/ai/genetic/top.html)}. {Bibliography (http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/Ai/EC-ref.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.ai.genetic}. (1995-03-02)
exhilarate ::: v. t. --> To make merry or jolly; to enliven; to animate; to gladden greatly; to cheer; as, good news exhilarates the mind; wine exhilarates a man. ::: v. i. --> To become joyous.
eXperimental LISP "language" (xlisp) An experimental programming language combining a subset of {Common Lisp} with an {object-oriented} extension capability (Class and Object types). It was implemented by David Micheal Betz at Apple to allow experimentation with {object-oriented programming} on small computers. The {C} {source code} has been ported to {Unix}, {Microsoft Windows}, {Macintosh}, {Amiga}, {Atari}, and {MS-DOS}. Version 2.1 of the {interpreter}, by Tom Almy is closer to Common Lisp. {(ftp://wasp.eng.ufl.edu/)}, {(ftp://cs.orst.edu/)}, {(ftp://glia.biostr.washington.edu/)}. E-mail: Tom Almy "toma@sail.labs.tek.com". {Microsoft Windows version (ftp://ftp.cica.indiana.edu/util/wxlslib.zip)}. {Macintosh version (ftp://netcom.com/pub/bskendig/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.lisp.x}. (2000-08-14)
feuilleton ::: n. --> A part of a French newspaper (usually the bottom of the page), devoted to light literature, criticism, etc.; also, the article or tale itself, thus printed.
Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) A 100 Mbit/s {ANSI} {standard} {local area network} architecture, defined in X3T9.5. The underlying medium is {optical fibre} (though it can be copper cable, in which case it may be called {CDDI}) and the topology is a {dual-attached}, counter-rotating {token ring}. FDDI rings are normally constructed in the form of a "dual ring of trees". A small number of devices, typically infrastructure devices such as {routers} and {concentrators} rather than {host} computers, are connected to both rings - these are referred to as "{dual-attached}". Host computers are then connected as {single-attached} devices to the {routers} or {concentrators}. The dual ring in its most degenerate form is simply collapsed into a single device. In any case, the whole dual ring is typically contained within a computer room. This network topology is required because the dual ring actually passes through each connected device and requires each such device to remain continuously operational (the standard actually allows for optical bypasses but these are considered to be unreliable and error-prone). Devices such as {workstations} and {minicomputers} that may not be under the control of the {network managers} are not suitable for connection to the dual ring. As an alternative to a dual-attached connection, the same degree of resilience is available to a {workstation} through a {dual-homed} connection which is made simultaneously to two separate devices in the same FDDI ring. One of the connections becomes active while the other one is automatically blocked. If the first connection fails, the backup link takes over with no perceptible delay. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.fddi}. (1994-12-13)
Fidonews "messaging, history" The weekly official on-line newsletter of {FidoNet}, also known as "'Snooz". As the editorial policy of Fidonews was "anything that arrives, we print", there were often large articles completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend to elicit {flamage} in subsequent issues. [{Jargon File}] (2014-11-08)
field-programmable gate array "hardware" (FPGA) A {gate array} where the logic network can be programmed into the device after its manufacture. An FPGA consists of an array of logic elements, either gates or lookup table {RAMs}, {flip-flops} and programmable interconnect wiring. Most FPGAs are reprogrammable, since their logic functions and interconnect are defined by RAM cells. The {Xilinx} LCA, {Altera} FLEX and {AT&T} ORCA devices are examples. Others can only be programmed once, by closing "antifuses". These retain their programming permanently. The {Actel} FPGAs are the leading example of such devices. Atmel FPGAs are currently (July 1997) the only ones in which part of the array can be reprogrammed while other parts are active. As of 1994, FPGAs have logic capacity up to 10K to 20K 2-input-NAND-equivalent gates, up to about 200 I/O pins and can run at {clock rates} of 50 MHz or more. FPGA designs must be prepared using {CAD} software tools, usually provided by the chip vendor, to do technology mapping, partitioning and placement, routing, and binary output. The resulting binary can be programmed into a {ROM} connected to the FPGA or {downloaded} to the FPGA from a connected computer. In addition to ordinary logic applications, FPGAs have enabled the development of {logic emulators}. There is also research on using FPGAs as computing devices, taking direct advantage of their reconfigurability into problem-specific hardware processors. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.arch.fpga}. (1997-07-11)
Fight-o-net "messaging" A distortion of {FidoNet}, often applied after a flurry of {flamage} in a particular {echo}, especially the SYSOP echo or {Fidonews}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-11-04)
filk /filk/ [SF fandom, where a typo for "folk" was adopted as a new word] A popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read, and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a flourishing subgenre of these called "computer filks", written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated technical humour. See {double bucky} for an example. Compare {grilf}, {hing} and {newsfroup}. [{Jargon File}]
film at 11 "jargon" (MIT, in parody of US TV newscasters) 1. Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering. "{ITS} crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11." 2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional information will be available at some future time, *without* the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the referenced event. For example, "The mail file server died this morning; we found garbage all over the root directory. Film at 11." would indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the people working on it have no additional information about it as yet; use of the phrase in this way suggests gently that the problem is liable to be fixed more quickly if the people doing the fixing can spend time doing the fixing rather than responding to questions, the answers to which will appear on the normal "11:00 news", if people will just be patient. [{Jargon File}] (1998-03-24)
firefighting 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires." 2. The act of throwing lots of manpower and late nights at a project, especially to get it out before deadline. See also {gang bang}, {Mongolian Hordes technique}; however, the term "firefighting" connotes that the effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features. (1994-12-01)
flame "messaging" To rant, to speak or write incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude or with hostility toward a particular person or group of people. "Flame" is used as a verb ("Don't flame me for this, but..."), a flame is a single flaming message, and "flamage" /flay'm*j/ the content. Flamage may occur in any medium (e.g. spoken, {electronic mail}, {Usenet} news, {web}). Sometimes a flame will be delimited in text by marks such as ""flame on"..."flame off"". The term was probably independently invented at several different places. Mark L. Levinson says, "When I joined the Harvard student radio station (WHRB) in 1966, the terms flame and flamer were already well established there to refer to impolite ranting and to those who performed it. Communication among the students who worked at the station was by means of what today you might call a paper-based Usenet group. Everyone wrote comments to one another in a large ledger. Documentary evidence for the early use of flame/flamer is probably still there for anyone fanatical enough to research it." It is reported that "flaming" was in use to mean something like "interminably drawn-out semi-serious discussions" (late-night bull sessions) at Carleton College during 1968-1971. {Usenetter} Marc Ramsey, who was at {WPI} from 1972 to 1976, says: "I am 99% certain that the use of "flame" originated at WPI. Those who made a nuisance of themselves insisting that they needed to use a {TTY} for "real work" came to be known as "flaming asshole lusers". Other particularly annoying people became "flaming asshole ravers", which shortened to "flaming ravers", and ultimately "flamers". I remember someone picking up on the Human Torch pun, but I don't think "flame on/off" was ever much used at WPI." See also {asbestos}. It is possible that the hackish sense of "flame" is much older than that. The poet Chaucer was also what passed for a wizard hacker in his time; he wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, the most advanced computing device of the day. In Chaucer's "Troilus and Cressida", Cressida laments her inability to grasp the proof of a particular mathematical theorem; her uncle Pandarus then observes that it's called "the fleminge of wrecches." This phrase seems to have been intended in context as "that which puts the wretches to flight" but was probably just as ambiguous in Middle English as "the flaming of wretches" would be today. One suspects that Chaucer would feel right at home on {Usenet}. [{Jargon File}] (2001-03-11)
flatland ::: 1. When the interior quadrants (the Left-Hand path) are reduced to the exterior quadrants (the Right-Hand path). For example, scientific materialism. The dissociation of the value spheres Art, Morals, and Science, followed by the colonization of Art and Morals by Science. The “bad news” of Modernity. See gross reductionism and subtle reductionism. 2. Using any one level as the only level in existence.
fnord 1. "convention" A word used in {electronic mail} and {news} messages to tag utterances as surrealist mind-play or humour, especially in connection with {Discordianism} and elaborate conspiracy theories. "I heard that David Koresh is sharing an apartment in Argentina with Hitler. (Fnord.)" "Where can I fnord get the Principia Discordia from?" 2. "programming" A {metasyntactic variable}, commonly used by hackers with ties to {Discordianism} or the {Church of the SubGenius}. The word "fnord" was invented in the "Illuminatus!" trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-28)
followup On {Usenet}, a {posting} generated in response to another posting (as opposed to a {reply}, which goes by e-mail rather than being broadcast). Followups include the ID of the {parent message} in their headers; smart news-readers can use this information to present {Usenet} news in "conversation" sequence rather than order-of-arrival. See {thread}. [{Jargon File}]
forum "messaging" (Plural "fora" or "forums") Any discussion group accessible through a dial-in {BBS} (e.g. {GEnie}, {CI$}), a {mailing list}, or a {Usenet} {newsgroup} (see {network, the}). A forum functions much like a {bulletin board}; users submit {postings} for all to read and discussion ensues. Contrast real-time {chat} or point-to-point personal {e-mail}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-01-18)
fractal "mathematics, graphics" A fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a smaller copy of the whole. Fractals are generally self-similar (bits look like the whole) and independent of scale (they look similar, no matter how close you zoom in). Many mathematical structures are fractals; e.g. {Sierpinski triangle}, {Koch snowflake}, {Peano curve}, {Mandelbrot set} and {Lorenz attractor}. Fractals also describe many real-world objects that do not have simple geometric shapes, such as clouds, mountains, turbulence, and coastlines. {Benoit Mandelbrot}, the discoverer of the {Mandelbrot set}, coined the term "fractal" in 1975 from the Latin fractus or "to break". He defines a fractal as a set for which the {Hausdorff Besicovich dimension} strictly exceeds the {topological dimension}. However, he is not satisfied with this definition as it excludes sets one would consider fractals. {sci.fractals FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/usenet-by-group/sci.fractals/)}. See also {fractal compression}, {fractal dimension}, {Iterated Function System}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:sci.fractals}, {news:alt.binaries.pictures.fractals}, {news:comp.graphics}. ["The Fractal Geometry of Nature", Benoit Mandelbrot]. [Are there non-self-similar fractals?] (1997-07-02)
frequently asked question "convention" (FAQ, or rarely FAQL, FAQ list) A document provided for many {Usenet} {newsgroups} (and, more recently, {web} services) which attempts to answer questions which new readers often ask. These are maintained by volunteers and posted regularly to the newsgroup. You should always consult the FAQ list for a group before posting to it in case your question or point is common knowledge. The collection of all FAQ lists is one of the most precious and remarkable resources on the {Internet}. It contains a huge wealth of up-to-date expert knowledge on many subjects of common interest. Accuracy of the information is greatly assisted by its frequent exposure to criticism by an interested, and occasionally well-informed, audience (the readers of the relevant newsgroup). The main {FTP archive} for FAQs is on a computer called {RTFM} at {MIT}, where they can be accessed either {by group (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/)} or {by hierarchy (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/)}. There is another archive at {Imperial College (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/)}, London, UK and a {web} archive in {Ohio (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html)}, USA. The FAQs are also posted to {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.answers}, {news:news.answers} and {news:alt.answers}. (1997-12-08)
frink /frink/ The unknown ur-verb, fill in your own meaning. Found especially on the {Usenet} newsgroup {news:alt.fan.lemurs}, where it is said that the lemurs know what "frink" means, but they aren't telling. Compare {gorets}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-16)
fsck 1. "operating system" file system check. The {Unix} program that checks a {file system} for internal consistency and bad blocks etc. and can repair some faults. fsck is often used after a {crash} when the file system has been left in an inconsistent state, e.g. due to incomplete flushing of {buffers}. (1998-03-06) 2. "jargon" Used on {Usenet} {newsgroup} alt.sysadmin.recovery as substitute for "fuck" and became more main-stream after the {Communications Decency Act}. (1998-03-06)
furrfu "jargon" Written-only {rot13} "Sheesh!". "furrfu" evolved in mid-1992 as a response to postings repeating urban myths on {newsgroup} {news:alt.folklore.urban}, after some posters complained that "Sheesh!" as a response to {newbies} was being overused. (1995-10-25)
fuzzy logic A superset of {Boolean logic} dealing with the concept of partial truth -- {truth values} between "completely true" and "completely false". It was introduced by Dr. Lotfi Zadeh of {UCB} in the 1960's as a means to model the uncertainty of {natural language}. Any specific theory may be generalised from a discrete (or "crisp") form to a continuous (fuzzy) form, e.g. "fuzzy calculus", "fuzzy differential equations" etc. Fuzzy logic replaces Boolean truth values with degrees of truth which are very similar to probabilities except that they need not sum to one. Instead of an assertion pred(X), meaning that X definitely has the property associated with {predicate} "pred", we have a truth function truth(pred(X)) which gives the degree of truth that X has that property. We can combine such values using the standard definitions of fuzzy logic: truth(not x) = 1.0 - truth(x) truth(x and y) = minimum (truth(x), truth(y)) truth(x or y) = maximum (truth(x), truth(y)) (There are other possible definitions for "and" and "or", e.g. using sum and product). If truth values are restricted to 0 and 1 then these functions behave just like their Boolean counterparts. This is known as the "extension principle". Just as a Boolean predicate asserts that its argument definitely belongs to some subset of all objects, a fuzzy predicate gives the degree of truth with which its argument belongs to a {fuzzy subset}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.ai.fuzzy}. E-mail servers: "fuzzynet@aptronix.com", "rnalib@its.bldrdoc.gov", "fuzzy-server@til.com". {(ftp://ftp.hiof.no/pub/Fuzzy)}, {(ftp://ntia.its.bldrdoc.gov/pub/fuzzy)}. {FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/fuzzy-logic)}. {James Brule, "Fuzzy systems - a tutorial", 1985 (http://life.anu.edu.au/complex_systems/fuzzy.html)}. {STB Software Catalog (http://krakatoa.jsc.nasa.gov/stb/catalog.html)}, includes a few fuzzy tools. [H.J. Zimmerman, "Fuzzy Sets, Decision Making and Expert Systems", Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1987]. ["Fuzzy Logic, State of the Art", Ed. R. Lowen, Marc Roubens, Theory and Decision Library, D: System theory, Knowledge Engineering and Problem Solving 12, Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1993, ISBN 0-7923-2324-6]. (1995-02-21)
gazetteer ::: n. --> A writer of news, or an officer appointed to publish news by authority.
A newspaper; a gazette.
A geographical dictionary; a book giving the names and descriptions, etc., of many places.
An alphabetical descriptive list of anything.
gazette ::: n. --> A newspaper; a printed sheet published periodically; esp., the official journal published by the British government, and containing legal and state notices. ::: v. t. --> To announce or publish in a gazette; to announce officially, as an appointment, or a case of bankruptcy.
GC 1. {garbage collection}. 2. A storage allocator with {garbage collection} by Hans-J. Boehm and Alan J. Demers. Gc is a plug-in replacement for {C}'s {malloc}. Since the collector does not require {pointers} to be tagged, it does not attempt to ensure that all inaccessible storage is reclaimed. Version 3.4 has been ported to {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Vax}/{BSD}, {Ultrix}, {Intel 80386}/{Unix}, {SGI}, {Alpha}/{OSF/1}, {Sequent} (single threaded), {Encore} (single threaded), {RS/600}, {HP-UX}, {Sony News}, {A/UX}, {Amiga}, {NeXT}. {(ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/russell/gc3.4.tar.Z)}. (2000-04-19)
GE Information Services "networking, company" One of the leading on-line services, started on 1st October 1985, providing subscribers with hundreds of special interest areas, computer hardware and software support, award-winning multi-player games, the most software files in the industry (over 200 000), worldwide news, sports updates, business news, investment strategies, and {Internet} {electronic mail} and fax (GE Mail). Interactive conversations (Chat Lines) and {bulletin boards} (Round Tables) with associated software archives are also provided. GEnie databases (through the ARTIST gateway) allow users to search the full text of thousands of publications, including Dun & Bradstreet Company Profiles; a GEnie NewsStand with more than 900 newspapers, magazines, and newsletters; a Reference Center with information ranging from Agriculture to World History; the latest in medical information from MEDLINE; and patent and trademark registrations. {(http://genie.com/)}. {Shopping 2000 (http://shopping2000.com/shopping2000/genie/)}. Telephone: +1 (800) 638 9636. TDD: +1 (800) 238 9172. E-mail: "info@genie.geis.com". [Connection with: GE Information Services, Inc., a division of General Electric Company, Headquarters: Rockville, Maryland, USA?] (1995-04-13)
GEOS A small windowing, {microkernel} (less than 64 kbytes long) operating system written in heavily {bum}med {assembly language} for {MS-DOS} computers. It {multitasks} rather nicely on a 6 Mhz {Intel 80286} with at least 512K memory. It was adapted to {PDAs} by adding pen recognition, which doesn't work very well. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.geos}. (1995-01-21)
German "human language" \j*r'mn\ A human language written (in latin alphabet) and spoken in Germany, Austria and parts of Switzerland. German writing normally uses four non-{ASCII} characters: "ä", "ö" and "ü" have "umlauts" (two dots over the top) and "ß" is a double-S ("scharfes S") which looks like the Greek letter beta (except in capitalised words where it should be written "SS"). These can be written in ASCII in several ways, the most common are ae, oe ue AE OE UE ss or sz and the {TeX} versions "a "o "u "A "O "U "s. See also {ABEND}, {blinkenlights}, {DAU}, {DIN}, {gedanken}, {GMD}, {kluge}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:soc.culture.german}. {(ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/soc.answers/german-faq)}, {(ftp://alice.fmi.uni-passau.de/pub/dictionaries/german.dat.Z)}. (1995-03-31)
Get a real computer! "jargon" A typical {hacker} response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a {toy} system or {bitty box}. The threshold for "real computer" rises with time. As of mid-1993 it meant {multi-tasking}, with a {hard disk}, and an {address space} bigger than 16 {megabytes}. At this time, according to {GLS}, computers with character-only displays were verging on "unreal". In 2001, a real computer has a one {gigahertz} processor, 128 MB of {RAM}, 20 GB of hard disk, and runs {Linux}. [{Jargon File}] (2001-06-22)
Ghostscript "graphics, tool" The {GNU} {interpreter} for {PostScript} and {PDF}, with {previewers} for serval systems and many {fonts}. Ghostscript was originally written by L. Peter Deutsch "ghost@aladdin.com" of {Aladdin Enterprises}. The first public release was v1.0 on 1988-08-11. {GNU Home (http://gnu.org/software/ghostscript/)}. {News & community (http://ghostscript.com/)}. (2003-09-24)
GIP 1. General Interpretive Programme. A 1956 interpreted language for the {English Electric} {DEUCE}, with {array} operations and an extensive library of numerical methods. ["Interpretive and Brick Schemes, with Special Reference to Matrix Operations", English Electric COmpany, DEUCE News No. 10 (1956)]. (1994-11-02) 2. An erroneous singular of {GIPS}.
Global Network Navigator (GNN) A collection of free services provided by {O'Reilly & Associates}. The Whole Internet Catalog describes the most useful Net resources and services with live links to those resources. The GNN Business Pages list companies on the Internet. The Internet Help Desk provides help in starting {Internet}q exploration. NetNews is a weekly publication that reports on the news of the {Internet}, with weekly articles on Internet trends and special events, sports, weather, and comics. There are also pages aobut travel and personal finance. {Home page (http://gnn.com/)}. E-mail: "support@gnn.com". Telephone: (800) 998 9938 (USA), +1 (707) 829 0515 (outside USA). (1995-01-10)
Gnuplot "tool" A command-driven interactive graphing program. Gnuplot can plot two-dimensional functions and data points in many different styles (points, lines, error bars); and three-dimensional data points and surfaces in many different styles (contour plot, mesh). It supports {complex} arithmetic and user-defined functions and can label title, axes, and data points. It can output to several different graphics file formats and devices. Command line editing and history are supported and there is extensive on-line help. Gnuplot is {copyright}ed, but freely distributable. It was written by Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley, Russell Lang, Dave Kotz, John Campbell, Gershon Elber, Alexander Woo and many others. Despite its name, gnuplot is not related to the {GNU} project or the {FSF} in any but the most peripheral sense. It was designed completely independently and is not covered by the {General Public License}. However, the {FSF} has decided to distribute gnuplot as part of the {GNU} system, because it is useful, redistributable software. Gnuplot is available for: {Unix} ({X11} and {NEXTSTEP}), {VAX}/{VMS}, {OS/2}, {MS-DOS}, {Amiga}, {MS-Windows}, {OS-9}/68k, {Atari ST} and {Macintosh}. E-mail: "info-gnuplot@dartmouth.edu". {FAQ} - {Germany (http://fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/~ig25/gnuplot-faq/)}, {UK (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.graphics.gnuplot)}, {USA (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/graphics/gnuplot-faq/faq.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics.gnuplot}. (1995-05-04)
GNUStep "operating system" A {GNU} implementation of {OpenStep}. Work has started on an implementation using an existing library written in {Objective-C}. Much work remains to be done to bring this library close to the OpenStep specifications. Adam Fedor is head of the project. {(http://gnustep.org/)}. [Current status? Newsgroup?] (1999-11-25)
GNUS "tool, networking" GNU news. A {GNU} {Emacs} subsystem for reading and sending {Usenet} {news}, written by Masanobu Umeda "umerin@mse.kyutech.ac.jp". You can use GNUS to browse through news groups, look at summaries of articles in a specific group, and read articles of interest. You can respond to authors or write articles or replies to all the readers of a news group. GNUS can be configured to use the {NNTP} {protocol} to get news from a remove {server} or it can read it from local news {spool} files. {Usenet} newsgorup: {news:gnu.emacs.gnus}. (1995-05-04)
Go "games, application" A thinking game with an oriental origin estimated to be around 4000 years old. Nowadays, the game is played by millions of people in (most notably) China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. In the Western world the game is practised by a yearly increasing number of players. On the {Internet} Go players meet, play and talk 24 hours/day on the {Internet Go Server} (IGS). {(http://cwi.nl/~jansteen/go/go.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.go}. (1995-03-17)
Good Thing "convention" (From the 1930 Sellar and Yeatman parody "1066 And All That") Often capitalised; always pronounced as if capitalised. 1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position to notice: "The {Trailblazer}'s 19.2 K{baud} {PEP} mode with {on-the-fly} {Lempel-Ziv compression} is a Good Thing for sites relaying {netnews}". 2. Something that can't possibly have any ill side-effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the {self-modifying code} from that {shared library} would be a Good Thing". 3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "{Yacc} is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has drastically reduced a programmer's work load. Opposite: {Bad Thing}, compare {big win}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-05-07)
Gopher object type A character specifying how to display a {Gopher} document. Current types are: 0 document 1 menu 2 CSO phone book entity 3 error 4 binhex binary 5 DOS binary (deprecated) 6 UU binary (deprecated) 7 index search 8 telnet connection 9 binary + duplicate server for previous object I image M MIME document T tn3270 based telnet connection c cal g GIF image h HTML s binary u {Usenet} newsgroup (1999-10-14)
gorets /gor'ets/ The unknown ur-noun, fill in your own meaning. Found especially on the {Usenet} newsgroup alt.gorets, which seems to be a running contest to redefine the word by implication in the funniest and most peculiar way, with the understanding that no definition is ever final. [A correspondent from the Former Soviet Union informs me that "gorets" is Russian for "mountain dweller" - ESR] Compare {frink}. [{Jargon File}]
GOSMACS /goz'maks/ Gosling Emacs. The first {Emacs} implementation in {C}, predating but now largely eclipsed by {GNU} {Emacs}. Originally {freeware}; a commercial version is now modestly popular as {UniPress Emacs}. The author (James Gosling) went on to invent {NeWS}. [{Jargon File}]
gospel ::: v. --> Glad tidings; especially, the good news concerning Christ, the Kingdom of God, and salvation.
One of the four narratives of the life and death of Jesus Christ, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
A selection from one of the gospels, for use in a religious service; as, the gospel for the day.
Any system of religious doctrine; sometimes, any system of political doctrine or social philosophy; as, this political gospel.
gossip ::: n. --> A sponsor; a godfather or a godmother.
A friend or comrade; a companion; a familiar and customary acquaintance.
One who runs house to house, tattling and telling news; an idle tattler.
The tattle of a gossip; groundless rumor. ::: v. t.
Great Renaming "history" The {flag day} in 1986 on which all of the non-local groups on the {Usenet} had their names changed from the net.- format to the current multiple-hierarchies scheme. Used especially in discussing the history of newsgroup names. "The oldest sources group is comp.sources.misc; before the Great Renaming, it was net.sources." {FAQ (http://vrx.net/usenet/history/rename.html)}. [{Jargon File}] (2000-07-14)
grilf Girl-friend. Like {newsfroup} and {filk}, a typo incarnated as a new word. Seems to have originated sometime in 1992. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-31)
header 1. The portion of a {packet}, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses, error checking and other fields. 2. The part of an {electronic mail} message or {news} article that precedes the body of a message and contains, among other things, the sender's name and e-mail address and the date and time the message was sent.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Born at Stuttgart in 1770 and died at Berlin in 1831. He studied theology, philosophy and the classics at Tübingen, 1788-93, occupied the conventional position of tutor in Switzerland and Frankfort on the Main, 1794-1800, and went to Jena as Privatdocent in philosophy in 1801. He was promoted to a professorship at Jena in 1805, but was driven from the city the next year by the incursion of the French under Napoleon. He then went to Bamberg, where he remained two years as editor of a newspaper. The next eight years he spent as director of the Gymnasium at Nürnberg. In 1816 he accepted a professorship of philosophy at Heidelberg, from which position he was called two years later to succeed Fichte at the University of Berlin. While at Jena, he co-operated with Schelling in editing the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie, to which he contributed many articles. His more important volumes were published as follows: Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807; Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812-16; Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, 1817; Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1820. Shortly after his death his lectures on the philosophy of religion, the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, and aesthetics were published from the collated lecture-notes of his students. His collected works in nineteen volumes were published 1832-40 by a group of his students. -- G.W.C.
Hermes "language" An experimental, very high level, integrated language and system from the {IBM} {Watson Research Centre}, produced in June 1990. It is designed for implementation of large systems and distributed applications, as well as for general-purpose programming. It is an {imperative language}, {strongly typed} and is a {process-oriented} successor to {NIL}. Hermes hides distribution and heterogeneity from the programmer. The programmer sees a single {abstract machine} containing processes that communicate using calls or sends. The {compiler}, not the programmer, deals with the complexity of data structure layout, local and remote communication, and interaction with the {operating system}. As a result, Hermes programs are portable and easy to write. Because the programming paradigm is simple and high level, there are many opportunities for optimisation which are not present in languages which give the programmer more direct control over the machine. Hermes features {threads}, {relational tables}Hermes is, {typestate} checking, {capability}-based access and {dynamic configuration}. Version 0.8alpha patchlevel 01 runs on {RS/6000}, {Sun-4}, {NeXT}, {IBM-RT}/{BSD4.3} and includes a {bytecode compiler}, a bytecode-"C compiler and {run-time support}. {0.7alpha for Unix (ftp://software.watson.ibm.com/pub/hermes)}. E-mail: "hermes-request@watson.ibm.com", Andy Lowry "lowry@watson.ibm.com". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.hermes}. ["Hermes: A Language for Distributed Computing". Strom, Bacon, Goldberg, Lowry, Yellin, Yemini. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1991. ISBN: O-13-389537-8]. (1992-03-22)
hing ({IRC}) Fortuitous typo for "hint", now in wide intentional use among players of {initgame}. Compare {newsfroup}, {filk}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-07)
history 1. "history" {Virginia Tech history of computing (http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/index.html)}. {IT Rentals computing timeline (http://www.itrentals.com/historyofcomputing/)}. 2. "operating system" A record of previous user inputs (e.g. to a {command interpreter}) which can be re-entered without re-typing them. The major improvement of the {C shell} (csh) over the {Bourne shell} (sh) was the addition of a command history. This was still inferior to the history mechanism on {VMS} which allowed you to recall previous commands as the current input line. You could then edit the command using cursor motion, insert and delete. These sort of history editing facilities are available under {tcsh} and {GNU Emacs}. 3. The history of the world was once discussed in {Usenet} newsgroups {news:soc.history} and {news:alt.history}. (2013-08-04)
hlp "filename extension" A {Microsoft Windows} {filename extension} for {hypertext} {WinHelp} files. These are in a {proprietary} format, and are compiled from {source files} written in a dialect of {RTF}. See also {gid}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.winhelp}. (1997-01-30)
hostname 1. (Or "sitename"). The unique name by which a computer is known on a {network}, used to identify it in {electronic mail}, {Usenet} {news}, or other forms of electronic information interchange. On the {Internet} the hostname is an {ASCII} string, e.g. "foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk" which, consists of a local part (foldoc) and a {domain} name (doc.ic.ac.uk). The hostname is translated into an {Internet address} either via the {hosts file}, {NIS} or by the {Domain Name System} (DNS) or {resolver}. It is possible for one computer to have several hostnames (aliases) though one is designated as its {canonical} name. It is often possible to guess a hostname for a particular institution. This is useful if you want to know if they operate network services like {anonymous FTP}, {World-Wide Web} or {finger}. First try the institution's name or obvious abbreviations thereof, with the appropriate {domain} appended, e.g. "mit.edu". If this fails, prepend "ftp." or "www." as appropriate, e.g. "www.data-io.com". You can use the {ping} command as a quick way to test whether a hostname is valid. The folklore interest of hostnames stems from the creativity and humour they often display. Interpreting a sitename is not unlike interpreting a vanity licence 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 favour of punchy, humorous, and clever coinages (except that it is considered appropriate for the official public gateway machine of an organisation to bear the organisation'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 is Harris's Lament: "All the good ones are taken!" See also {network address}. 2. {Berkeley} {Unix} command to set and get the application level name used by the host. {Unix manual page}: hostname(1). (1995-02-16)
Hunt the Wumpus "games, history" (Or "Wumpus") /wuhm'p*s/ A famous fantasy computer game, created by {Gregory Yob} in about 1973. Hunt the Wumpus appeared in Creative Computing, Vol 1, No 5, Sep - Oct 1975, where Yob says he had come up with the game two years previously, after seeing the grid-based games Hurkle, Snark and Mugwump at {People's Computing Company} (PCC). He later delivered Wumpus to PCC who published it in their newsletter. ESR says he saw a version including termites running on the {Dartmouth Time-Sharing System} in 1972-3. Magnus Olsson, in his 1992-07-07 {USENET} article "9207071854.AA21847@thep.lu.se", posted the {BASIC} {source code} of what he believed was pretty much the version that was published in 1973 in David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games", by {Digital Equipment Corporation}. The wumpus lived somewhere in a cave with the topology of an dodecahedron's edge/vertex graph (later versions supported other topologies, including an icosahedron and M"obius strip). The player started somewhere at random in the cave with five "crooked arrows"; these could be shot through up to three connected rooms, and would kill the wumpus on a hit (later versions introduced the wounded wumpus, which got very angry). Unfortunately for players, the movement necessary to map the maze was made hazardous not merely by the wumpus (which would eat you if you stepped on him) but also by bottomless pits and colonies of super bats that would pick you up and drop you at a random location (later versions added "anaerobic termites" that ate arrows, bat migrations and earthquakes that randomly changed pit locations). This game appears to have been the first to use a non-random graph-structured map (as opposed to a rectangular grid like the even older Star Trek games). In this respect, as in the dungeon-like setting and its terse, amusing messages, it prefigured {ADVENT} and {Zork} and was directly ancestral to both (Zork acknowledged this heritage by including a super-bat colony). There have been many {ports} including one distributed with {SunOS}, a {freeware} one for the {Macintosh} and a {C} emulation by {ESR}. [Does "101 Basic Computer Games" give any history?] (2004-10-04)
HyperCard A software package by Bill Atkinson for storage and retrieval of information on the {Macintosh}. It can handle {images} and is designed for {browsing}. The powerful customisable interactive {user interface} allows new {applications} to be easily constructed by manipulating objects on the screen, often without conventional programming, though the language {HyperTalk} can be used for more complex tasks. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.mac.hypercard}. ["Apple Macintosh HyperCard User Guide", Apple Computer 1987]. (1995-02-10)
HyperNeWS A Hypertext system from the Turing Institute Glasgow, based on {NeWS}.
inews "messaging, application" A {Unix} program for posting {Usenet} news articles, written by Rich $alz "rsalz@uunet.uu.net" for {InterNetNews}. inews reads an article (perhaps with headers) from a file or {standard}, adds some {headers} and possibly a {signature}, and, if the article passes some consistency checks (too much quoting, non-existent {newsgroup}) then inews sends the article to the local news {server} for distribution. If an unapproved posting is made to a {moderated} newsgroup, inews will try to send the article to the moderator (specified in a configuration file) by {electronic mail}. Version: 1.25, dated 1993/03/18. {Unix manual page}: inews(1). (1996-02-27)
ICMP Router Discovery Protocol "protocol" (IRDP) A {routing} {protocol} used by {Microsoft Windows} {DHCP} clients and various {Unix} flavors. {Vulnerability (http://securiteam.com/securitynews/Most_DHCP_clients_are_vulnerable_to_an_IRDP_attack.html)}. [Details? Reference?] (1999-10-31)
Icon "language" A descendant of {SNOBOL4} with {Pascal}-like syntax, produced by Griswold in the 1970's. Icon is a general-purpose language with special features for string scanning. It has dynamic types: records, sets, lists, strings, tables. If has some {object oriented} features but no {modules} or {exceptions}. It has a primitive {Unix} interface. The central theme of Icon is the generator: when an expression is evaluated it may be suspended and later resumed, producing a result sequence of values until it fails. Resumption takes place implicitly in two contexts: iteration which is syntactically loop-like ('every-do'), and goal-directed evaluation in which a conditional expression automatically attempts to produce at least one result. Expressions that fail are used in lieu of Booleans. Data {backtracking} is supported by a reversible {assignment}. Icon also has {co-expressions}, which can be explicitly resumed at any time. Version 8.8 by Ralph Griswold "ralph@cs.arizona.edu" includes an {interpreter}, a compiler (for some {platforms}) and a library (v8.8). Icon has been ported to {Amiga}, {Atari}, {CMS}, {Macintosh}, {Macintosh/MPW}, {MS-DOS}, {MVS}, {OS/2}, {Unix}, {VMS}, {Acorn}. See also {Ibpag2}. {(ftp://cs.arizona.edu/icon/)}, {MS-DOS FTP (ftp://bellcore.com norman/iconexe.zip)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.icon}. E-mail: "icon-project@cs.arizona.edu", "mengarini@delphi.com". Mailing list: icon-group@arizona.edu. ["The Icon Programmming Language", Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Prentice Hall, seond edition, 1990]. ["The Implementation of the Icon Programmming Language", Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Princeton University Press 1986]. (1992-08-21)
If you want X, you know where to find it. "exclamation" There is a legend that {Dennis Ritchie}, inventor of {C}, once responded to demands for features resembling those of what at the time was a much more popular language by observing "If you want {PL/I}, you know where to find it." Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for fending off requests to alter a new design to mimic some older (and, by implication, inferior and {baroque}) one. The case X = {Pascal} manifests semi-regularly on {Usenet}'s {news:comp.lang.c} {newsgroup}. Indeed, the case X = X has been reported in discussions of graphics software (see {X Window System}). [{Jargon File}] (1995-10-25)
image processing "graphics" Computer manipulation of {images}. Some of the many {algorithms} used in image processing include {convolution} (on which many others are based), {FFT}, {DCT}, {thinning} (or {skeletonisation}), {edge detection} and {contrast enhancement}. These are usually implemented in {software} but may also use special purpose {hardware} for speed. Image processing contrasts with {computer graphics}, which is usually more concerned with the generation of artificial images, and {visualisation}, which attempts to understand (real-world) data by displaying it as an artificial image (e.g. a graph). Image processing is used in {image recognition} and {computer vision}. {Silicon Graphics} manufacture {workstations} which are often used for image processing. There are a few programming languages designed for image processing, e.g. {CELIP}, {VPL}. See also {Pilot European Image Processing Archive}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:sci.image.processing}. [Other algorithms, languages? FAQ?] (1995-04-12)
Imago On-line An {Internet} {electronic mail} and {news} service in the United Kingdom provided by {Imago Europe} plc. A one year subscription to the service costs just seventy five pounds plus VAT and offers {dial-up} access with a {graphical user interface} for users of {Macintosh} and {Microsoft Windows} {PCs} and the {Apple Newton} {MessagePad} {PDA} family.
include war Excessive multi-leveled including within a discussion {thread}, a practice that tends to annoy readers. In a forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as {Usenet}, this can lead to {flames} and the urge to start a {kill file}.
Information Innovation A group of companies with offices in Amsterdam and New York which acts as an information filter for the {web}. They analyse what happens in the Web community and organise the Web's information so that it is accessible and efficient to use. Information Innovation provides: "The Management Guide" - a guide for managers in the information age. The Guide consists of 22 parts, each concentrating on a particular technology or issue facing managers. Topics range from {Artificial Intelligence} and Telecommunications to Finance and Marketing. Each part contains references to additional valuable information, including {CD ROMs}, conferences, magazines, articles and books. "The Hypergraphic Matrix" - a "hypergraphic" matrix of 250 graphics discussing the interrelationships between technology, change, business functions and specific industries. "Dictionary" - the largest Internet dictionary on management and technology. "The Delphi Oracle" - a comprehensive guide to the latest management ideas and issues. Over 500 articles and books have been read, analysed, rated and catalogued. "Management Software" - a guide to software which is useful to managers. Both Web software, Internet software and commecial products are included in this guide. "The Web Word" - an information service about the Web. It includes a regular newsletter and databases about Web resources, news, interviews with Web personalities and, of course, the most comprehensive guide to sites. "Web Bibliography" - a guide to the latest Web information printed. Over 150 articles, magazines, market research reports and books are catalogued. "The Power Launch Pad" - our own list of useful sites on the Web. Also includes links to our own lists of special subjects such as Finance, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Technology and so forth. {(http://euro.net/innovation/WelcomeHP.html)}. E-mail: "innovation@euronet.nl". (1994-10-27)
information ::: v. t. --> The act of informing, or communicating knowledge or intelligence.
News, advice, or knowledge, communicated by others or obtained by personal study and investigation; intelligence; knowledge derived from reading, observation, or instruction.
A proceeding in the nature of a prosecution for some offens against the government, instituted and prosecuted, really or nominally, by some authorized public officer on behalt of the
informer ::: v. --> One who informs, animates, or inspires.
One who informs, or imparts knowledge or news.
One who informs a magistrate of violations of law; one who informs against another for violation of some law or penal statute.
InfoSeek "company" A company providing InfoSeek Net Search, a free {web} search service which, in August 1995, indexed the full text of over 400,000 web pages. Net Search was rated as the fourth most popular site on the web by Interactive Age magazine. The also sell a commercial service, InfoSeek Search, that offers access to all the {Usenet} {news groups}, daily newswires, business and computer periodicals, and more. {(http://www2.infoseek.com/)}. (1995-11-09)
insert ::: v. t. --> To set within something; to put or thrust in; to introduce; to cause to enter, or be included, or contained; as, to insert a scion in a stock; to insert a letter, word, or passage in a composition; to insert an advertisement in a newspaper.
insinew ::: v. t. --> To strengthen, as with sinews; to invigorate.
instaurator ::: n. --> One who renews or restores to a former condition.
Integrated Services Digital Network "communications" (ISDN) A set of communications {standards} allowing a single wire or {optical fibre} to carry voice, digital network services and video. ISDN is intended to eventually replace the {plain old telephone system}. ISDN was first published as one of the 1984 {ITU-T} {Red Book} recommendations. The 1988 {Blue Book} recommendations added many new features. ISDN uses mostly existing {Public Switched Telephone Network} (PSTN) switches and wiring, upgraded so that the basic "call" is a 64 kilobits per second, all-digital end-to-end channel. {Packet} and {frame} modes are also provided in some places. There are different kinds of ISDN connection of varying bandwidth (see {DS level}): DS0 = 1 channel PCM at 64 kbps T1 or DS1 = 24 channels PCM at 1.54 Mbps T1C or DS1C = 48 channels PCM at 3.15 Mbps T2 or DS2 = 96 channels PCM at 6.31 Mbps T3 or DS3 = 672 channels PCM at 44.736 Mbps T4 or DS4 = 4032 channels PCM at 274.1 Mbps Each channel here is equivalent to one voice channel. DS0 is the lowest level of the circuit. T1C, T2 and T4 are rarely used, except maybe for T2 over microwave links. For some reason 64 kbps is never called "T0". A {Basic Rate Interface} (BRI) is two 64K "bearer" channels and a single "delta" channel ("2B+D"). A {Primary Rate Interface} (PRI) in North America and Japan consists of 24 channels, usually 23 B + 1 D channel with the same physical interface as T1. Elsewhere the PRI usually has 30 B + 1 D channel and an {E1} interface. A {Terminal Adaptor} (TA) can be used to connect ISDN channels to existing interfaces such as {EIA-232} and {V.35}. Different services may be requested by specifying different values in the "Bearer Capability" field in the call setup message. One ISDN service is "telephony" (i.e. voice), which can be provided using less than the full 64 kbps bandwidth (64 kbps would provide for 8192 eight-bit samples per second) but will require the same special processing or {bit diddling} as ordinary PSTN calls. Data calls have a Bearer Capability of "64 kbps unrestricted". ISDN is offered by local telephone companies, but most readily in Australia, France, Japan and Singapore, with the UK somewhat behind and availability in the USA rather spotty. (In March 1994) ISDN deployment in Germany is quite impressive, although (or perhaps, because) they use a specifically German signalling specification, called {1.TR.6}. The French {Numeris} also uses a non-standard protocol (called {VN4}; the 4th version), but the popularity of ISDN in France is probably lower than in Germany, given the ludicrous pricing. There is also a specifically-Belgian V1 experimental system. The whole of Europe is now phasing in {Euro-ISDN}. See also {Frame Relay}, {Network Termination}, {SAPI}. {FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.dcom.isdn/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.isdn}. (1998-03-29)
intelligence ::: n. --> The act or state of knowing; the exercise of the understanding.
The capacity to know or understand; readiness of comprehension; the intellect, as a gift or an endowment.
Information communicated; news; notice; advice.
Acquaintance; intercourse; familiarity.
Knowledge imparted or acquired, whether by study, research, or experience; general information.
intelligencer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, sends or conveys intelligence or news; a messenger.
INTERCAL "language, humour" /in't*r-kal/ (Said by the authors to stand for "Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym"). Possibly the most elaborate and long-lived joke in the history of programming languages. It was designed on 1972-05-26 by Don Woods and Jim Lyons at Princeton University. INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written language, being totally unspeakable. The INTERCAL Reference Manual, describing features of horrifying uniqueness, became an underground classic. An excerpt will make the style of the language clear: It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem. For example, if one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536 in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is: DO :1 "-
Interest Group in Pure and Applied Logics (IGPL) A body of 700 researchers in various aspects of {logic} (symbolic, mathematical, computational, philosophical, etc.) from all over the world. The group's main rôle is as a research and information clearing house. The group also: supports exchange of information about research problems, references and common interest among group members; helps to obtain photocopies of papers; supplies review copies of books through the Journals on which some members are editors; organises exchange visits and workshops; advises on papers for publication; edits and distributes a Newsletter and an electronic Bulletin; keeps an {FTP archive} of papers, abstracts; obtains reductions on group purchases of logic books from publishers. {(http://theory.doc.ic.ac.uk/tfm/igpl.html)}. E-mail: "igpl-request@doc.ic.ac.uk". (1995-02-10)
interesting ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Interest ::: a. --> Engaging the attention; exciting, or adapted to excite, interest, curiosity, or emotion; as, an interesting story; interesting news.
International Computers Limited plc "company" (ICL) A UK hardware and software manufacturer specialising in systems integration in selected markets, supported by its service and technology businesses. ICL operates in over 80 countries worldwide, with 24000 employees and revenues of £2.6 billion in 1993. ICL produced {George 2}, {George 3}, {VME}, {OpenVME}, {Series 39}, {DME}, {CME}, the {ICL 1900} and {ICL 2900} series. {(http://icl.co.uk/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:alt.sys.icl}. (1995-04-19)
International Smalltalk Association "body" (ISA) A user group which published newsletters on {Smalltalk}-related issues, technical and general information. Its goal was to champion Smalltalk and its uses. It was disbanded around 1991. (1995-02-16)
Internet Chess Server "networking, games" An interactive meeting-place on the {Internet} where people can play {chess} against each other. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:alt.chess.ics}. [Server address?] (1995-03-25)
Internet Express An {Internet provider} in Colorado Springs, USA. Formerly called the Community News Service. They provide {SLIP} accounts at no extra charge. (1994-12-08)
Internet Society "body" (ISOC) A non-profit, professional membership organisation which facilitates and supports the technical evolution of the {Internet}, stimulates interest in and educates the scientific and academic communities, industry and the public about the technology, uses and applications of the Internet, and promotes the development of new applications for the system. The Society provides a forum for discussion and collaboration in the operation and use of the global Internet infrastructure. The Internet Society publishes a quarterly newsletter, the Internet Society News, and holds an annual conference, INET. The development of Internet technical standards takes place under the auspices of the Internet Society with substantial support from the {Corporation for National Research Initiatives} under a cooperative agreement with the US Federal Government. {(http://info.isoc.org/)}. (1994-10-27)
item ::: adv. --> Also; as an additional article. ::: n. --> An article; a separate particular in an account; as, the items in a bill.
A hint; an innuendo.
A short article in a newspaper; a paragraph; as, an item
"It is He that has gone abroad — That which is bright, bodi-less, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,(1) the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.” The Upanishads
“It is He that has gone abroad—That which is bright, bodi-less, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker,(1) the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.” The Upanishads
James Gosling "person" The software engineer who wrote {GOSMACS}, and served as {Sun Microsystems, Inc.} project leader for both {NeWS}, and {Java}. He is currently (1997) a Vice President and "Distinguished Engineer" at Sun. {(http://java.sun.com:80/people/jag/)}. {Biography (http://sun.com/sunergy/Bios/gosling_bio.html)}. (1997-03-12)
JavaScript "language" (Formerly "LiveScript") {Netscape}'s simple, cross-{platform}, {web} {scripting language}, only very vaguely related to {Java} (which is a {Sun} trademark). JavaScript is intimately tied to the {web}, and currently runs in only three environments - as a {server}-side {scripting} language, as an embedded language in {server-parsed HTML}, and as an embedded language run in web {browsers} where it is the most important part of {DHTML}. JavaScript has a simplified {C}-like {syntax} and is tightly integrated with the browser {Document Object Model}. It is useful for implementing enhanced {forms}, simple web {database} {front-ends}, and navigation enhancements. It is unusual in that the {scope} of {variables} extends throughout the function in which they are declared rather than the smallest enclosing block as in C. JavaScript originated from {Netscape} and, for a time, only their products supported it. {Microsoft} now supports a work-alike which they call JScript. The resulting inconsistencies make it difficult to write JavaScript that behaves the same in all browsers. This could be attributed to the slow progress of JavaScript through the standards bodies. JavaScript runs "100x" slower than {C}, as it is purely interpreted ({Java} runs "10x" slower than C code). {Netscape} and allies say JavaScript is an "open standard" in an effort to keep {Microsoft} from monopolising web software as they have desktop software. {Netscape} and {Sun} have co-operated to enable {Java} and JavaScript to exchange messages and data. See also {VBScript}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.javascript}. Mailing List: "majordomo@obscure.org" ("subscribe javascript" in body). (2003-04-28)
Java Virtual Machine "language, architecture" (JVM) A specification for software which interprets {Java} programs that have been compiled into {byte-codes}, and usually stored in a ".class" file. The JVM {instruction set} is {stack}-oriented, with variable instruction length. Unlike some other instruction sets, the JVM's supports {object-oriented} programming directly by including instructions for object {method} invocation (similar to {subroutine} call in other instruction sets). The JVM itself is written in {C} and so can be {ported} to run on most {platforms}. It needs {thread} support and {I/O} (for {dynamic class loading}). The Java byte-code is independent of the platform. There are also some hardware implementations of the JVM. {Specification (http://javasoft.com/docs/books/vmspec/html/VMSpecTOC.doc.html)}. {Sun's Java chip (http://news.com/News/Item/0,4,9328,00.html)}. [Documentation? Versions?] (2000-01-03)
JEDR "person, abuse, humour" Synonymous with {IYFEG}. At one time, people in the {Usenet} {newsgroup} {news:rec.humor.funny} tended to use "JEDR" instead of {IYFEG} or ""ethnic""; this stemmed from a public attempt to suppress the group once made by a loser with initials JEDR after he was offended by an ethnic joke posted there. (The practice was {retcon}ned by expanding these initials as "Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race".) After much sound and fury JEDR faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise. JEDR's only permanent effect on the net.culture was to discredit "sensitivity" arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate and near-universal rejection. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-22)
jenkins ::: n. --> name of contempt for a flatterer of persons high in social or official life; as, the Jenkins employed by a newspaper.
John Gilmore "person" A noted {Unix} {hacker} who cofounded {Usenet}'s anarchic alt.* {newsgroup} {hierarchy} with {Brian Reid}. He also worked on {GDB}. E-mail: John Gilmore "gnu@toad.com". (1995-04-18)
journal ::: a. --> Daily; diurnal.
A diary; an account of daily transactions and events.
A book of accounts, in which is entered a condensed and grouped statement of the daily transactions.
A daily register of the ship&
journalism ::: n. --> The keeping of a journal or diary.
The periodical collection and publication of current news; the business of managing, editing, or writing for, journals or newspapers; as, political journalism.
JOVIAL "language" (Jule's Own Version of IAL) A version of {IAL} produced by Jules I. Schwartz in 1959-1960. JOVIAL was based on {ALGOL 58}, with extensions for large scale {real-time} programming. It saw extensive use by the US Air Force. The data elements were items, entries ({records}) and tables. Versions include JOVIAL I ({IBM 709}, 1960), JOVIAL II ({IBM 7090}, 1961) and JOVIAL 3 (1965). Dialects: {J3}, {JOVIAL J73}, {JS}, {JTS}. Ada/Jovial Newsletter, Dale Lange +1 (513) 255-4472. [CACM 6(12):721, Dec 1960]. (1996-07-19)
Jughead Jughead is a tool for Gopher administrators to get menu information from various gopher servers, and is an acronym for: Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display. Jughead was written in ANSI C. Gopher: gopher.cc.utah.edu, About U of U Gopher/Gopher Tools/jughead. {(ftp://ftp.cc.utah.edu/pub/gopher/GopherTools)}. Mailing list: jughead-news@lists.utah.edu.
kiboze [{Usenet}] To {grep} the {Usenet} news for a string, especially with the intention of posting a follow-up. This activity was popularised by {Kibo}.
kill file [{Usenet}] Per-user file(s) used by some {Usenet} reading programs (originally {Larry Wall}'s {rn}) to discard summarily (without presenting for reading) articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted) patterns of subject, author, or other header lines. Thus to add a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for that person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future. By extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in other media. See also {plonk}. [{Jargon File}]
kremvax /krem-vaks/ (Or kgbvax) Originally, a fictitious {Usenet} site at the Kremlin, named like the then large number of {Usenet} {VAXen} with names of the form foovax. Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}. This was probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on {Usenet} (which has negligible security against them), because the notion that {Usenet} might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time. In fact, it was only six years later that the first genuine site in Moscow, demos.su, joined {Usenet}. Some readers needed convincing that the postings from it weren't just another prank. Vadim Antonov, senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from there up to mid-1991, was quite aware of all this, referred to it frequently in his own postings, and at one point twitted some credulous readers by blandly asserting that he *was* a hoax! Eventually he even arranged to have the domain's gateway site *named* kremvax, thus neatly turning fiction into truth and demonstrating that the hackish sense of humour transcends cultural barriers. Mr. Antonov also contributed some Russian-language material for the {Jargon File}. In an even more ironic historical footnote, kremvax became an electronic centre of the anti-communist resistance during the bungled hard-line coup of August 1991. During those three days the Soviet UUCP network centreed on kremvax became the only trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR. Though the sysops were concentrating on internal communications, cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the demonstrations in Moscow's streets. In those hours, years of speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer networking were proved devastatingly accurate - and the original kremvax joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian revolutionaries of "glasnost" and "perestroika" made kremvax one of the timeliest means of their outreach to the West. [{Jargon File}]
leaf site A machine that merely originates and reads {Usenet} news or mail, and does not relay any third-party traffic. Often uttered in a critical tone; when the ratio of leaf sites to backbone, rib, and other relay sites gets too high, the network tends to develop bottlenecks. Compare {backbone site}, {rib site}. [{Jargon File}]
line eater "messaging" 1. A {bug} in some now-obsolete versions of the {Usenet} software that used to eat up to {BUFSIZ} bytes of the article text. The bug was triggered by having the text of the article start with a space or tab. This bug was quickly personified as a mythical creature called the "line eater", and postings often included a dummy line of "line eater food". Ironically, line eater "food" not beginning with a space or tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if there *was* a space or tab before it, then the line eater would eat the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be protecting. The practice of "sacrificing to the line eater" continued for some time after the bug had been {nailed to the wall}, and is still humorously referred to. The bug itself is still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some mail-to-netnews {gateways}. 2. {NSA line eater}. (1996-04-09)
Linux Network Administrators' Guide (NAG) A book on setting up and running {Unix} networks. NAG is freely available in electronic form. It was produced by Olaf Kirch, "okir@monad.swb.de" and others as part of the {Linux Documentation Project} with help from {O'Reilly and Associates}. It includes the following sections: Introduction to Networking, Issues of {TCP/IP} Networking, Configuring the Networking Hardware, Setting up the Serial Hardware, Configuring TCP/IP Networking, {Name Service} and {Resolver} Configuraton, {Serial Line IP}, The {Point-to-Point Protocol}, Various Network Applications, The {Network Information System}, The {Network File System}, Managing {Taylor UUCP}, {Electronic Mail}, Getting {smail} Up and Running, {Sendmail+IDA}, {Netnews}, {C} News, A Description of NNTP, Newsreader Configuration, Glossary, Annotated Bibliography. {FTP from UNC (ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/LDP)}. {FTP from MIT (ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/docs/LDP)}. (1994-12-01)
LITTLE A typeless language used to produce machine-independent software. LITTLE has been used to implement SETL. "Guide to the LITTLE Language", D. Shields, LITTLE Newsletter 33, Courant Inst (Aug 1977).
local area network "networking" (LAN) A data communications network which is geographically limited (typically to a 1 km radius) allowing easy interconnection of terminals, {microprocessors} and computers within adjacent buildings. {Ethernet} and {FDDI} are examples of standard LANs. Because the network is known to cover only a small area, optimisations can be made in the network signal protocols that permit data rates up to 100Mb/s. See also {token ring}, {wide area network}, {metropolitan area network}.. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.misc}. (1995-03-13)
Mail Users' Shell "messaging" (mush) A {MUA} for {Unix} and {MS-DOS}. It has both {line-mode} and {full-screen} interfaces as well as a {SunView} interface. mush provides a very powerful shell interface with a {csh}-like {scripting language}, plenty of {environment variables}, command-line {aliases}, filename {completion}, {conditionals}, and command {piping}. {z-mail} is a more recent commercial version of mush. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.mail.mush}. (1996-02-26)
Marlais "language" A simple-minded {interpreter} by Brent Benson at Harris for a programming language strongly resembling {Dylan}. Marlais version 0.2a is a "hackers release" for education, experimentation, porting, extension, and bug fixing. It has been ported to {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {VAX}/{BSD}, {OS/2}, {Linux}, {Sequent Symmetry}, {Encore}, {HP-UX}, {Ultrix}, {SGI}, {Sony News}, and {A/UX}. {(ftp://travis.csd.harris.com/pub/marlais-0.2a.tar.gz)}. (1993-09-23)
Mathematica "tool, mathematics" A popular {symbolic mathematics} and graphics system, developed in 1988 by Stephen Wolfram and sold by {Wolfram Research}. The language emphasises rules and {pattern-matching}. The name was suggested by {Steve Jobs}. {(http://wri.com/mathematica/)}. {Stanford FTP (ftp://otter.stanford.edu/)}, {NCSA FTP (ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/)}. Mailing list: mathgroup-request@yoda.ncsa.uiuc.edu. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica}. ["Mathematica: A System for Doing Mathematics by Computer", Stephen Wolfram, A-W 1988]. (1995-05-01)
mercurism ::: n. --> A communication of news; an announcement.
MicroDroid [{Usenet}] A {Microsoft} employee, especially one who posts to various operating-system advocacy newsgroups. MicroDroids post follow-ups to any messages critical of {Microsoft}'s operating systems, and often end up sounding like visiting Mormon missionaries. [{Jargon File}]
Microsoft Access 1. "database" A {relational database} running under {Microsoft Windows}. Data is stored as a number of "{tables}", e.g. "Stock". Each table consists of a number of "{records}" (e.g. for different items) and each record contains a number of "{fields}", e.g. "Product code", "Supplier", "Quantity in stock". Access allows the user to create "{forms}" and "reports". A form shows one record in a user-designed format and allows the user to step through records one at a time. A report shows selected records in a user-designed format, possibly grouped into sections with different kinds of total (including sum, minimum, maximum, average). There are also facilities to use links ("{joins}") between tables which share a common field and to filter records according to certain criteria or search for particular field values. Version: 2 (date?). {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.databases.ms-access}. 2. "communications" A communications program from Microsoft, meant to compete with {ProComm} and other programs. It sucked and was dropped. Years later they reused the name for their database. [Date?] (1997-07-20)
Microsoft Basic "language" (MS-BASIC) A dialect of {BASIC} from {Microsoft}, originally developed by {Bill Gates} in a garage back in the {CP/M} days. It was originally known as GWBasic, then QBASIC and finally MS-BASIC. When the {MS-DOS} {operating system} came out, it incorporated the GWBASIC.EXE or BASICA.EXE interpreters. GWBASIC ("Gee Whiz") incorporated graphics and a {screen editor} and was compatible with earlier BASICs. QBASIC was more sophisticated. Version 4.5 had a full screen editor, debugger and compiler. The compiler could also produce executable files but to run these a utility program (BRUN44.EXE) had to be present. Thus {source code} could be kept private. From DOS 5.0 or 6.0 onward, MS-BASIC was standard. Version 1.1 produced {stand-alone} executables and could display graphics. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.basic.misc}. [Relationship to BASIC in ROM on first IBM PC?] (1995-05-12)
Microsoft Corporation "company" The biggest supplier of {operating systems} and other software for {IBM PC} compatibles. Software products include {MS-DOS}, {Microsoft Windows}, {Windows NT}, {Microsoft Access}, {LAN Manager}, {MS Client}, {SQL Server}, {Open Data Base Connectivity} (ODBC), {MS Mail}, and {SNA Server} for Windows NT. Microsoft was founded as "Micro-soft" in 1975 by {Bill Gates} (now CEO) and his high school pal Paul Allen. Their first product was a version of {BASIC} for the new {Altair} computer [which one?]. In 1980, {IBM} chose Microsoft to supply the {operating system} for the {IBM PC}. On the UK television program "The Net" in May 1994, {Bill Gates} said he was betting his company on the {information highway}". Quarterly sales $1293M, profits $362M (Aug 1994). {(http://microsoft.com/)}. {(ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/)}. {Interesting Info and Other Microsoft WWW Servers (http://www-drg.microsoft.com/devinfo.htm)}. {Microsoft Windows Developer Information (http://www-drg.microsoft.com/devinfo.htm)}. {Microsoft Research Group Information (http://research.microsoft.com)}. {Win_News (http://microsoft.com/chicago/ms-www/ms-intro.htm)}. maintained by the Personal Operating Systems Division to distribute information on {Microsoft Windows}, {MS-DOS} and {Windows 95}. (1998-11-06)
Microsoft SQL Server "database" A {relational database management system} (RDBMS) which is part of {Microsoft}'s {BackOffice} family of {servers}. SQL Server was designed for {client/server} use and is accessed by applications using {SQL}. It runs on {Windows NT} version 3.5 or higher and is compliant with the {ANSI} {SQL-92} and {FIPS} 127-2 {SQL} {standards}. SQL Server supports {symmetric multiprocessing} hardware; {SNMP}, {ODBC}, and major {open standard} communications {protocols}. It has {Internet} integration, data {replication}, and {data warehousing} features. Microsoft SQL Server was originally developed by {Sybase Corporation} but the cooperation was broken sometime [when?] before version 6.0. {(http://microsoft.com/sql)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.databases.ms-sqlserver}. (2001-04-27)
mimencode (Originally distributed as "mmencode"). A replacement for {uuencode} for use in {electronic mail} and {news}. Part of {MIME}. uuencode uses characters that don"t translate well across all mail gateways (particularly those which convert between {ASCII} and {EBCDIC}). Also, different variants of uuencode encode data in different and incompatible ways, with no standard. Finally, few uuencode variants work well in a pipe. Mimencode implements the encodings which were defined for {MIME} as uuencode replacements, and should be considerably more robust for e-mail use. Written by Nathaniel S. Borenstein of Bell Communications Research, Inc. ({Bellcore}) in 1991.
Minnesota Internet Users Essential Tool "networking, tool" (Minuet) An integrated package for {IBM PC} that includes modules for {electronic mail} (using the {POP} {protocol}), {Gopher}, {telnet}, {Usenet} news and {FTP}. Minuet provides an easy-to-use, {mouse}-driven {graphical user interface} via the {TurboVision} libraries. It is a {TCP/IP} {client} that runs over any type of TCP/IP {network} including {Ethernet} and {SLIP}. It will work with either {static IP address}es or {dynamic IP address}es ({bootp}). {FAQ (http://micro.umn.edu/products/minuet/minuet-1.html)}. {(ftp://boombox.micro.umn.edu/pub/pc/minuet/beta16/minuarc.exe)}. (1995-04-10)
MIPS Technologies, Inc. "company" A company which designs, develops, and licenses {reduced instruction set computer} (RISC) {microprocessors} and compilers. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of {Silicon Graphics, Inc.} and operates as an independent unit. MIPS is the successor to the processor business of MIPS Computer Systems which was founded in 1984 and merged with Silicon Graphics on 29 June 1992. MIPS Technologies developed the world's first RISC {VLSI} microprocessors (1985) (or was it the {ARM}?), the first commercial 64-bit microprocessor ({MIPS R4000}, 1992), announced MIPS R4300i - the first 64-bit RISC processor designed for interactive consumer applications (April 1995). They announced the MIPS R10000 - the next generation general-purpose MIPS microprocessor and the most powerful processor in the world (October 1994). MIPS' semiconductor company partners participate in the design and development of MIPS processors and software and then produce, market, and support the processors. MIPS itself does not fabricate or sell products. MIPS' semiconductor partners are: {Integrated Device Technology}, {LSI Logic Corporation}, {NEC Corporation}, {NKK Corporation}, {Philips Semiconductors}, {Siemens AG}, and {Toshiba Corporation}. MIPS' products include: R4000 - 100 MHz; 1.35M transistors, primary i/d cache 8KB/8KB, SPECint92 58.3/ SPECfp92 61.4. R4300i - 133 MHZ, 1.35M transistors; primary i/d cache, 16KB/8KB, SPECint92 80, SPECfp92 60. R4400 - 250 MHz, 2.3M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 175.8, SPECfp92 164.4. R4600 - 133 MHz, 1.9M transistors, primary i/d cache 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 85, SPECfp92 75. R8000/R8010 - 90 MHz, 2.6M, .83M transistors, primary i/d cache, 16KB/16KB, SPECint92 132, SPECfp92 396. R10000 - 200 MHz, 6.7M transistors, primary i/d cache 32KB/32KB, SPECint92 "300, SPECfp92 "600. MIPS' processor chips were used in the {DEC 3100} series of {workstations}. {(http://mips.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.mips}. (1996-03-01)
Missing definition "introduction" First, this is an (English language) __computing__ dictionary. It includes lots of terms from related fields such as mathematics and electronics, but if you're looking for (or want to submit) words from other subjects or general English words or other languages, try {(http://wikipedia.org/)}, {(http://onelook.com/)}, {(http://yourdictionary.com/)}, {(http://www.dictionarist.com/)} or {(http://reference.allrefer.com/)}. If you've already searched the dictionary for a computing term and it's not here then please __don't tell me__. There are, and always will be, a great many missing terms, no dictionary is ever complete. I use my limited time to process the corrections and definitions people have submitted and to add the {most frequently requested missing terms (missing.html)}. Try one of the sources mentioned above or {(http://techweb.com/encyclopedia/)}, {(http://whatis.techtarget.com/)} or {(http://google.com/)}. See {the Help page (help.html)} for more about missing definitions and bad cross-references. (2014-09-20)! {exclamation mark}!!!Batch "language, humour" A daft way of obfuscating text strings by encoding each character as a different number of {exclamation marks} surrounded by {question marks}, e.g. "d" is encoded as "?!!!!?". The language is named after the {MSDOS} {batch file} in which the first converter was written. {esoteric programming languages} {wiki entry (http://esolangs.org/wiki/!!!Batch)}. (2014-10-25)" {double quote}
MIT Scheme "language" (Previously "C-Scheme") A {Scheme} implementation by the {MIT} Scheme Team (Chris Hanson, Jim Miller, Bill Rozas, and many others) with a rich set of utilities, a compiler called {Liar} and an editor called {Edwin}. MIT Scheme includes an {interpreter}, large {run-time library}, {Emacs} {macros}, {native-code compiler}, emacs-like editor, and a {source-level debugger}. {MIT Scheme} conforms fully with {R4RS} and almost with the {IEEE Scheme} {standard}. It runs on {Motorola 68000}: {HP9000}, {Sun-3}, {NeXT}; {MIPS}: {Decstation}, {Sony}, {SGI}; {HP-PA}: 600, 700, 800; {VAX}: {Ultrix}, {BSD}, {DEC} {Alpha}: {OSF}; {Intel i386}: {MS-DOS}, {MS Windows}, and various other {Unix} systems. See also: {LAP}, {Schematik}, {Scode}. {(http://gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.scheme.c}. Mailing list: mit-scheme-announce@gnu.org (cross-posted to news). E-mail: "mit-scheme-devel@gnu.org" (maintainers). (2003-08-14)
modem "hardware, communications" (Modulator/demodulator) An electronic device for converting between serial data (typically {EIA-232}) from a computer and an audio signal suitable for transmission over a telephone line connected to another modem. In one scheme the audio signal is composed of silence (no data) or one of two frequencies representing zero and one. Modems are distinguished primarily by the maximum data rate they support. Data rates can range from 75 bits per second up to 56000 and beyond. Data from the user (i.e. flowing from the local terminal or computer via the modem to the telephone line) is sometimes at a lower rate than the other direction, on the assumption that the user cannot type more than a few characters per second. Various data {compression} and error correction {algorithms} are required to support the highest speeds. Other optional features are {auto-dial} (auto-call) and {auto-answer} which allow the computer to initiate and accept calls without human intervention. Most modern modems support a number of different {protocols}, and two modems, when first connected, will automatically negotiate to find a common protocol (this process may be audible through the modem or computer's loudspeakers). Some modem protocols allow the two modems to renegotiate ("retrain") if the initial choice of data rate is too high and gives too many transmission errors. A modem may either be internal (connected to the computer's {bus}) or external ("stand-alone", connected to one of the computer's {serial ports}). The actual speed of transmission in characters per second depends not just the modem-to-modem data rate, but also on the speed with which the processor can transfer data to and from the modem, the kind of compression used and whether the data is compressed by the processor or the modem, the amount of noise on the telephone line (which causes retransmissions), the serial character format (typically {8N1}: one {start bit}, eight data bits, no {parity}, one {stop bit}). See also {acoustic coupler}, {adaptive answering}, {baud barf}, {Bulletin Board System}, {Caller ID}, {SoftModem}, {U.S. Robotics}, {UUCP}, {whalesong}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.modems}. (2002-05-04)
moderator A person, or small group of people, who manages a moderated {mailing list} or {Usenet} {newsgroup}. Moderators are responsible for determining which email submissions are passed on to the list or newsgroup.
monger ::: n. --> A trader; a dealer; -- now used chiefly in composition; as, fishmonger, ironmonger, newsmonger.
A small merchant vessel. ::: v. t. --> To deal in; to make merchandise of; to traffic in; -- used chiefly of discreditable traffic.
Motorola 6809 "processor" (MC6809) An eight-bit {microprocessor} from {Motorola, Inc.}. The 6809 was a major advance over both its predecessor, the {Motorola 6800} and the {6502}. The 6809 had two 8-bit {accumulators}, rather than one in the 6502, and could combine them into a single 16-bit register. It also featured two {index registers} and two {stack pointers}, which allowed for some very advanced {addressing modes}. The 6809 was {source compatible} with the 6800, even though the 6800 had 78 instructions and the 6809 only had around 59 (including a {SEX} instruction). Some instructions were replaced by more general ones which the {assembler} would translate and some were replaced by {addressing modes}. The 6809 had one of the first multiplication instructions of the time, 16-bit arithmetic and a special fast {interrupt}. But it was also highly optimised, gaining up to five times the speed of the 6800 series CPU. Like the 6800, it included the undocumented HCF ({Halt and Catch Fire}) bus test instruction. The {Hitachi 6309} was a version with extra {registers}. The 6809 was used in the UK "{Dragon 32}" {personal computer} and was followed by the {Motorola 68000}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.m6809}. Lennart Benschop "lennart@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl" posted a {emulator} (originally called "usim") and a {cross-assembler} to {Usenet} newsgroup {alt.sources} on 1993-11-03. Ray P. Bellis "rpb@psy.ox.ac.uk" released a version 0.11. {Benschop emulator (http://lennartb.home.xs4all.nl/m6809.html)}. (2014-06-24)
Multics "operating system" /muhl'tiks/ MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service. A {time-sharing} {operating system} co-designed by a consortium including {MIT}, {GE} and {Bell Laboratories} as a successor to MIT's {CTSS}. The system design was presented in a special session of the 1965 Fall Joint Computer Conference and was planned to be operational in two years. It was finally made available in 1969, and took several more years to achieve respectable performance and stability. Multics was very innovative for its time - among other things, it was the first major OS to run on a {symmetric multiprocessor}; provided a {hierarchical file system} with {access control} on individual files; mapped files into a paged, segmented {virtual memory}; was written in a {high-level language} ({PL/I}); and provided dynamic inter-procedure linkage and memory (file) sharing as the default mode of operation. Multics was the only general-purpose system to be awarded a B2 {security rating} by the {NSA}. Bell Labs left the development effort in 1969. {Honeywell} commercialised Multics in 1972 after buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful: at its peak in the 1980s, there were between 75 and 100 Multics sites, each a multi-million dollar {mainframe}. One of the former Multics developers from Bell Labs was {Ken Thompson}, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of {Unix}. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also {brain-damaged} and {GCOS}. MIT ended its development association with Multics in 1977. Honeywell sold its computer business to {Bull} in the mid 1980s, and development on Multics was stopped in 1988 when Bull scrapped a Boston proposal to port Multics to a {platform} derived from the {DPS-6}. A few Multics sites are still in use as late as 1996. The last Multics system running, the Canadian Department of National Defence Multics site in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, shut down on 2000-10-30 at 17:08 UTC. The {Jargon file} 3.0.0 claims that on some versions of Multics one was required to enter a password to log out but James J. Lippard "lippard@primenet.com", who was a Multics developer in Phoenix, believes this to be an {urban legend}. He never heard of a version of Multics which required a password to logout. Tom Van Vleck "thvv@multicians.org" agrees. He suggests that some user may have implemented a 'terminal locking' program that required a password before one could type anything, including logout. {(http://multicians.org/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:alt.os.multics}. [{Jargon File}] (2002-04-12)
multimedia "multimedia" Any collection of data including {text}, {graphics}, {images}, {audio} and {video}, or any system for processing or interacting with such data. Often also includes concepts from {hypertext}. This term was once almost synonymous with {CD-ROM} in the {personal computer} world because the large amounts of data involved were best supplied on CD-ROM. {DVD}s and {broadband} {Internet} connections have now largely replaced CDs as the means of delivery. A "multimedia PC" typically includes software for playing DVD video, {5.1 audio} hardware and can display video on a television. It may also include a television receiver and software to record broadcast television to disk and play it back. The {Multimedia Personal Computer} (MPC) standard was an attempt to improve compatibility between such systems. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.multimedia}. (1994-12-02)
Multi-User Dimension "games" (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible via the {Internet} or a {modem}. A MUD is like a real-time {chat} forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like an {adventure} game and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characters can build more structure onto the database that represents the existing world is sometimes known as a "{MUSH}". Most MUDs allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you create your own character. Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the University of Essex's {DEC-10} in 1979. It was a game similar to the classic {Colossal Cave} adventure, except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same time and interact with each other. Descendants of that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on {British Telecom} (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle explicitly placed "MUD" in the {PD} in 1985. BT was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters, which were released and created the myth. Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs ({VAXMUD}, {AberMUD}, {LPMUD}). Many of these had associated {bulletin-board systems} for social interaction. Because these had an image as "research" they often survived administrative hostility to {BBSs} in general. This, together with the fact that {Usenet} feeds have been spotty and difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of hackish social interaction there. AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei for large hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the growth of {Usenet} in the early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as opposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue. The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term {MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being explored. {UMN MUD Gopher page (gopher://spinaltap.micro.umn.edu/11/fun/Games/MUDs/Links)}. {U Pennsylvania MUD Web page (http://cis.upenn.edu/~lwl/mudinfo.html)}. See also {bonk/oif}, {FOD}, {link-dead}, {mudhead}, {MOO}, {MUCK}, {MUG}, {MUSE}, {chat}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:rec.games.mud.announce}, {news:rec.games.mud.admin}, {news:rec.games.mud.diku}, {news:rec.games.mud.lp}, {news:rec.games.mud.misc}, {news:rec.games.mud.tiny}. (1994-08-10)
mumblenews ::: n. --> A talebearer.
MUMPS "language" (Or "M") Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System. A programming language with extensive tools for the support of {database management systems}. MUMPS was originally used for medical records and is now widely used where multiple users access the same databases simultaneously, e.g. banks, stock exchanges, travel agencies, hospitals. Early MUMPS implementations for {PDP-11} and {IBM PC} were complete {operating systems}, as well as programming languages, but current-day implementations usually run under a normal host {operating system}. A MUMPS program hardly ever explicitly performs low-level operations such as opening a file - there are programming constructs in the language that will do so implicitly, and most MUMPS programmers are not even aware of the {operating system} activity that MUMPS performs. Syntactically MUMPS has only one data-type: strings. Semantically, the language has many data-types: text strings, {binary strings}, {floating point} values, {integer} values, {Boolean} values. Interpretation of strings is done inside functions, or implicitly while applying mathematical {operators}. Since many operations involve only moving data from one location to another, it is faster to just move uninterpreted strings. Of course, when a value is used multiple times in the context of arithmetical operations, optimised implementations will typically save the numerical value of the string. MUMPS was designed for portability. Currently, it is possible to share the same MUMPS database between radically different architectures, because all values are stored as text strings. The worst an implementation may have to do is swap pairs of bytes. Such multi-CPU databases are actually in use, some offices share databases between {VAX}, {DEC Alpha}, {SUN}, {IBM PC} and {HP} {workstations}. Versions of MUMPS are available on practically all {hardware}, from the smallest ({IBM PC}, {Apple Macintosh}, {Acorn} {Archimedes}), to the largest {mainframe}. MSM ({Micronetics Standard MUMPS}) runs on {IBM PC RT} and {R6000}; DSM (Digital Standard Mumps) on the {PDP-11}, {VAX}, {DEC Alpha}, and {Windows-NT}; {Datatree MUMPS} from {InterSystems} runs on {IBM PC}; and {MGlobal MUMPS} on the {Macintosh}. Multi-{platform} versions include {M/SQL}, available from {InterSystems}, {PFCS} "mumps@pfcs.com" and {MSM}. {Greystone Technologies}' GT/M runs on {VAX} and {DEC Alpha}. This is a compiler whereas the others are {interpreters}. {GT/SQL} is their {SQL} pre-processor. ISO standard 11756 (1991). ANSI standard: "MUMPS Language Standard", X11.1 (1977, 1984, 1990, 1995?). The MUMPS User's Group was the {M Technology Association}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.mumps}. (2003-06-04)
Murphy's Law "humour" (Or "Sod's Law") The correct, *original* Murphy's Law reads: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it." This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because it is usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the challenges of design for {lusers}. For example, you don't make a two-pin plug symmetrical and then label it "THIS WAY UP"; if it matters which way it is plugged in, then you make the design asymmetrical (see also the anecdote under {magic smoke}). Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled experiments that were done by the US Air Force in 1949 to test human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981). One experiment involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject's body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount, and somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong way around. Murphy then made the original form of his pronouncement, which the test subject (Major John Paul Stapp) quoted at a news conference a few days later. Within months "Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too many years had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination, changing as they went. Most of these are variants on "Anything that can go wrong, will"; this is sometimes referred to as {Finagle's Law}. The memetic drift apparent in these mutants clearly demonstrates Murphy's Law acting on itself! [{Jargon File}] (1998-02-14)
Musical Instrument Digital Interface "music, hardware, protocol, file format" (MIDI /mi'-dee/, /mee'-dee/) A {hardware} specification and {protocol} used to communicate note and effect information between synthesisers, computers, music keyboards, controllers, and other electronic music devices. It is basically a high-speed {serial} connection with separate connections for MIDI in, MIDI out and MIDI through (to allow devices to be chained). The basic unit of information is a "note on/off" event which includes a note number (pitch) and key velocity (loudness). There are many other message types for events such as pitch bend, patch changes and synthesizer-specific events for loading new patches etc. There is a file format for expressing MIDI data which is like a dump of data sent over a MIDI port. The {MIME} type "audio/midi" isn't actually registered so it should probably be "audio/x-midi". {Filename} {extension}: .mid or .midi {(http://update.uu.se/~vick/Coordinator.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.music.midi}, {news:alt.music.midi}. (1998-06-27)
nastygram "networking" /nas'tee-gram/ 1. A {network} {packet} or {e-mail} message (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things. 2. Disapproving e-mail, especially from a {net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem. Compare {shitogram}, {mailbomb}. 3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What did Corporate say in today's nastygram?" 4. [deprecated] An error reply by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce message}. [{Jargon File}] (2004-02-17)
netnews /net'n[y]ooz/ 1. The software that makes {Usenet} run. 2. The content of {Usenet}. "I read netnews right after my mail most mornings." [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-14)
net.- "convention, networking, messaging" /net dot/ A prefix used to describe people and events related to {Usenet} and the {Internet}. The convention dates from the time before the {Great Renaming}, when most non-local {Usenet} newsgroups had names beginning "net.". Includes {net.gods}, "net.goddesses" (various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers), "net.lurkers" (see {lurker}), "net.person", "net.parties" (a synonym for {boink}), and many similar constructs. See also {net.police}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-03-21)
net.god "person" /net god/ Accolade referring to anyone who satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been visible on {Usenet} for more than 5 years, ran one of the original backbone sites, moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally. Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the Slime Sisters have (so far) been distinguished more by personality than by authority. See {demigod}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-07)
NetHack "games" /net'hak/ (Unix) A dungeon game similar to {rogue} but more elaborate, distributed in {C} source over {Usenet} and very popular at {Unix} sites and on {PC}-class machines (nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the {freeware} dungeon games). The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and later considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called "hack". The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a group of hackers originally organised by Mike Stephenson. Version: NetHack 3.2 (Apr 1996?). {(http://win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/nethack/)}. {FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/rec.games.roguelike.nethack/)}. {FTP U Penn (ftp://linc.cis.upenn.edu/pub/NH3.1/)} No large downloads between 9:00 and 18:00 local or the directory will be removed. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.roguelike.nethack}. E-mail: "nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu". (1996-06-13)
netiquette "convention, networking" /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ Network etiquette. The conventions of politeness recognised on {Usenet} and in {mailing lists}, such as not (cross-)posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial advertising outside the biz groups. The most important rule of netiquette is "Think before you post". If what you intend to post will not make a positive contribution to the newsgroup and be of interest to several readers, don't post it! Personal messages to one or two individuals should not be posted to newsgroups, use private e-mail instead. When following up an article, quote the minimum necessary to give some context to your reply and be careful to attribute the quote to the right person. If the article you are responding to was posted to several groups, edit the distribution ("Newsgroups:") header to contain only those groups which are appropriate to your reply, especially if the original message was posted to one or more inappropriate groups in the first place. Re-read and edit your posting carefully before you post. Check the spelling and grammar. Keep your lines to less than 70 characters. Don't post test messages (except to test groups) - wait until you have something to say. When posting humorous or sarcastic comments, it is conventional to append a {smiley}, but don't overuse them. Before asking a question, read the messages already in the group and read the group's {FAQ} if it has one. When you do post a question, follow it with "please reply by mail and I will post a summary if requested" and make sure you DO post a summary if requested, or if only a few people were interested, send them a summary by mail. This avoids umpteen people posting the same answer to the group and umpteen others posting "me too"s. If you believe someone has violated netiquette, send them a message by __private e-mail__, DO NOT post a follow-up to the news. And be polite, they may not realise their mistake, they might be a beginner or may not even have been responsible for the "crime" - their account may have been used by someone else or their address forged. Be proud of your postings but don't post just to see your name in pixels. Remember: your future employer may be reading. {Netiquette for Usenet Site Administrators (http://ancho.ucs.indiana.edu/FAQ/USAGN/index.html)}. {"net.acceptable" (http://marketing.tenagra.com/net-acceptable.html)}. [{Jargon File}] (1999-10-18)
Netscape Communications Corporation "company" (Formlerly "Mosaic Communications Corporation", MCC) A company set up in April 1994 by {Dr. James H. Clark} and {Marc Andreessen} "marca@netcom.com" (creator of the {NCSA} {Mosaic} program) to market their version of {Mosaic}, known as {Netscape} or {Mozilla}. They {changed their name (http://netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease5.html)} on 1994-11-14 to reflect their other activities rather than just their browser based on {Mosaic}. {(http://netscape.com/)}. Address: 501 East Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Telephone: +1 (415) 254 1900. Fax: +1 (415) 254 2601. (2000-02-08)
Netscape Navigator "networking, tool, product" /Mozilla/ (Often called just "Netscape") A {web browser} from {Netscape Communications Corporation}. The first {beta-test} version was released free to the {Internet} on 13 October 1994. Netscape evolved from {NCSA} {Mosaic} (with which it shares at least one author) and runs on the {X Window System} under various versions of {Unix}, on {Microsoft Windows} and on the {Apple Macintosh}. It features integrated support for sending {electronic mail} and reading {Usenet} news, as well as {RSA encryption} to allow secure communications for commercial applications such as exchanging credit card numbers with net retailers. It provides multiple simultaneous interruptible text and image loading; native inline {JPEG} image display; display and interaction with documents as they load; multiple independent windows. Netscape was designed with 14.4 kbps modem links in mind. You can download Netscape Navigator for evaluation, or for unlimited use in academic or not-for-profit environments. You can also pay for it. Version: 1.0N. {(ftp://ftp.netscape.com/netscape/)}. E-mail: "sales@netscape.com". (1995-01-25)
Network extensible Window System (NeWS) An elegant {PostScript}-based windowing environment, invented by James Gosling, the author of {GOSMACS}. NeWS would almost certainly have won the {standards} war with the {X Window System} if it hadn't been {proprietary} to {Sun Microsystems}. There is a lesson here that too many software vendors haven't yet heeded. Communication is based on {PostScript} and server functions can be extended. See also {HyperNeWS}, {OpenWindows}. (1994-12-12)
network management "networking" The process of controlling a {network} so as to maximise its efficiency and productivity. {ISO}'s model divides network management into five categories: {fault management}, {accounting management}, {configuration management}, {security management} and {performance management}. Fault management is the process of identifying and locating faults in the network. This could include discovering the existence of the problem, identifying the source, and possibly repairing (or at least isolating the rest of the network from) the problem. Configuration management is the process of identifying, tracking and modifying the setup of devices on the network. This category is extremely important for devices that come with numerous custom settings (e.g. {routers} and {file servers}). Security management is the process of controlling (granting, limiting, restricting or denying) access to the network and resources thereon. This could include setting up and managing {access lists} in {routers} (creating "{firewalls}" to keep intruders out), creating and maintaining password access to critical network resources, identifying the points of entry used by intruders and closing them. Performance Management is the process of measuring the performance of various network components. This also includes taking measures to optimise the network for maximum system performance (periodically measuring of the use of network resources). {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.net-management}. ["Network Management: A Practical Perspective", Allan Leinwand and Karen Fang]. (1994-11-18)
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) A {protocol} defined in {RFC} 977 for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval and posting of {Usenet} {news} articles over the {Internet}. It is designed to be used between a {news reader} {client} such as {nn} or {GNUS} and a news {server}. It is normally used on a connection to {TCP} {port} 119 on the news {server}. NNTP is a simple {ASCII} text protocol so even if you don't have a news reader program, you can just connect to the server using {telnet}: telnet news 119 where news is the name of your server (e.g. news.doc.ic.ac.uk). Typing HELP will give a list of other commands.
newbie "jargon" /n[y]oo'bee/ (Sometimes shorted to "noob") Originally from British public-school and military slang variant of "new boy", an inexperienced user. This term surfaced in the {newsgroup} {news:talk.bizarre} but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one group while remaining a respected regular in another. The label "newbie" is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. See {BIFF}. [{Jargon File}] (2007-08-02)
newgroup wars /n[y]oo'groop worz/ [{Usenet}] The salvos of dueling "newgroup" and "rmgroup" messages sometimes exchanged by persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a {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 humour; e.g. the spinoff of alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from alt.tv.muppets in early 1990, or any number of specialised abuse groups named after particularly notorious {flamers}, e.g. alt.weemba. [{Jargon File}]
NewsClip A very high level language designed for writing {netnews filters}. It translates into {C}. It includes support for various {newsreaders}. Version 1.01 includes a translator from NewsClip to {C}, examples and documentation. NewsClip was written by {Looking Glass Software} Ltd. and is distributed and used by {ClariNet Communications} Corporation It is only supported for ClariNet customers. Output of the filters may not be sold and donation for use of this program is hinted at. E-mail: "newsclip@clarinet.com". (1992-10-25)
NeWS /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ {Network extensible Window System}. Many hackers insist on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing NeWS from {news} (the {netnews} software). [{Jargon File}]
Newspeak A language inspired by {Scratchpad}. [J.K. Foderaro. "The Design of a Language for Algebraic Computation", Ph.D. Thesis, UC Berkeley, 1983].
Newsqueak A {concurrent} {applicative} language with {synchronous} channels. ["Newsqueak: A Language for Communicating with Mice", R. Pike CSTR143, Bell Labs (March 1989)]. ["The Implementation of Newsqueak", Rob Pike, Soft Prac & Exp 20(7):649-659 (July 1990)].
nn "tool, messaging" A {terminal based} program for reading {Usenet} {news} by Kim F. Storm "storm@texas.dk", Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark. nn lets you chooose {news groups} and articles to read and unsubscribe from news groups. It uses its own local database maintained by the nnmaster program. The {NNTP} support was designed and implemented by Ren'e Seindal, Institute of Datalogy, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail: "nn-bugs@dkuug.dk" (bugs, fixes, suggestions, etc.) {Usenet} newgroup: {news:news.software.nn}. {FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/news/news.software.nn.html)} (2017-10-27)
NNTP "messaging" {Network News Transfer Protocol}. (1996-02-26)
NOMEX underwear /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ [{Usenet}] Synonym {asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related {mailing lists} and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance measure and required in some racing series. [{Jargon File}]
novel ::: a. --> Of recent origin or introduction; not ancient; new; hence, out of the ordinary course; unusual; strange; surprising.
That which is new or unusual; a novelty.
News; fresh tidings.
A fictitious tale or narrative, professing to be conformed to real life; esp., one intended to exhibit the operation of the passions, and particularly of love.
A new or supplemental constitution. See the Note under
novelist ::: n. --> An innovator; an asserter of novelty.
A writer of news.
A writer of a novel or novels.
Novell NetWare "operating system, networking" {Novell, Inc.}'s proprietary networking {operating system} for the {IBM PC}. NetWare uses the {IPX}/{SPX}, {NetBEUI} or {TCP/IP} network {protocols}. It supports {MS-DOS}, {Microsoft Windows}, {OS/2}, {Macintosh} and {Unix} {clients}. NetWare for Unix lets users access Unix hosts. NetWare 2.2 is a 16-bit operating system, versions 4.x and 3.x are 32-bit operating systems. {(http://netware.novell.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.novell}. ["Netware", K. Siyan, pub. New Riders]. [LAN Magazine, Sep 1993]. (1996-01-13)
Objective CAML "language" (Originally "CAML" - Categorical Abstract Machine Language) A version of {ML} by G. Huet, G. Cousineau, Ascander Suarez, Pierre Weis, Michel Mauny and others of {INRIA}. CAML is intermediate between {LCF ML} and {SML} [in what sense?]. It has {first-class} functions, {static type inference} with {polymorphic} types, user-defined {variant types} and {product types}, and {pattern matching}. It is built on a proprietary run-time system. The CAML V3.1 implementation added {lazy} and {mutable} data structures, a "{grammar}" mechanism for interfacing with the {Yacc} {parser generator}, {pretty-printing} tools, high-performance {arbitrary-precision} arithmetic, and a complete library. in 1990 Xavier Leroy and Damien Doligez designed a new implementation called {CAML Light}, freeing the previous implementation from too many experimental high-level features, and more importantly, from the old Le_Lisp back-end. Following the addition of a {native-code} compiler and a powerful {module} system in 1995 and of the {object} and {class} layer in 1996, the project's name was changed to Objective CAML. In 2000, Jacques Garrigue added labeled and optional arguments and anonymous variants. {Objective CAML Home (http://ocaml.org/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.ml}. ["The CAML Reference Manual", P. Weis et al, TR INRIA-ENS, 1989]. (2002-05-21)
object-oriented programming "programming" (OOP) The use of a class of programming languages and techniques based on the concept of an "{object}" which is a data structure ({abstract data type}) encapsulated with a set of routines, called "{methods}", which operate on the data. Operations on the data can __only__ be performed via these methods, which are common to all objects that are instances of a particular "{class}". Thus the interface to objects is well defined, and allows the code implementing the methods to be changed so long as the interface remains the same. Each class is a separate {module} and has a position in a "{class hierarchy}". Methods or code in one class can be passed down the hierarchy to a {subclass} or inherited from a {superclass}. This is called "{inheritance}". A {procedure} call is described as invoking a method on an object (which effectively becomes the procedure's first {argument}), and may optionally include other arguments. The method name is looked up in the object's class to find out how to perform that operation on the given object. If the method is not defined for the object's class, it is looked for in its superclass and so on up the class hierarchy until it is found or there is no higher superclass. OOP started with {SIMULA-67} around 1970 and became all-pervasive with the advent of {C++}, and later {Java}. Another popular object-oriented programming language (OOPL) is {Smalltalk}, a seminal example from {Xerox}'s {Palo Alto Research Center} (PARC). Others include {Ada}, {Object Pascal}, {Objective C}, {DRAGOON}, {BETA}, {Emerald}, {POOL}, {Eiffel}, {Self}, {Oblog}, {ESP}, {LOOPS}, {POLKA}, and {Python}. Other languages, such as {Perl} and {VB}, permit, but do not enforce OOP. {FAQ (http://iamwww.unibe.ch/~scg/OOinfo/FAQ/)}. {(http://zgdv.igd.fhg.de/papers/se/oop/)}. {(http://cuiwww.unige.ch/Chloe/OOinfo)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.object}. (2001-10-11)
Ob- /ob/ prefix Obligatory. A piece of {netiquette} acknowledging that the author has been straying from the newsgroup's charter topic. For example, if a posting in alt.sex is a response to a part of someone else's posting that has nothing particularly to do with sex, the author may append "ObSex" (or "Obsex") and toss off a question or vignette about some unusual erotic act. It is considered a sign of great {winnitude} when one's Obs are more interesting than other people's whole postings. [{Jargon File}]
off-line "jargon" (Or "offline") 1. Not directly connected to the computer (e.g., an off-line {tape drive}), or with connection suspended ("take the {printer} off-line"). Contrast {background}, {on-line}. 2. Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion off-line." Specifically used on {Usenet} to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public {newsgroup} to {e-mail}. See also {off-line world}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-02-02)
On-Line Analytical Processing "database" (OLAP) A category of {database} software which provides an interface such that users can transform or limit raw data according to user-defined or pre-defined functions, and quickly and interactively examine the results in various dimensions of the data. OLAP primarily involves aggregating large amounts of diverse data. OLAP can involve millions of data items with complex relationships. Its objective is to analyze these relationships and look for patterns, trends, and exceptions. The term was originally coined by {Dr. Codd} in 1993 with 12 "rules". Since then, the {OLAP Council}, many vendors, and Dr. Codd himself have added new requirements and confusion. Richard Creeth and Nigel Pendse define OLAP as fast analysis of shared multidimensional information. Their definition requires the system to respond to users within about five seconds. It should support logical and statistical processing of results without the user having to program in a {4GL}. It should implement all the security requirements for confidentiality and concurrent update locking. The system must provide a multidimensional conceptual view of the data, including full support for multiple hierarchies. Other aspects to consider include data duplication, {RAM} and disk space requirements, performance, and integration with {data warehouses}. Various bodies have attempted to come up with standards for OLAP, including The {OLAP Council} and the {Analytical Solutions Forum} (ASF), however, the {Microsoft OLE DB for OLAP API} is the most widely adopted and has become the {de facto standard}. {(http://access.digex.net/~grimes/olap/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.databases.olap}. {(http://arborsoft.com/papers/finkTOC.html)}. [What's a "multidimensional conceptual view"?] (1996-09-24)
Open Look "operating system" A {graphical user interface} and {window manager} from {Sun} and {AT&T}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics.openlook}. (1995-06-11)
OpenWindows "operating system" A {graphical user interface} {server} for {Sun} {workstations} which handles {SunView}, {NeWS} and {X Window System} protocols. (1995-06-11)
operating system "operating system" (OS) The low-level {software} which handles the interface to {peripheral} {hardware}, schedules {tasks}, allocates {storage}, and presents a default {interface} to the user when no {application program} is running. The OS may be split into a {kernel} which is always present and various system programs which use facilities provided by the kernel to perform higher-level {house-keeping} tasks, often acting as {servers} in a {client-server} relationship. Some would include a {graphical user interface} and {window system} as part of the OS, others would not. The {operating system loader}, {BIOS}, or other {firmware} required at {boot time} or when installing the operating system would generally not be considered part of the operating system, though this distinction is unclear in the case of a {rommable operating system} such as {RISC OS}. The facilities an operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures that grow up around the machines on which it runs. Example operating systems include {386BSD}, {AIX}, {AOS}, {Amoeba}, {Angel}, {Artemis microkernel}, {BeOS}, {Brazil}, {COS}, {CP/M}, {CTSS}, {Chorus}, {DACNOS}, {DOSEXEC 2}, {GCOS}, {GEORGE 3}, {GEOS}, {ITS}, {KAOS}, {Linux}, {LynxOS}, {MPV}, {MS-DOS}, {MVS}, {Mach}, {Macintosh operating system}, {Microsoft Windows}, {MINIX}, {Multics}, {Multipop-68}, {Novell NetWare}, {OS-9}, {OS/2}, {Pick}, {Plan 9}, {QNX}, {RISC OS}, {STING}, {System V}, {System/360}, {TOPS-10}, {TOPS-20}, {TRUSIX}, {TWENEX}, {TYMCOM-X}, {Thoth}, {Unix}, {VM/CMS}, {VMS}, {VRTX}, {VSTa}, {VxWorks}, {WAITS}. {FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.os.research)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.research}. [{Jargon File}] (1999-06-09)
OS-9 "operating system" A {real-time} {operating system} written by {Microware Corporation}. The original version was written about 1978 for the {Motorola 6809} and has since been ported to the {Motorola 68000}, {Intel 80386}, {Intel 486}, and the {PowerPC}. The {kernel} of OS-9 is {ROMable}, modular, with a unified file system, allowing it to easily be scaled up or down as required. {FAQ (http://os9archive.rtsi.com/os9faq.html)}. {User Group (http://cs.wisc.edu/~pruyne/os9ugfaq.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.os9}. (1996-04-03)
paper ::: n. --> A substance in the form of thin sheets or leaves intended to be written or printed on, or to be used in wrapping. It is made of rags, straw, bark, wood, or other fibrous material, which is first reduced to pulp, then molded, pressed, and dried.
A sheet, leaf, or piece of such substance.
A printed or written instrument; a document, essay, or the like; a writing; as, a paper read before a scientific society.
A printed sheet appearing periodically; a newspaper; a
parallel processing "parallel" (Or "multiprocessing") The simultaneous use of more than one computer to solve a problem. There are many different kinds of parallel computer (or "parallel processor"). They are distinguished by the kind of interconnection between processors (known as "processing elements" or PEs) and between processors and memory. {Flynn's taxonomy} also classifies parallel (and serial) computers according to whether all processors execute the same instructions at the same time ("{single instruction/multiple data}" - SIMD) or each processor executes different instructions ("{multiple instruction/multiple data}" - MIMD). The processors may either communicate in order to be able to cooperate in solving a problem or they may run completely independently, possibly under the control of another processor which distributes work to the others and collects results from them (a "{processor farm}"). The difficulty of cooperative problem solving is aptly demonstrated by the following dubious reasoning: If it takes one man one minute to dig a post-hole then sixty men can dig it in one second. {Amdahl's Law} states this more formally. Processors communicate via some kind of network or bus or a combination of both. Memory may be either {shared memory} (all processors have equal access to all memory) or private (each processor has its own memory - "{distributed memory}") or a combination of both. Many different software systems have been designed for programming parallel computers, both at the {operating system} and programming language level. These systems must provide mechanisms for partitioning the overall problem into separate tasks and allocating tasks to processors. Such mechanisms may provide either {implicit parallelism} - the system (the {compiler} or some other program) partitions the problem and allocates tasks to processors automatically or {explicit parallelism} where the programmer must annotate his program to show how it is to be partitioned. It is also usual to provide synchronisation primitives such as {semaphores} and {monitors} to allow processes to share resources without conflict. {Load balancing} attempts to keep all processors busy by allocating new tasks, or by moving existing tasks between processors, according to some {algorithm}. Communication between tasks may be either via {shared memory} or {message passing}. Either may be implemented in terms of the other and in fact, at the lowest level, shared memory uses message passing since the address and data signals which flow between processor and memory may be considered as messages. The terms "parallel processing" and "multiprocessing" imply multiple processors working on one task whereas "{concurrent processing}" and "{multitasking}" imply a single processor sharing its time between several tasks. See also {cellular automaton},{symmetric multi-processing}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.parallel}. {Institutions (http://ccsf.caltech.edu/other_sites.html)}, {research groups (http://cs.cmu.edu/~scandal/research-groups.html)}. (2004-11-07)
Parallel Virtual Machine "parallel, networking, tool" (PVM) 1. A {software} system designed to allow a network of {heterogeneous} machines to be used as a single {distributed} {parallel processor}. PVM was developed by the {University of Tennessee}, The {Oak Ridge National Laboratory} and the {Emory University}. {(http://epm.ornl.gov/pvm/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.parallel.pvm}. 2. The {intermediate language} used by the {Gambit} compiler for {Scheme}. [And Multilisp?] (1995-01-30)
PDP-10 "computer" Programmed Data Processor model 10. The series of {mainframes} from {DEC} that made {time-sharing} real. It looms large in hacker folklore because of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing facilities and research labs, including the {MIT} {AI Lab}, {Stanford}, and {CMU}. Some aspects of the {instruction set} (most notably the bit-field instructions) are still considered unsurpassed. The PDP-10 was eventually eclipsed by the {VAX} machines (descendants of the {PDP-11}) when DEC recognised that the PDP-10 and VAX product lines were competing with each other and decided to concentrate its software development effort on the more profitable VAX. The machine was finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of the {Jupiter} Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some attempts by other companies to market clones came to nothing; see {Foonly} and {Mars}.) This event spelled the doom of {ITS} and the technical cultures that had spawned the original {Jargon File}, but by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of honourable old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10. See {TOPS-10}, {AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT}, {DPB}, {EXCH}, {HAKMEM}, {JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop}, {push}. {news:alt.sys.pdp10} [Was the PDP-10 a mini or a mainframe?] (2001-01-05)
PeaceNet One of the {IGC} networks. PeaceNet serves peace and social justice advocates around the world in such areas as human rights, disarmament, and international relations. A number of alternative news services provide a range of information about these and other topics from around the world. E-mail: "peacenet@igc.apc.org". {(ftp://igc.apc.org/)}.
Pegasus 1. "networking, product" A product to support {Internet} searches, {electronic mail}, and {Usenet news}. [Details? Addesss?] (1997-07-14) 2. "project" An {open source} project run by {The Open Group} which implements a {Common Information Model} (CIM) Object Manager. {Pegasus Home (http://openpegasus.org/)}. (2003-06-07)
penis war "jargon, abuse" (Or "Dick Size War", "DSW") Any argument which has degenerated into quantitative boasting of the sort "My [program|bot|etc.] is [faster|meaner|etc.] than yours!". Generally as unconstructive (and with as little emphasis on empirical proof) as men debating who has the biggest penis. The term is often used on {IRC}, {news:alt.sysadmin.recovery}, and sometimes applied to IRC {botwars}, because of their equally pointless nature. (1999-07-14)
Pentium "processor" {Intel}'s {superscalar} successor to the {486}. It has two 32-bit 486-type integer {pipelines} with dependency checking. It can execute a maximum of two instructions per cycle. It does pipelined {floating-point} and performs {branch prediction}. It has 16 {kilobytes} of on-chip {cache}, a 64-bit memory interface, 8 32-bit general-purpose {registers} and 8 80-bit {floating-point} registers. It is built from 3.1 million transistors on a 262.4 mm^2 die with ~2.3 million transistors in the core logic. Its {clock rate} is 66MHz, heat dissipation is 16W, integer performance is 64.5 {SPECint92}, {floating-point} performance 56.9 {SPECfp92}. It is called "Pentium" because it is the fifth in the 80x86 line. It would have been called the 80586 had a US court not ruled that you can't trademark a number. The successors are the {Pentium Pro} and {Pentium II}. The following Pentium variants all belong to "x86 Family 6", as reported by "Microsoft Windows" when identifying the CPU: Model Name 1 Pentium Pro 2 ? 3 Pentium II 4 ? 5, 6 Celeron or Pentium II 7 Pentium III 8 Celeron uPGA2 or Mobile Pentium III A {floating-point division bug (ftp://ftp.isi.edu/pub/carlton/pentium/FAQ)} was discovered in October 1994. [Internal implementation, "Microprocessor Report" newsletter, 1993-03-29, volume 7, number 4]. [Pentium based computers, PC Magazine, 1994-01-25]. (2003-09-30)
Perl "language, tool" A {high-level} programming language, started by {Larry Wall} in 1987 and developed as an {open source} project. It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from the ubiquitous {C} programming language and to a lesser extent from {sed}, {awk}, various {Unix} {shell} languages, {Lisp}, and at least a dozen other tools and languages. Originally developed for {Unix}, it is now available for many {platforms}. Perl's elaborate support for {regular expression} matching and substitution has made it the {language of choice} for tasks involving {string manipulation}, whether for text or binary data. It is particularly popular for writing {CGI scripts}. The language's highly flexible syntax and concise regular expression operators, make densely written Perl code indecipherable to the uninitiated. The syntax is, however, really quite simple and powerful and, once the basics have been mastered, a joy to write. Perl's only {primitive} data type is the "scalar", which can hold a number, a string, the undefined value, or a typed reference. Perl's {aggregate} data types are {arrays}, which are ordered lists of {scalars} indexed by {natural numbers}, and hashes (or "{associative arrays}") which are unordered lists of scalars indexed by strings. A reference can point to a scalar, array, hash, {function}, or {filehandle}. {Objects} are implemented as references "{blessed}" with a {class} name. Strings in Perl are {eight-bit clean}, including {nulls}, and so can contain {binary data}. Unlike C but like most Lisp dialects, Perl internally and dynamically handles all memory allocation, {garbage collection}, and type {coercion}. Perl supports {closures}, {recursive functions}, {symbols} with either {lexical scope} or {dynamic scope}, nested {data structures} of arbitrary content and complexity (as lists or hashes of references), and packages (which can serve as classes, optionally inheriting {methods} from one or more other classes). There is ongoing work on {threads}, {Unicode}, {exceptions}, and {backtracking}. Perl program files can contain embedded documentation in {POD} (Plain Old Documentation), a simple markup language. The normal Perl distribution contains documentation for the language, as well as over a hundred modules (program libraries). Hundreds more are available from The {Comprehensive Perl Archive Network}. Modules are themselves generally written in Perl, but can be implemented as interfaces to code in other languages, typically compiled C. The free availability of modules for almost any conceivable task, as well as the fact that Perl offers direct access to almost all {system calls} and places no arbitrary limits on data structure size or complexity, has led some to describe Perl, in a parody of a famous remark about {lex}, as the "Swiss Army chainsaw" of programming. The use of Perl has grown significantly since its adoption as the language of choice of many {web} developers. {CGI} interfaces and libraries for Perl exist for several {platforms} and Perl's speed and flexibility make it well suited for form processing and on-the-fly {web page} creation. Perl programs are generally stored as {text} {source} files, which are compiled into {virtual machine} code at run time; this, in combination with its rich variety of data types and its common use as a glue language, makes Perl somewhat hard to classify as either a "{scripting language}" or an "{applications language}" -- see {Ousterhout's dichotomy}. Perl programs are usually called "Perl scripts", if only for historical reasons. Version 5 was a major rewrite and enhancement of version 4, released sometime before November 1993. It added real {data structures} by way of "references", un-adorned {subroutine} calls, and {method} {inheritance}. The spelling "Perl" is preferred over the older "PERL" (even though some explain the language's name as originating in the acronym for "Practical Extraction and Report Language"). The program that interprets/compiles Perl code is called "perl", typically "/usr/local/bin/perl" or "/usr/bin/perl". {(http://perl.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.perl.announce}, {news:comp.lang.perl.misc}. ["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 0-93715-64-1]. ["Learning Perl" by Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA]. [{Jargon File}] (1999-12-04)
permanent link "web" A {URL} that always points to the same piece of {web content}. {Web pages} that appear for a limited time at their main URL, such as {web logs} or news sites, often display an alternative, permanent link. Readers can quote, bookmark, or link to this URL in order to refer to a particular item, rather than the page displaying the latest item. For example, the URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/ points to the latest news from the BBC whereas http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2614839.stm is a permanent link to a particular news story. (2003-12-27)
Phoenix "operating system" An {operating system}, built in {BCPL} on top of {IBM} {MVT} and later {MVS} by {Cambridge University} Computing Service from 1973 to 1995, which ran on the university central {mainframe}. All parts of the system were named after birds, including Eagle (the {job scheduler}, also the nearest pub), Pigeon (the mailer), {GCAL} (the text processor) and Wren (the command language), leading to Wren Libraries (a local pun). Phoenix was much used by {chemists} in daytime and by the rest of the university in the evenings, and was only abandoned in favour of {Unix} in 1995; it is one reason Cambridge made little contribution to Unix until then. {Computing Service Phoenix closure memo (http://cam.ac.uk/cs/newsletter/1995/nl183/phoenix.html)} (2003-12-05)
phreaking "jargon" /freek'ing/ "phone phreak" 1. The art and science of {cracking} the telephone network so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls. 2. By extension, security-{cracking} in any other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communications networks). At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an intellectual game and a form of exploration was OK, but serious theft of services was taboo. There was significant crossover between the hacker community and the hard-core phone phreaks who ran semi-underground networks of their own through such media as the legendary "TAP Newsletter". This ethos began to break down in the mid-1980s as wider dissemination of the techniques put them in the hands of less responsible phreaks. Around the same time, changes in the phone network made old-style technical ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came to depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card numbers. The crimes and punishments of gangs like the "414 group" turned that game very ugly. A few old-time hackers still phreak casually just to keep their hand in, but most these days have hardly even heard of "blue boxes" or any of the other paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-09)
Pine Program for Internet News & Email. A tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. It was designed specifically with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored to accommodate the needs of "power users" as well. Pine uses {Internet} message {protocols} (e.g. {RFC 822}, {SMTP}, {MIME}, {IMAP}, {NNTP}) and runs under {Unix} and {MS-DOS}. The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were: careful limitation of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command menus, immediate user feedback, and high tolerance for user mistakes. It is intended that Pine can be learned by exploration rather than reading manuals. Feedback from the {University of Washington} community and a growing number of {Internet} sites has been encouraging. Pine's message composition editor, {Pico}, is also available as a separate stand-alone program. Pico is a very simple and easy-to-use {text editor} offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a spelling checker. Pine features on-line help; a message index showing a message summary which includes the status, sender, size, date and subject of messages; commands to view and process messages; a message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker; an address book for saving long complex addresses and personal distribution lists under a nickname; message attachments via {Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions}; {folder} management commands for creating, deleting, listing, or renaming message folders; access to remote message folders and archives via the {Interactive Mail Access Protocol} as defined in {RFC 1176}; access to {Usenet} news via {NNTP} or {IMAP}. Pine, {Pico} and {UW}'s {IMAP} {server} are copyrighted but freely available. {Unix} Pine runs on {Ultrix}, {AIX}, {SunOS}, {SVR4} and {PTX}. PC-Pine is available for {Packet Driver}, {Novell LWP}, {FTP PC/TCP} and {Sun} {PC/NFS}. A {Microsoft Windows}/{WinSock} version is planned, as are extensions for off-line use. Pine was originally based on {Elm} but has evolved much since ("Pine Is No-longer Elm"). Pine is the work of Mike Seibel, Mark Crispin, Steve Hubert, Sheryl Erez, David Miller and Laurence Lundblade (now at Virginia Tech) at the University of Washington Office of Computing and Communications. {(ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/pine.tar.Z)}. {(telnet://demo.cac.washington.edu/)} (login as "pinedemo"). E-mail: "pine@cac.washington.edu", "pine-info-request@cac.washington.edu", "pine-announce-request@cac.washington.edu". (21 Sep 93)
Platform Independent Graphical User Interface (PIGUI) {The PIGUI FAQ (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/portable-GUI-software/)}. [Summary?] (1994-11-22)
play by electronic mail "games" A kind of game where the players use {electronic mail} to communicate. This may be done via a human {moderator} or an automatic {mailing list} {exploder} on some central machine or it may be fully distributed with each player just addressing his mail to all other players. This is a natural extension of "play by mail" games conducted via {snail mail}. {(http://fermi.clas.virginia.edu/~gl8f/pbm.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.pbm}. (1994-10-27)
Point-to-Point Protocol "communications, protocol" (PPP) The {protocol} defined in {RFC 1661}, the {Internet} standard for transmitting {network layer} {datagrams} (e.g. {IP} packets) over serial point-to-point links. PPP has a number of advantages over {SLIP}; it is designed to operate both over {asynchronous} connections and bit-oriented {synchronous} systems, it can configure connections to a remote network dynamically, and test that the link is usable. PPP can be configured to encapsulate different network layer protocols (such as {IP}, {IPX}, or {AppleTalk}) by using the appropriate {Network Control Protocol} (NCP). {RFC 1220} describes how PPP can be used with remote bridging. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.protocols.ppp}. {A paper on PPP (ftp://ftp.uu.net/vendor/MorningStar/papers/sug91-cheapIP.ps.Z)}. (1994-12-13)
portal "web" A {website} that aims to be an entry point to the {web}, typically offering a {search engine} and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other services. These services are usually provided for free in the hope that users will make the site their default {home page} or at least visit it often. Popular examples are {Yahoo} and {MSN}. Most portals on the {Internet} exist to generate advertising income for their owners, others may be focused on a specific group of users and may be part of an {intranet} or {extranet}. Some may just concentrate on one particular subject, say technology or medicine, and are known as a {vertical portals}. (2001-07-07)
posting A message sent to a {newsgroup} or {mailing list} (may also be called "a post") or the act of sending it. Distinguished from a "letter" or ordinary {electronic mail} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a small mailing list are postings or e-mail; perhaps the best dividing line is that if you don't know the names of all the potential recipients, it is a posting. [{Jargon File}]
post "messaging" To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}. Usually implies that the message is sent indiscriminately to multiple users, in contrast to "mail" which implies one or more deliberately selected individual recipients. You should only post a message if you think it will be of interest to a significant proportion of the readers of the group or list, otherwise you should use private {electronic mail} instead. See {netiquette}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-12-04)
PowerBuilder "tool, database" A {graphical user interface} development tool from {Powersoft} for developing {client-server} {database} {applications}. It runs under {MS-DOS}(?) and {Microsoft Windows}. There are also versions for {Microsoft Windows}, {Windows NT}, {Macintosh}, and {Unix}. Applications can be built by creating {windows}, controls (such as {listboxes} and {buttons}), and {menus} within the PowerBuilder development environment. The language used to program PowerBuilder, {PowerScript}, is loosely based on {BASIC}. PowerBuilder supports programming on many database backends including {Sybase} and {Oracle}. It also has added support for {ODBC} database drivers. PowerBuilder also comes with a built-in database backend ({WATCOM} {SQL} 32-bit {relational database}). {Product information (http://powersoft.com/mktg/prodinfo/prodintr.html)}. {FAQ (ftp://ftp.oar.net/pub/psoft/pb01.faq)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.soft-sys.powerbuilder}. [Correct list of platforms?] (2001-03-23)
PowerPC "processor, standard" (PPC) A {RISC} {microprocessor} designed to meet a {standard} which was jointly designed by {Motorola}, {IBM}, and {Apple Computer} (the PowerPC Alliance). The PowerPC standard specifies a common {instruction set architecture} (ISA), allowing anyone to design and fabricate PowerPC processors, which will run the same code. The PowerPC architecture is based on the IBM {POWER} architecture, used in IBM's {RS/6000} {workstations}. Currently {IBM} and {Motorola} are working on PowerPC chips. The PowerPC standard specifies both 32-bit and 64-bit data paths. Early implementations were 32-bit (e.g. {PowerPC 601}); later higher-performance implementations were 64-bit (e.g. PowerPC 620). A PowerPC has 32 integer {registers} (32- or 64 bit) and 32 {floating-point} (IEEE standard 64 bit) {floating-point} registers. The POWER CPU chip and PowerPC have a (large) common core, but both have instructions that the other doesn't. The PowerPC offers the following features that POWER does not: Support for running in {little-endian} mode. Addition of single precision {floating-point} operations. Control of branch prediction direction. A hardware coherency model (not in Book I). Some other {floating-point} instructions (some optional). The real time clock (upper and lower) was replaced with the time base registers (upper and lower), which don't count in sec/ns (the decrementer also changed). 64-bit instruction operands, registers, etc. (in 64 bit processors). See also {PowerOpen}, {PowerPC Platform} (PReP). {IBM PPC info (http://fnctsrv0.chips.ibm.com/products/ppc/index.html)}. {(gopher://info.hed.apple.com/)}, "Apple Corporate News/" (press releases), "Apple Technologies/" and "Product Information/". {(gopher://ike.engr.washington.edu/)}, "IBM General News/", "IBM Product Announcements/", "IBM Detailed Product Announcements/", "IBM Hardware Catalog/". {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.sys.powerpc}, {news:comp.sys.mac.hardware}. ["Microprocessor Report", 16 October 1991]. (1994-09-30)
pre\box "computer" {Phase 5}'s Amiga clone, announced on 1998-03-10. The pre\box will have a processor card with four {PowerPC} processors running in parallel. The processors will range from four 200 MHz {PPC604e} chips to four 300MHz {PPC750} chips. It will have a {Voodoo2} {video graphics card}, as well as a custom video chip working in concert, with 8 MB of {video ram}. It will run {Amiga OS} 3.1 (or higher if {Gateway 2000} delivers the next upgrade before its release) and have {Motorola 68000} {CPU} {emulation} in software. Other features include {EIDE}, {Ultra Wide SCSI-II}, {PCI}, {Ethernet} and {DIMM} sockets. Extra RAM, hard disks and {CD-ROM} will be available. The initial specification will probably be 32MB RAM, 32-speed CD and 4GB hard disk in an {ATX minitower}. Systems should start at about $2000 for four parallel 200 MHZ CPUs and be available at the end of 1998. {Full press release (http://cucug.org/amiga/aminews/1998/980310-phase5.html)}. (1998-07-29)
printer ::: n. --> One who prints; especially, one who prints books, newspapers, engravings, etc., a compositor; a typesetter; a pressman.
print ::: v. t. --> To fix or impress, as a stamp, mark, character, idea, etc., into or upon something.
To stamp something in or upon; to make an impression or mark upon by pressure, or as by pressure.
To strike off an impression or impressions of, from type, or from stereotype, electrotype, or engraved plates, or the like; in a wider sense, to do the typesetting, presswork, etc., of (a book or other publication); as, to print books, newspapers, pictures; to print
probe ::: n. 1. Something that probes, examines, or tests. 2. Fig. A thorough inquiry, such as one by a newspaper into corrupt practices. v. 3. To examine (something) with or as if with a probe; examine thoroughly. probed.
Pronunciation In this dictionary slashes (/../) bracket phonetic pronunciations of words not found in a standard English dictionary. The notation, and many of the pronunciations, were adapted from the Hacker's {Jargon File}. Syllables are separated by {dash} or followed {single quote} or {back quote}. Single quote means the preceding syllable is stressed (louder), back quote follows a syllable with intermediate stress (slightly louder), otherwise all syllables are equally stressed. Consonants are pronounced as in English but note: ch soft, as in "church" g hard, as in "got" gh aspirated g+h of "bughouse" or "ragheap" j voiced, as in "judge" kh guttural of "loch" or "l'chaim" s unvoiced, as in "pass" zh as "s" in "pleasure" Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus (for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aych el el/. /Z/ is pronounced /zee/ in the US and /zed/ in the UK (elsewhere?). Vowels are represented as follows: a back, that ah father, palm (see note) ar far, mark aw flaw, caught ay bake, rain e less, men ee easy, ski eir their, software i trip, hit i: life, sky o block, stock (see note) oh flow, sew oo loot, through or more, door ow out, how oy boy, coin uh but, some u put, foot *r fur, insert (only in stressed syllables; otherwise use just "r") y yet, young yoo few, chew [y]oo /oo/ with optional fronting as in `news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/) A /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (often written with an upside-down `e'). The schwa vowel is omitted in unstressed syllables containing vocalic l, m, n or r; that is, "kitten" and "colour" would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not /kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/. The above table reflects mainly distinctions found in standard American English (that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis/St.Paul and Philadelphia). However, we separate /o/ from /ah/, which tend to merge in standard American. This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British Received Pronunciation. Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only. (1997-12-10)
Psion Organiser "computer" A popular {pocket computer} from the UK Company {Psion} plc. The organiser uses a {graphical user interface} with windows, menus, icons and {dialog box}es. There have been several versions so far: Series3a, Series3, HC, MC, OrgII. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.sys.psion}, {news:comp.binaries.psion}. (1995-03-03)
publish ::: v. t. --> To make public; to make known to mankind, or to people in general; to divulge, as a private transaction; to promulgate or proclaim, as a law or an edict.
To make known by posting, or by reading in a church; as, to publish banns of marriage.
To send forth, as a book, newspaper, musical piece, or other printed work, either for sale or for general distribution; to print, and issue from the press.
push media "messaging" A model of media distribution where items of content are sent to the user (viewer, listener, etc.) in a sequence, and at a rate, determined by a {server} to which the user has connected. This contrasts with {pull media} where the user requests each item individually. Push media usually entail some notion of a "channel" which the user selects and which delivers a particular kind of content. Broadcast television is (for the most part) the prototypical example of push media: you turn on the TV set, select a channel and shows and commercials stream out until you turn the set off. By contrast, the {web} is (mostly) the prototypical example of pull media: each "page", each bit of content, comes to the user only if he requests it; put down the keyboard and the mouse, and everything stops. At the time of writing (April 1997), much effort is being put into blurring the line between push media and pull media. Most of this is aimed at bringing more push media to the {Internet}, mainly as a way to disseminate advertising, since telling people about products they didn't know they wanted is very difficult in a strict pull media model. These emergent forms of push media are generally variations on targeted advertising mixed in with bits of useful content. "At home on your computer, the same system will run soothing {screensavers} underneath regular news flashes, all while keeping track, in one corner, of press releases from companies whose stocks you own. With frequent commercial messages, of course." (Wired, March 1997, page 12). {Pointcast (http://pointcast.com)} is probably the best known push system on the Internet at the time of writing. As part of the eternal desire to apply a fun new words to boring old things, "push" is occasionally used to mean nothing more than email {spam}. (1997-04-10)
Python 1. "language" A simple, high-level interpreted language invented by Guido van Rossum "guido@cwi.nl" in 1991. Python combines ideas from {ABC}, {C}, {Modula-3} and {Icon}. It bridges the gap between {C} and {shell} programming, making it suitable for {rapid prototyping} or as an extension language for C applications. It is {object-oriented} and supports packages, {modules}, {classes}, user-defined exceptions, a good C interface, dynamic loading of C modules and has no arbitrary restrictions. Python is available for many {platforms}, including {Unix}, {Windows}, {DOS}, {OS/2}, {Macintosh} and {Amoeba}. {(http://python.org/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.python}. (2007-02-21) 2. "compiler" A {compiler} for {CMU Common LISP}. Python is more sophisticated than other {Common Lisp} compilers. It produces better code and is easier to use. The programming environment based on the {Hemlock} editor is better integrated than {GNU} {Emacs} based environments. (1997-02-27)
QNX "operating system" A {realtime}, network distributed, {POSIX}-certified, {microkernel}, multi-user, {multitasking}, {ROMable}, {fault-tolerant}, embeddable {operating system} that supports {TCP/IP}, {NFS}, {FTP}, the {X Window System}, {Microsoft Windows} as a guest process, {Ethernet}, {Token Ring}, {Arcnet} and {Watcom} {ANSI C}/{C++}. Support for {Pentium}, {486}, {386}, {286}, {80x87}. Developed and distributed by QNX Software Systems, Ltd. {QNX Home (http://qnx.com/)}. {OpenQNX: The QNX community portal (http://openqnx.com)}. {Papers (ftp://ftp.cse.ucsc.edu/pub/qnx/qnx-paper.ps.Z)}. (128.114.134.19). {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.qnx}. E-mail: "info@qnx.com". (2003-07-27)
radiosity "graphics" A method for rendering a view of a three-dimensional scene that provides realistic lighting effects, such as interobject reflections and {color bleeding}. Radiosity methods are computationally intense, due to the use of linear systems of equations and the spatial complexity of large scenes. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics}. [Is radiosity more accurate than {ray tracing}? Does it take more computing power? How does compute time scale with scene complexity?] (2003-06-01)
ray tracing "graphics" A technique used in {computer graphics} to create realistic {images} by calculating the paths taken by rays of light entering the observer's eye at different angles. The paths are traced backward from the viewpoint, through a point (a {pixel}) in the image plane until they hit some object in the scene or go off to infinity. Objects are modelled as collections of abutting surfaces which may be rectangles, triangles, or more complicated shapes such as 3D {splines}. The optical properties of different surfaces (colour, reflectance, transmitance, refraction, texture) also affect how it will contribute to the colour and brightness of the ray. The position, colour, and brightness of light sources, including ambient lighting, is also taken into account. Ray tracing is an ideal application for {parallel processing} since there are many pixels, each of whose values is independent and can thus be calculated in parallel. Compare: {radiosity}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics.raytracing}. {(http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Graphics/3D/Ray_Tracing/)}. (2003-09-11)
RC4 "cryptography" A {cipher} designed by {RSA Data Security, Inc.} which can accept {keys} of arbitrary length, and is essentially a {pseudo random number generator} with the output of the generator being {XOR}ed with the data stream to produce the encrypted data. For this reason, it is very important that the same RC4 key never be used to encrypt two different data streams. The encryption mechanism used to be a trade secret, until someone posted source code for an {algorithm} onto {Usenet News}, claiming it to be equivalent to RC4. The algorithm is very fast, its security is unknown, but breaking it does not seem trivial either. There is very strong evidence that the posted algorithm is indeed equivalent to RC4. The United States government routinely approves RC4 with 40-bit keys for export. Keys this small can be easily broken by governments, criminals, and amateurs. The exportable version of {Netscape}'s {Secure Socket Layer}, which uses RC4-40, was broken by at least two independent groups. Breaking it took about eight days; in many universities or companies the same computing power is available to any computer science student. See also {Damien Doligez's SSL cracking page (http://pauillac.inria.fr/~doligez/ssl/)}, {RC4 Source and Information (http://cs.hut.fi/crypto/rc4)}, {SSLeay (http://cs.hut.fi/crypto/software.html
recent ::: a. --> Of late origin, existence, or occurrence; lately come; not of remote date, antiquated style, or the like; not already known, familiar, worn out, trite, etc.; fresh; novel; new; modern; as, recent news.
Of or pertaining to the present or existing epoch; as, recent shells.
Regina "standard" A widely-used {open source} {Rexx} {interpreter} by Anders Christensen "anders@pvv.unit.no", ported to many {platforms} including {Unix}, {Windows 95}, {Windows NT}, {OS/2}. Regina is currently maintained by Mark Hessling. Regina conforms almost completely to Rexx Language Level 4.00, with some Rexx SAA API extensions. It is distributed under the GNU {General Public License}. {Home {http://lightlink.com/hessling/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.rexx}. (2001-03-30)
relax ::: n. --> To make lax or loose; to make less close, firm, rigid, tense, or the like; to slacken; to loosen; to open; as, to relax a rope or cord; to relax the muscles or sinews.
To make less severe or rigorous; to abate the stringency of; to remit in respect to strenuousness, earnestness, or effort; as, to relax discipline; to relax one&
religious issues Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the best operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)?", "What about that Heinlein guy, eh?", "What should we add to the new Jargon File?" See {holy wars}; see also {theology}, {bigot}. This term is a prime example of {ha ha only serious}. People actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible. The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave - unless, of course, one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct choices are being slammed. (1996-08-16)
renew ::: 1. To make new or as if new again; restore. Also fig. 2. To revive; re-establish. 3. To become new again. renews, renewed, renewing.
renewer ::: n. --> One who, or that which, renews.
reporter ::: n. --> One who reports.
An officer or person who makes authorized statements of law proceedings and decisions, or of legislative debates.
One who reports speeches, the proceedings of public meetings, news, etc., for the newspapers.
reportorial ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a reporter or reporters; as, the reportorial staff of a newspaper.
Request For Comments "standard" (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered {Internet} informational documents and {standards} widely followed by commercial software and {freeware} in the {Internet} and {Unix} communities. Few RFCs are standards but all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs. Perhaps the single most influential RFC has been {RFC 822}, the Internet {electronic mail} format standard. The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as {ANSI}. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted as standards. The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of {ANSI} or {ISO}. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the {TCP/IP} documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon. The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated {misfeatures} that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions. {rfc.net (http://rfc.net/)}. {W3 (http://w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/Archives/RFC_sites.html)}. {JANET UK FTP (ftp://nic.ja.net/pub/newsfiles/JIPS/rfc)}. {Imperial College, UK FTP (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/)}. {Nexor UK (http://nexor.com/public/rfc/index/rfc.html)}. {Ohio State U (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html)}. See also {For Your Information}, {STD}. (1997-11-10)
Resource Reservation Protocol "protocol" (RSVP) A {protocol} that supports {quality of service}. {(http://zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,389107,00.html)}. (2001-03-18)
Restructured EXtended eXecutor "language" (REXX, or "System Product Interpreter", originally known as "REX") A {script}ing language for {IBM VM} and {MVS} systems, developed by M. Cowlishaw at {IBM} ca. 1979, replacing {EXEC2}. Versions: PC-Rexx for {MS-DOS}, {AREXX} for the {Amiga}, the {OS/2} implementation from IBM, WINREXX (Rexx for Windows, from {Quercus systems}) and Personal Rexx (Rexx for MS-DOS, from Quercus systems). See also {Regina}, {freerexx}, {imc}. {REXXWARE} is an implementation of {REXX} for {Novell NetWare}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.rexx}. ["The REXX Language: A Practical Approach to Programming", M.F. Cowlishaw, 1985]. (1992-05-13)
retcon /ret'kon/ retroactive continuity. The common situation in fiction where a new story "reveals" things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the "facts" the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that a whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon. This term was once thought to have originated on the {Usenet} newsgroup {news:rec.arts.comics} but is now believed to have been used earlier in comic fandom. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
rib site "networking" (By analogy with {backbone site}) A {host} with an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} that serves as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party traffic in {electronic mail} and {Usenet} news. Compare {leaf site}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-30)
Rich Site Summary "web, standard" (RSS, blog, feed) A family of {standard} {web} document types containing regularly updated, short articles or news items. RSS documents (generally called "RSS feeds", "news feeds" or just "feeds") can be read with an RSS reader like {BottomFeeder} or {Feedly}. These are sometimes called "{aggregators}" because they combine multiple RSS feeds which the user can browse as a single list. The RSS reader tracks which articles the use has read, and is typically set to show only new articles, hence the idea of a "feed" or flow of new items. Most RSS feeds are based on {RDF}. {RDF} is a structured document format for describing textual resources such as news articles available on the web. RSS originally stood for "RDF Site Summary" as it was designed to provide short descriptions of (changes to) a {website}. Because it provides a standard way to deliver, or "syndicate", news or updates from one site to another, RSS is sometimes expanded as "Really Simple Syndication". It is closely associated with {blogs}, most of which provide an RSS feed of articles. (2013-08-15)
rot13 /rot ther'teen/ [{Usenet}: from "rotate alphabet 13 places"], v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre qvq vg!" Most {Usenet} news reading and posting programs include a rot13 feature. It is used to enclose the text in a sealed wrapper that the reader must choose to open - e.g. for posting things that might offend some readers, or {spoilers}. A major advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is that it is self-inverse, so the same code can be used for encoding and decoding. [{Jargon File}]
ROTFL "chat" (Or "ROFL") Rolling on the floor laughing (or rolls...). Used in {chat}, {MUD}, {news}. See also {ROTFLMAO}, {ROTFLOL}. (1996-02-22)
RTFAQ ({Usenet}, primarily written, by analogy with {RTFM}) Read the FAQ! An exhortation that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ list} before posting questions. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
RTFM "jargon" /R T F M/ Read The Fucking Manual (always abbreviated, sometimes bowdlerised to "Fine" or "Friendly") An (unhelpful) {guru}'s traditional response when someone asks a question in a {newsgroup} or {mailing list} which he could have easily answered for himself had he bothered to RTFM. The term may also be used to indicate that you couldn't find the answer in the manual. E.g. "How do I interface Unix to my toaster? And yes, I did RTFM but the {FM} didn't help and I can't {RTFS}." Other derived forms include {RTFAQ}, {RTFB}, {RTM}, {RYFM} and, more recently, {STFW}. Compare: {UTSL}. A web site in the same vein is {(lmgtfy.com)}. [Earliest use?] [{Jargon File}] (2003-06-07)
rumorer ::: n. --> A teller of news; especially, one who spreads false reports.
run commands "operating system" The expansion of the file name suffix, "rc", common to many {Unix} configuration files, e.g. {.newsrc}, {.cshrc}, {.twmrc}, elmrc, etc. Always abbreviated to /R C/ when spoken. Note, "rc" is not a typical {filename extension} as it doesn't start with a {dot}. The suffix "rc" derives from a script-creation utility in {CTSS} called "{runcom}". {Unix FAQ (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/unix-faq/faq/top.html)}. (2014-11-19)
Sather "language" /Say-ther/ (Named after the Sather Tower at {UCB}, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower). An interactive {object-oriented} language designed by Steve M. Omohundro at {ICSI} in 1991. Sather has simple {syntax}, similar to {Eiffel}, but it is non-proprietary and faster. Sather 0.2 was nearly a subset of Eiffel 2.0, but Sather 1.0 adds many distinctive features: parameterised {class}es, {multiple inheritance}, statically-checked {strong typing}, {garbage collection}. The compiler generates {C} as an {intermediate language}. There are versions for most {workstations}. Sather attempts to retain much of {Eiffel}'s theoretical cleanliness and simplicity while achieving the efficiency of {C++}. The compiler generates efficient and portable C code which is easily integrated with existing code. A variety of development tools including a debugger and {browser} based on {gdb} and a {GNU Emacs} development environment have also been written. There is also a {class library} with several hundred classes that implement a variety of basic data structures and numerical, geometric, connectionist, statistical, and graphical abstractions. The authors would like to encourage contributions to the library and hope to build a large collection of efficient, well-written, well-tested classes in a variety of areas of computer science. Sather runs on {Sun-4}, {HP9000}/300, {Decstation} 5000, {MIPS}, {Sony News} 3000, {Sequent}/{Dynix}, {SCO} {SysV}R3.2, {NeXT}, {Linux}. See also {dpSather}, {pSather}, {Sather-K}. {(ftp://ftp.icsi.berkeley.edu/pub/sather)}. E-mail: "sather-admin@icsi.berkeley.edu". Mailing list: sather-request@icsi.berkeley.edu. (1995-04-26)
Scheme-to-C "language" A {Scheme} {compiler} written in {C} that emits C and is embeddable in C. Scheme-to-C was written by Joel Bartlett of {Digital Western Research Laboratory}. Version 15mar93 translates a superset of Revised**4 Scheme to C that is then compiled by the {native} {C} compiler for the {target machine}. This design results in a portable system that allows either stand-alone Scheme programs or programs written in both compiled and interpreted Scheme and other languages. It supports "{expansion passing style}" {macros}, {foreign function} calls, {records}, and interfaces to {Xlib} ({Ezd} and {Scix}). Scheme-to-C runs on {VAX}, {ULTRIX}, {DECstation}, {Alpha AXP} {OSF}/1, {Windows 3.1}, {Apple Macintosh} 7.1, {HP 9000/300}, {HP 9000/700}, {Sony News}, {SGI} {Iris} and {Harris} {Nighthawk}, and other {Unix}-like {88000} systems. The earlier 01nov91 version runs on {Amiga}, {SunOS}, {NeXT}, and {Apollo} systems. {(ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Scheme-to-C/)}. (2000-05-24)
Scratchpad II See {Scratchpad I}, {AXIOM}. ["Scratchpad II Programming Language Manual", R.D. Jenks et al, IBM, 1985]. [Scratchpad II Newsletter: Computer Algebra Group, TJWRC, Box 218, Yorktown Hts, NY 10598].
security through obscurity "security" Or "security by obscurity". A term applied by hackers to most {operating system} vendors' favourite way of coping with security holes - namely, ignoring them, documenting neither any known holes nor the underlying security {algorithms}, trusting that nobody will find out about them and that people who do find out about them won't exploit them. This never works for long and occasionally sets the world up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988 (see {Great Worm}), but once the brief moments of panic created by such events subside most vendors are all too willing to turn over and go back to sleep. After all, actually fixing the bugs would siphon off the resources needed to implement the next user-interface frill on marketing's wish list - and besides, if they started fixing security bugs customers might begin to *expect* it and imagine that their warranties of merchantability gave them some sort of rights. Historical note: There are conflicting stories about the origin of this term. It has been claimed that it was first used in the {Usenet} newsgroup in {news:comp.sys.apollo} during a campaign to get {HP}/{Apollo} to fix security problems in its {Unix}-{clone} {Aegis}/{DomainOS} (they didn't change a thing). {ITS} fans, on the other hand, say it was coined years earlier in opposition to the incredibly paranoid {Multics} people down the hall, for whom security was everything. In the ITS culture it referred to (1) the fact that by the time a {tourist} figured out how to make trouble he'd generally got over the urge to make it, because he felt part of the community; and (2) (self-mockingly) the poor coverage of the documentation and obscurity of many commands. One instance of *deliberate* security through obscurity is recorded; the command to allow patching the running ITS system ({altmode} altmode control-R) echoed as $$^D. If you actually typed alt alt ^D, that set a flag that would prevent patching the system even if you later got it right. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-15)
SEGA "company, games" manufacturer of video game hardware and software. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:rec.games.video.sega}. (1995-03-01)
semiweekly ::: a. --> Coming, or made, or done, once every half week; as, a semiweekly newspaper; a semiweekly trip. ::: n. --> That which comes or happens once every half week, esp. a semiweekly periodical.
server 1. A program which provides some service to other ({client}) programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of {message passing}, often over a {network}, and uses some {protocol} to encode the client's requests and the server's responses. The server may run continuously (as a {daemon}), waiting for requests to arrive or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which controls a number of specific servers ({inetd} on {Unix}). There are many servers associated with the {Internet}, such as those for {HTTP}, {Network File System}, {Network Information Service} (NIS), {Domain Name System} (DNS), {FTP}, {news}, {finger}, {Network Time Protocol}. On Unix, a long list can be found in /etc/services or in the {NIS} database "services". See {client-server}. 2. A computer which provides some service for other computers connected to it via a network. The most common example is a {file server} which has a local disk and services requests from remote clients to read and write files on that disk, often using {Sun}'s {Network File System} (NFS) {protocol} or {Novell Netware} on {PCs}. Another common example is a {web server}. [{Jargon File}] (2003-12-29)
shar "tool, file format" ("Shell archive", after {ar} and {tar}) Any of the many {Unix} programs that creates a {flatten}ed representation of one or more files, with the unique property that it can be unflattened (the original files extracted) merely by feeding it through a standard {Unix} {shell}. The output of shar, known as a "shar file" or "sharchive", can be distributed to anyone running {Unix}, and no special unpacking software is required. Sharchives are intriguing in that they are typically created by shell scripts; the script that produces sharchives is thus a script which produces self-unpacking scripts, which may themselves contain scripts. The disadvantage of sharchives are that they are an ideal venue for {Trojan horse} attacks and that, for recipients not running Unix, no simple un-sharchiving program is possible; sharchives can and do make use of arbitrarily-powerful shell features and other Unix commands. Different implementations of shar vary in sophistication. Some just {uuencode} each input file and output commands to {uudecode} the result, others include extensive checking to make sure the files have been transferred without corruption and that all parts of a multi-file sharchive have been unpacked. The {unshar} utility strips off mail and news headers before passing the remainder of its input to sh. (1996-10-18)
sheet ::: v. t. --> In general, a large, broad piece of anything thin, as paper, cloth, etc.; a broad, thin portion of any substance; an expanded superficies.
A broad piece of cloth, usually linen or cotton, used for wrapping the body or for a covering; especially, one used as an article of bedding next to the body.
A broad piece of paper, whether folded or unfolded, whether blank or written or printed upon; hence, a letter; a newspaper,
signal-to-noise ratio 1. "communications" (SNR, "s/n ratio", "s:n ratio") "Signal" refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and "noise" to anything else on that medium. The ratio of these is usually expressed logarithmically, in {decibels}. 2. "networking" The term is often applied to {Usenet} newsgroups though figures are never given. Here it is quite common to have more noise (inappropriate postings which contribute nothing) than signal (relevant, useful or interesting postings). The signal gets {lost in the noise} when it becomes too much effort to try to find interesting articles among all the crud. Posting "noise" is probably the worst breach of {netiquette} and is a waste of {bandwidth}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-29)
signature 1. A set of function symbols with {arities}. 2. "messaging" (Or sig) A few lines of information about the sender of an {electronic mail} message or {news} {posting}. Most {Unix} mail and news software will {automagically} append a signature from a file called .signature in the user's {home directory} to outgoing mail and news. A signature should give your real name and your {e-mail address} since, though these appear in the {headers} of your messages, they may be {munged} by intervening software. It is currently (1994) hip to include the {URL} of your {home page} on the {web} in your sig. The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an {ASCII} logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote}, {fool file}). However, large sigs are a waste of {bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig block is usually inversely proportional to one's prestige on the net. See also {doubled sig}, {sig virus}. 2. "programming" A concept very similar to {abstract base classes} except that they have their own {hierarchy} and can be applied to compiled {classes}. Signatures provide a means of separating {subtyping} and {inheritance}. They are implemented in {C++} as patches to {GCC} 2.5.2 by Gerald Baumgartner "gb@cs.purdue.edu". {(ftp://ftp.cs.purdue.edu/pub/gb/)}. (2001-01-05)
sig quote "messaging" /sig kwoht/ A maxim, quote, proverb, joke, or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} (as used in {Usenet} news) and intended to convey something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of humour. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes." [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-04)
SimCity 2000 "games" An upgraded version of the game/simulation {SimCity} by {Maxis Software}. In the new version you can raise, lower and level terrain; build roads and railways at 45-degree angles; name things in your city by planting "signs"; build raised highways, subways, and train and bus stations, schools, colleges, hospitals, electricity, water, recreational marinas and zoos. There are three levels of zoom, and the view may be rotated to look at your city from any of the four directions. A query feature which will tell you the zoning, land value, etc. of any square. You get newspapers, advice from council members, graphs, and charts. (1995-02-08)
SimCity "games" {Maxis Software}'s simulation game which lets you design and build your own city, which must be administered well if it is to thrive. Land must be zoned, transportation systems built, and police and fire protection provided. Once you've zoned some land, and provided electrical power, the simulation takes over, and simcitizens move in. If you perform your mayoral duties poorly, however, they will move out again. If you don't provide enough police, crime will rise and sims will vote with their feet. Try to save money on fire protection, and your city may burn to the ground. There is no predefined way to win the game, building the largest city you can is just one possible strategy. SimCity runs on {Archimedes}, {Amiga}, {Atari ST}, {IBM PC} and {Macintosh}. There was also a {NeWS} version for {Sun} {SPARC} {workstations} running {OpenWindows}. {SimCity 2000} is an upgrade of SimCity. (1995-06-11)
SIMULA "language" SIMUlation LAnguage. See {Lund Simula}, {SIMULA 67}, {SIMULA I}. See also {Association for SIMULA Users}, {C++SIM}, {FLEX}, {MODSIM}, {SIMSCRIPT}. A simula-to-{C} {compiler} project is underway. E-mail: Harald Thingelstad "harald.thingelstad@basalmed.uio.no". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:bit.listserv.simula}. (1995-03-29)
sinewed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Sinew ::: a. --> Furnished with sinews; as, a strong-sinewed youth.
Fig.: Equipped; strengthened.
sinewless ::: a. --> Having no sinews; hence, having no strength or vigor.
sinew ::: n. --> A tendon or tendonous tissue. See Tendon.
Muscle; nerve.
Fig.: That which supplies strength or power. ::: v. t. --> To knit together, or make strong with, or as with, sinews.
sinew-shrunk ::: a. --> Having the sinews under the belly shrunk by excessive fatigue.
sinewy ::: a. --> Pertaining to, consisting of, or resembling, a sinew or sinews.
Well braced with, or as if with, sinews; nervous; vigorous; strong; firm; tough; as, the sinewy Ajax.
siod "language" (Scheme In One Defun or Scheme In One Day) A small {Scheme} implementation in {C} by George Carrette "gjc@world.std.com", "gjc@mitech.com". SIOD is arranged as a set of subroutines that can be called from any main program for the purpose of introducing an interpreted extension language. It compiles to 20 kbytes of executable ({VAX}/{VMS}). {Lisp} calls {C} and C calls Lisp transparently. SIOD supports symbols, strings, {arrays}, {hash coding}, file i/o (binary, text, seek), data save/restore in binary and text, interface to commercial {databases} such {Oracle} and {Digital} {RDB}. Version 3.0 runs on {VAX}/{VMS},{Unix}, {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Amiga}, {Macintosh}, {MIPS}, {Cray}, {ALPHA}/{VMS}, {Windows NT} and {OS/2}. It can be compiled by most {ANSI C} compilers and {C++} compilers, e.g. {gcc} -Wall. {(ftp://world.std.com/pub/gjc/)}, {(ftp://world.std.com/src/lisp/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.scheme}. (1994-02-18)
Small Computer System Interface "hardware, standard" (SCSI) /skuh'zee/, /sek'si/ The most popular processor-independent standard, via a parallel bus, for system-level interfacing between a computer and intelligent devices including {hard disks}, {floppy disks}, {CD-ROM}, {printers}, {scanners}, and many more. SCSI can connect multiple devices to a single {SCSI adaptor} (or "host adaptor") on the computer's bus. SCSI transfers bits in parallel and can operate in either {asynchronous} or {synchronous} modes. The synchronous transfer rate is up to 5MB/s. There must be at least one {target} and one {initiator} on the SCSI {bus}. SCSI connections normally use "{single ended}" drivers as opposed to {differential drivers}. Single ended SCSI can suport up to six metres of cable. Differential ended SCSI can support up to 25 metres of cable. SCSI was developed by {Shugart Associates}, which later became {Seagate}. SCSI was originally called SASI for "Shugart Associates System Interface" before it became a standard. Due to SCSI's inherent protocol flexibility, large support infrastructure, continued speed increases and the acceptance of SCSI Expanders in applications it is expected to hold its market. The original standard is now called "SCSI-1" to distinguish it from {SCSI-2} and {SCSI-3} which include specifications of {Wide SCSI} (a 16-bit bus) and {Fast SCSI} (10 MB/s transfer). SCSI-1 has been standardised as {ANSI} X3.131-1986 and {ISO}/{IEC} 9316. A problem with SCSI is the large number of different connectors allowed. Nowadays the trend is toward a 68-pin {miniature D-type} or "high density" connector (HD68) for {Wide SCSI} and a 50-pin version of the same connector (HD50) for 8-bit SCSI (Type 1-4, pin pitch 1.27 mm x 2.45 mm). 50-pin {ribbon cable} connectors are also popular for internal wiring (Type 5, pin pitch 2.54 mm x 2.54 mm). {Apple Computer} used a 25-pin connector on the {Macintosh} computer but this connector causes problems with high-speed equipment. Original SCSI implementations were highly incompatible with each other. {ASPI} is a standard {Microsoft Windows} interface to SCSI devices. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.periphs.scsi}. {SCSI Trade Association & FAQ (http://scsita.org/)}. ["System" or "Systems"?] (1999-03-30)
Smalltalk "language" The pioneering {object-oriented programming} system developed in 1972 by the Software Concepts Group, led by {Alan Kay}, at {Xerox PARC} between 1971 and 1983. It includes a language, a programming environment, and an extensive object library. Smalltalk took the concepts of {class} and {message} from {Simula-67} and made them all-pervasive. Innovations included the {bitmap display}, windowing system, and use of a {mouse}. The {syntax} is very simple. The fundamental construction is to send a message to an {object}: object message or with extra parameters object message: param1 secondArg: param2 .. nthArg: paramN where "secondArg:" etc. are considered to be part of the message name. Five pseudo-variables are defined: "self", "super", "nil", "true", "false". "self" is the receiver of the current message. "super" is used to delegate processing of a message to the {superclass} of the receiver. "nil" is a reference to "nothing" (an instance of UndefinedObject). All variables initially contain a reference to nil. "true" and "false" are {Booleans}. In Smalltalk, any message can be sent to any object. The recipient object itself decides (based on the message name, also called the "message selector") how to respond to the message. Because of that, the {multiple inheritance} system included in the early versions of Smalltalk-80 appeared to be unused in practice. All modern implementations have single inheritance, so each class can have at most one superclass. Early implementations were {interpreted} but all modern ones use {dynamic translation} (JIT). Early versions were Smalltalk-72, Smalltalk-74, Smalltalk-76 (inheritance taken from Simula, and concurrency), and Smalltalk-78, {Smalltalk-80}. Other versions include {Little Smalltalk}, {Smalltalk/V}, {Kamin's interpreters}. Current versions are {VisualWorks}, {Squeak}, {VisualAge}, {Dolphin Smalltalk}, {Object Studio}, {GNU Smalltalk}. See also: {International Smalltalk Association}. {UIUC Smalltalk archive (http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/)}. {FAQ (http://XCF.Berkeley.EDU/pub/misc/smalltalk/FAQ/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.smalltalk}. ["The Smalltalk-76 Programming System Design and Implementation", D.H. Ingalls, 5th POPL, ACM 1978, pp. 9-16]. (2001-09-11)
smart card Any plastic card (like a credit card) with an embedded {integrated circuit} for storing information. Smart cards are being incorporated into soldier's dog-tags and used to store hospital patients' medical records. This way they are always instantly accessible. Other uses are as a form of token in banking systems. You could store electronic money on the card or less valuable tokens such as those given away by petrol companies which you collect to exchange for free gifts at a later date. The idea being that one smart card is easier to carry around than a multitude of paper tokens. {news:alt.technology.smartcards} (1995-01-06)
smurf "jargon" /smerf/ (From the {news:soc.motss} {Usenet} newsgroup, after some obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters) A newsgroup regular with a habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and cute. Like many other hackish terms for people, this one may be praise or insult depending on who uses it. In general, being referred to as a smurf is probably not going to make your day unless you've previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of irony. Compare {old fart}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-10-25)
SNAFU principle /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ [WWII Army acronym for "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up"] "True communication is possible only between equals, because inferiors are more consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies than for telling the truth." - a central tenet of {Discordianism}, often invoked by hackers to explain why authoritarian hierarchies screw up so reliably and systematically. The effect of the SNAFU principle is a progressive disconnection of decision-makers from reality. This lightly adapted version of a fable dating back to the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon perfectly: In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void. And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying: "It is a crock of shit, and smells as of a sewer." And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof." And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying: "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it." The section head then hurried to his department manager, and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength." The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong." And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful." The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!" And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good. After the subsequent disaster, the {suits} protect themselves by saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or fired. [{Jargon File}]
SOCKS "security" A security package that allows a {host} behind a {firewall} to use {finger}, {FTP}, {telnet}, {Gopher}, and {Mosaic} to access resources outside the firewall while maintaining the security requirements. [The Security FAQ, {Usenet} newsgroups {news:comp.security.misc}, {news:comp.security.unix}, {news:alt.security}]. (1995-01-31)
software law "legal" Software may, under various circumstances and in various countries, be restricted by patent or {copyright} or both. Most commercial software is sold under some kind of {software license}. A patent normally covers the design of something with a function such as a machine or process. Copyright restricts the right to make and distribute copies of something written or recorded, such as a song or a book of recipies. Software has both these aspects - it embodies functional design in the {algorithms} and data structures it uses and it could also be considered as a recording which can be copied and "performed" (run). "{Look and feel}" lawsuits attempt to monopolize well-known command languages; some have succeeded. {Copyrights} on command languages enforce gratuitous incompatibility, close opportunities for competition, and stifle incremental improvements. {Software patents} are even more dangerous; they make every design decision in the development of a program carry a risk of a lawsuit, with draconian pretrial seizure. It is difficult and expensive to find out whether the techniques you consider using are patented; it is impossible to find out whether they will be patented in the future. The proper use of {copyright} is to prevent {software piracy} - unauthorised duplication of software. This is completely different from copying the idea behind the program in the same way that photocopying a book differs from writing another book on the same subject. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:misc.legal.computing}. ["The Software Developer's and Marketer's Legal Companion", Gene K. Landy, 1993, AW, 0-201-62276-9]. (1994-11-16)
software rot "programming" The tendency of software that has not been used in a while to fail; such failure may be semi-humorously ascribed to {bit rot}. More commonly, "software rot" strikes when a program's assumptions become out of date. If the design was insufficiently {robust}, this may cause it to fail in mysterious ways. For example, owing to shortsightedness in the design of some COBOL programs, many would have succumbed to software rot when their 2-digit year counters wrapped around at the beginning of the year 2000. A related incident made the news in 1990, when a gentleman born in 1889 applied for a driver's licence renewal in Raleigh, North Carolina. The system refused to issue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the ages 101 and 1 cannot be distinguished. Historical note: Software rot in an even funnier sense than the mythical one was a real problem on early research computers (e.g. the {R1}; see {grind crank}). If a program that depended on a peculiar instruction hadn't been run in quite a while, the user might discover that the {opcodes} no longer did the same things they once did. ("Hey, so-and-so needs an instruction to do such-and-such. We can {snarf} this opcode, right? No one uses it.") Another classic example of this sprang from the time an {MIT} hacker found a simple way to double the speed of the unconditional jump instruction on a {PDP-6}, so he patched the hardware. Unfortunately, this broke some fragile timing software in a music-playing program, throwing its output out of tune. This was fixed by adding a defensive initialisation routine to compare the speed of a timing loop with the real-time clock; in other words, it figured out how fast the PDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately. [{Jargon File}] (2002-02-22)
spam 1. "messaging" (From Hormel's Spiced Ham, via the Monty Python "Spam" song) To post irrelevant or inappropriate messages to one or more {Usenet} {newsgroups}, {mailing lists}, or other messaging system in deliberate or accidental violation of {netiquette}. It is possible to spam a newsgroup with one well- (or ill-) planned message, e.g. asking "What do you think of abortion?" on soc.women. This can be done by {cross-post}ing, e.g. any message which is crossposted to alt.rush-limbaugh and alt.politics.homosexuality will almost inevitably spam both groups. (Compare {troll} and {flame bait}). Posting a message to a significant proportion of all newsgroups is a sure way to spam Usenet and become an object of almost universal hatred. Canter and Siegel spammed the net with their Green card post. If you see an article which you think is a deliberate spam, DO NOT post a {follow-up} - doing so will only contribute to the general annoyance. Send a polite message to the poster by private e-mail and CC it to "postmaster" at the same address. Bear in mind that the posting's origin might have been forged or the apparent sender's account might have been used by someone else without his permission. The word was coined as the winning entry in a 1937 competition to choose a name for Hormel Foods Corporation's "spiced meat" (now officially known as "SPAM luncheon meat"). Correspondant Bob White claims the modern use of the term predates Monty Python by at least ten years. He cites an editor for the Dallas Times Herald describing Public Relations as "throwing a can of spam into an electric fan just to see if any of it would stick to the unwary passersby." {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:news.admin.net-abuse}. See also {netiquette}. 2. (A narrowing of sense 1, above) To indiscriminately send large amounts of unsolicited {e-mail} meant to promote a product or service. Spam in this sense is sort of like the electronic equivalent of junk mail sent to "Occupant". In the 1990s, with the rise in commercial awareness of the net, there are actually scumbags who offer spamming as a "service" to companies wishing to advertise on the net. They do this by mailing to collections of {e-mail} addresses, Usenet news, or mailing lists. Such practises have caused outrage and aggressive reaction by many net users against the individuals concerned. 3. (Apparently a generalisation of sense 2, above) To abuse any network service or tool by for promotional purposes. "AltaVista is an {index}, not a promotional tool. Attempts to fill it with promotional material lower the value of the index for everyone. [...] We will disallow {URL} submissions from those who spam the index. In extreme cases, we will exclude all their pages from the index." -- {Altavista}. 4. "jargon, programming" To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size {buffer} with excessively large input data. See also {buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the stack}. 5. "chat, games" (A narrowing of sense 1, above) To flood any {chat} forum or {Internet game} with purposefully annoying text or macros. Compare {Scrolling}. (2003-09-21)
SPARC International, Inc. "body" An organisation established to promote the {Scalable Processor ARChitecture} (SPARC). Their main service is conformance testing. They also produce the "SPARC flash" newsletter and publish lists of SPARC compliant machines tested by SPARC International to be {binary compatible} with other compliant machines. {(http://sparc.com/)}. SPARC(R) is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. (1995-01-04)
SPEC "benchmark, body" Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. A non-profit corporation registered in California formed to "establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant {benchmarks} that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers" (from SPEC's bylaws). The founders believe that the user community will benefit greatly from an objective series of applications-oriented tests, which can serve as common reference points and be considered during the evaluation process. SPEC develops suites of {benchmarks} intended to measure computer performance. These are available to the public for a fee covering development and administration costs. The current (14 Nov 94) SPEC benchmark suites are: {CINT92} (CPU intensive integer benchmarks); {CFP92} (CPU intensive floating-point benchmarks); SDM (UNIX Software Development Workloads); SFS (System level file server (NFS) workload). {Results (ftp://ftp.cdf.toronto.edu/pub/spectable)}. SPEC also publishes a quarterly report of SPEC news and results, The SPEC Newsletter. Some issues are {here (http://performance.netlib.org/performance/html/spec.html)}. There is a {FAQ} about SPEC {here (http://performance.netlib.org/performance/html/specfaq.html)}. (1994-11-14)
spoiler 1. A remark which reveals important plot elements from books or movies, thus denying the reader (of the article) the proper suspense when reading the book or watching the movie. 2. Any remark which telegraphs the solution of a problem or puzzle, thus denying the reader the pleasure of working out the correct answer (see also {interesting}). Either sense readily forms compounds like "total spoiler", "quasi-spoiler" and even "pseudo-spoiler". By convention, {Usenet} news articles which are spoilers in either sense should contain the word "spoiler" in the Subject: line, or guarantee via various tricks that the answer appears only after several screens-full of warning, or conceal the sensitive information via {rot13}, or some combination of these techniques. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-18)
Squeak "language" 1. "graphics" ["Squeak: A Language for Communicating with Mice", L. Cardelli et al, Comp Graphics 19(3):199-204, July 1985]. See {Newsqueak}. 2. A {Smalltalk} implementation and a media {authoring} tool by members of the original {Xerox PARC} team which created Smalltalk ({Alan Kay}, Dan Ingalls, et al). Squeak is an {open-source} implementation, with a highly portable {virtual machine} implemented in a subset of Smalltalk (translated into {C} and compiled by a C {compiler} of the target {platform}). {Squeak Home (http://squeak.org/)}. {SqueakCentral (http://squeakland.org/)}. (2002-11-03)
Standard Generalized Markup Language "language, text" (SGML) A generic {markup} language for representing documents. SGML is an International Standard that describes the relationship between a document's content and its structure. SGML allows document-based information to be shared and re-used across applications and computer {platforms} in an open, vendor-neutral format. SGML is sometimes compared to {SQL}, in that it enables companies to structure information in documents in an open fashion, so that it can be accessed or re-used by any SGML-aware application across multiple platforms. SGML is defined in "ISO 8879:1986 Information processing -- Text and office systems -- Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)", an {ISO} standard produced by {JTC} 1/SC 18 and amended by "Amendment 1:1988". Unlike other common document file formats that represent both content and presentation, SGML represents a document's content {data} and structure (interrelationships among the data). Removing the presentation from content establishes a neutral format. SGML documents and the information in them can easily be re-used by publishing and non-publishing {applications}. SGML identifies document elements such as titles, paragraphs, tables, and chapters as distinct objects, allowing users to define the relationships between the objects for structuring data in documents. The relationships between document elements are defined in a {Document Type Definition} (DTD). This is roughly analogous to a collection of {field} definitions in a {database}. Once a document is converted into SGML and the information has been 'tagged', it becomes a database-like document. It can be searched, printed or even programmatically manipulated by SGML-aware applications. Companies are moving their documents into SGML for several reasons: Reuse - separation of content from presentation facilitates multiple delivery formats like {CD-ROM} and {electronic publishing}. Portability - SGML is an international, platform-independent, standard based on {ASCII} text, so companies can safely store their documents in SGML without being tied to any one vendor. Interchange - SGML is a core data standard that enables SGML-aware applications to inter-operate and share data seamlessly. A central SGML document store can feed multiple processes in a company, so managing and updating information is greatly simplified. For example, when an aeroplane is delivered to a customer, it comes with thousands of pages of documentation. Distributing these on paper is expensive, so companies are investigating publishing on CD-ROM. If a maintenance person needs a guide for adjusting a plane's flight surfaces, a viewing tool automatically assembles the relevant information from the document {repository} as a complete document. SGML can be used to define attributes to information stored in documents such as security levels. There are few clear leaders in the SGML industry which, in 1993, was estimated to be worth US $520 million and is projected to grow to over US $1.46 billion by 1998. A wide variety tools can be used to create SGML systems. The SGML industry can be separated into the following categories: Mainstream Authoring consists of the key {word processing} vendors like {Lotus}, {WordPerfect} and {Microsoft}. SGML Editing and Publishing includes traditional SGML authoring tools like {ArborText}, {Interleaf}, {FrameBuilder} and {SoftQuad Author}/Editor. SGML Conversions is one of the largest sectors in the market today because many companies are converting legacy data from mainframes, or documents created with mainstream word processors, into SGML. Electronic Delivery is widely regarded as the most compelling reason companies are moving to SGML. Electronic delivery enables users to retrieve information on-line using an intelligent document viewer. Document Management may one day drive a major part of the overall SGML industry. SGML Document Repositories is one of the cornerstone technologies that will affect the progress of SGML as a data standard. Since 1998, almost all development in SGML has been focussed on {XML} - a simple (and therefore easier to understand and implement) subset of SGML. {"ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN" (http://ucc.ie/info/net/isolat1.html)} defines some characters. [How are these related to {ISO 8859}-1?]. {ISO catalogue entry (http://iso.ch/cate/d16387.html)}. SGML parsers are available from {VU, NL (ftp://star.cs.vu.nl/Sgml)}, {FSU (ftp://mailer.cc.fsu.edu/pub/sgml)}, {UIO, Norway (ftp://ifi.uio.no/pub/SGML/SGMLS)}. See also {sgmls}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.text.sgml}. ["The SGML Handbook", Charles F. Goldfarb, Clarendon Press, 1991, ISBN 0198537379. (Full text of the ISO standard plus extensive commentary and cross-referencing. Somewhat cheaper than the ISO document)]. ["SGML - The User's Guide to ISO 8879", J.M. Smith et al, Ellis Harwood, 1988]. [Example of some SGML?] (2000-05-31)
Stephen Kleene "person" Professor Stephen Cole Kleene (1909-01-05 - 1994-01-26) /steev'n (kohl) klay'nee/ An American mathematician whose work at the {University of Wisconsin-Madison} helped lay the foundations for modern computer science. Kleene was best known for founding the branch of {mathematical logic} known as {recursion theory} and for inventing {regular expressions}. The {Kleene star} and {Ascending Kleene Chain} are named after him. Kleene was born in Hartford, Conneticut, USA. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College in 1930. From 1930 to 1935, he was a graduate student and research assistant at {Princeton University} where he received his doctorate in mathematics in 1934. In 1935, he joined UW-Madison mathematics department as an instructor. He became an assistant professor in 1937. From 1939 to 1940, he was a visiting scholar at Princeton's {Institute for Advanced Study} where he laid the foundation for recursive function theory, an area that would be his lifelong research interest. In 1941 he returned to Amherst as an associate professor of mathematics. During World War II Kleene was a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. He was an instructor of navigation at the U.S. Naval Reserve's Midshipmen's School in New York, and then a project director at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1946, he returned to Wisconsin, eventually becoming a full professor. He was chair of mathematics, and computer sciences in 1962 and 1963 and dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1969 to 1974. In 1964 he was named the Cyrus C. MacDuffee professor of mathematics. An avid mountain climber, Kleene had a strong interest in nature and the environment and was active in many conservation causes. He led several professional organisations, serving as president of the {Association of Symbolic Logic} from 1956 to 1958. In 1961, he served as president of the International Union of the History and the Philosophy of Science. Kleene pronounced his last name /klay'nee/. /klee'nee/ and /kleen/ are extremely common mispronunciations. His first name is /steev'n/, not /stef'n/. His son, Ken Kleene "kenneth.kleene@umb.edu", wrote: "As far as I am aware this pronunciation is incorrect in all known languages. I believe that this novel pronunciation was invented by my father." {(gopher://gopher.adp.wisc.edu/00/.data/.news-rel/.9401/.940126a)}. (1999-03-03)
Storage Allocation and Coding Program "language" (STAC) A symbolic {macro-assembler} for the {English Electric} {DEUCE}. ["DEUCE STAC Programming Manual", DEUCE News No. 38, Report K/AA y 1 DEUCE Library Service, Data Processing and COntrol Systems DIvision, English Electric Company, Kidsgrove, June]. (1998-06-08)
subscribe "messaging" To request to receive messages posted to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}. In contrast to the mundane use of the word this is often free of charge. (1997-03-27)
SunView A windowing system from {Sun Microsystems}, superseded by {NeWS}.
SuperJanet An initiative started in 1989, under the Computer Board, with the aim of developing of a national {broadband} network to support UK higher education and research. The preparatory work culminated in 1992 with the award of a contract worth 18M pounds to British Telecom to provide networking services over a four year period that extends to March 1997. The BT contract will provide a national network with two components: a high speed, configurable bandwidth network serving up to 16 sites, initially using {PDH} to be replaced with {SDH}, and a high speed switched data service ({SMDS}) serving 50 or more sites. The primary role of the PDH/SDH component will be to support the development and deployment of an {ATM} network. These components will be complemented by several high performance {Metropolitan Area Networks} each serving several closely located sites. The aim is to provide, within the first year of the project, a pervasive network capable of supporting a large and diverse user community. The network has two parts, an {IP} data network and an ATM network, both operating at 34Mbit/s. Early in August 1993 the pilot IP network was transferred to full service and was configured to provide a trunk network for JIPS, the {JANET IP Service}. In November 1993 work was well advanced on the next phase which aims to extend SuperJANET to a large number of sites. The pilot four site ATM network will be extended to serve twelve sites and will expand the scope of the video network. The principal vehicle used for the expansion of the data network will be the {SMDS} service provided by {BT}. Most of the work associated with the development of this phase is expected to be completed by the end of March 1994. [Joint Network Team, Network News 40, ISSN 0954 - 0636]. {(ftp://osiris.jnt.ac.uk/pub/newsfiles/documents/netwnews/news40+/news40.para)}. [Current status?] (1994-12-15)
symbolic mathematics "mathematics, application" (Or "symbolic math") The use of computers to manipulate mathematical equations and expressions in symbolic form, as opposed to manipulating the numerical quantities represented by those symbols. Such a system might be used for symbolic integration or differentiation, substitution of one expression into another, simplification of an expression, change of subject etc. One of the best known symbolic mathematics software packages is {Mathematica}. Others include {ALAM}, {ALGY}, {AMP}, {Ashmedai}, {AXIOM*}, {CAMAL}, {CAYLEY}, {CCalc}, {CLAM}, {CoCoA}(?), {ESP}, {FLAP}, {FORM}, {FORMAL}, {Formula ALGOL}, {GAP}, {JACAL}, {LiE}, {Macaulay}, {MACSYMA}, {Magic Paper}, {MAO}, {Maple}, {Mathcad}, {MATHLAB}, {MuMath}, {Nother}, {ORTHOCARTAN}, {Pari}, {REDUCE}, {SAC-1}, {SAC2}, {SAINT}, {Schoonschip}, {Scratchpad I}, {SHEEP}, {STENSOR}, {SYMBAL}, {SymbMath}, {Symbolic Mathematical Laboratory}, {TRIGMAN}, {UBASIC}. {Usenet} newsgropup: {news:sci.math.symbolic}. (1995-04-12)
SYSKEY "cryptography, operating system, security" A utility that {encrpyts} the {hashed} {password} information in a {SAM} database using a 128-bit {encryption key}. SYSKEY was an optional feature added in {Windows NT} 4.0 SP3. It was meant to protect against {offline} password {cracking} attacks so that the SAM database would still be secure even if someone had a copy of it. However, in December 1999, a security team from {BindView (http://bindview.com/)} found a security hole in SYSKEY which indicates that a certain form of {cryptoanalytic} attack is possible offline. A {brute-force attack} then appeared to be possible. Microsoft later collaborated with BindView to issue a fix (dubbed the 'Syskey Bug') which appears to have been settled and SYSKEY pronounced secure enough to resist brute-force attack. According to Todd Sabin of the BindView team RAZOR, the pre-RC3 versions of {Windows 2000} were also affected. {BindView Security Advisory (http://packetstorm.securify.com/9912-exploits/bindview.syskey.txt)}. {BindView press release (http://bindview.com/news/99/1222.html)}. {Microsoft bulletin (http://microsoft.com/Security/Bulletins/ms99-056.asp)}. (2000-07-16)
TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/ (From Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress") "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". Often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly {heavyweight} technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of {free software}, or at the {signal-to-noise ratio} of unmoderated {Usenet} newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a {database} back end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in hackerdom. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-28)
TERM 1. "networking" A program by Michael O'Reilly "michael@iinet.com.au" for people running {Unix} who have {Internet} access via a {dial-up} connection, and who don't have access to {SLIP}, or {PPP}, or simply prefer a more lightweight {protocol}. TERM does end-to-end error-correction, {compression} and {mulplexing} across serial links. This means you can {upload} and {download} files as the same time you're reading your news, and can run {X} {clients} on the other side of your {modem} link, all without needing {SLIP} or {PPP}. {(ftp://tartarus.uwa.edu.au/pub/oreillym/term/term115.tar.gz)}. 2. "business" {Technology Enabled Relationship Management}. (1999-10-04)
The Microsoft Network "networking" (MSN) {Microsoft}'s {ISP} and online content service, launched in October 1996. Not to be confused with {Microsoft Networking}. MSN was originally based on custom software and protocols, however Microsoft saw the error of their ways and adopted Internet standards. MSN now provides standard {WWW} and {email} facilities, albeit with Microsoft's {Internet Explorer} {web-browser} and the {Outlook Express} email software. The service also provides "Community Services" including {newsgroups}, {forums}, and {chat}. {(http://msn.com/)}. (1998-08-11)
tidings ::: n. --> Account of what has taken place, and was not before known; news.
token ring A computer {local area network} arbitration scheme in which conflicts in the transmission of messages are avoided by the granting of "tokens" which give permission to send. A station keeps the token while transmitting a message, if it has a message to transmit, and then passes it on to the next station. Often, "Token Ring" is used to refer to the {IEEE 802.5} token ring {standard}, which is the most common type of token ring. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.token-ring}.
Tool Command Language "language" /tik*l/ (Tcl) An interpreted string processing language for issuing commands to {interactive} programs, developed by {John Ousterhout} at {UCB}. Each {application program} can extend tcl with its own set of commands. Tcl is like a text-oriented {Lisp}, but lets you write algebraic expressions for simplicity and to avoid scaring people away. Though originally designed to be a "scripting language" rather than for serious programming, Tcl has been used successfully for programs with hundreds of thousands of lines. It has a peculiar but simple {syntax}. It may be used as an embedded {interpreter} in application programs. It has {exceptions} and {packages} (called libraries), {name-spaces} for {procedures} and {variables}, and provide/require. It supports {dynamic loading} of {object code}. It is {eight-bit clean}. It has only three variable types: strings, lists and {associative arrays} but no {structures}. Tcl and its associated {GUI} {toolkit}, {Tk} run on all flavors of {Unix}, {Microsoft Windows}, {Macintosh} and {VMS}. Tcl runs on the {Amiga} and many other {platforms}. See also {expect} (control interactive programs and pattern match on their output), {Cygnus Tcl Tools}, {[incr Tcl]} (adds classes and inheritence to Tcl), {Scriptics} (John Ousterhout's company that is the home of Tcl development and the TclPro tool suite), {Tcl Consortium} (a non-profit agency dedicated to promoting Tcl), {tclhttpd} (an embeddable Tcl-based web server), {tclx} (adds many commands to Tcl), {tcl-debug}. {comp.lang.tcl FAQ at MIT (ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/comp.answers/tcl-faq/)}. or {at purl.org (http://purl.org/NET/Tcl-FAQ/)}. {Scriptics downloads (http://scriptics.com/software/download.html)}. {Kanji (ftp://srawgw.sra.co.jp/pub/lang/tcl/jp/)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.tcl.announce}, {news:comp.lang.tcl}. ["Tcl: An Embeddable Command Language", J. Ousterhout, Proc 1990 Winter USENIX Conf]. (1998-11-27)
topic thread "messaging" (From {Usenet}, {GEnie}, {CompuServe}) A more or less continuous chain of postings on a single subject, sent to a {forum} such as a {Usenet} newsgroup. To "follow a thread" is to read a series of postings sharing a common subject. On Usenet these are connected by "Reference" headers. The better {newsreaders} can present news in thread order automatically. (2008-02-06)
tough ::: superl. --> Having the quality of flexibility without brittleness; yielding to force without breaking; capable of resisting great strain; as, the ligaments of animals are remarkably tough.
Not easily broken; able to endure hardship; firm; strong; as, tough sinews.
Not easily separated; viscous; clammy; tenacious; as, tough phlegm.
Stiff; rigid; not flexible; stubborn; as, a tough bow.
transmission ::: n. --> The act of transmitting, or the state of being transmitted; as, the transmission of letters, writings, papers, news, and the like, from one country to another; the transmission of rights, titles, or privileges, from father to son, or from one generation to another.
The right possessed by an heir or legatee of transmitting to his successor or successors any inheritance, legacy, right, or privilege, to which he is entitled, even if he should die
triweekly ::: a. --> Occurring or appearing three times a week; thriceweekly; as, a triweekly newspaper. ::: adv. --> Three times a week. ::: n.
true hacker "person" (By analogy with "trufan" from SF fandom) One who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, especially competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment. "He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week - manifestly the act of a true-hacker". Compare {demigod}, opposite: {munchkin}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-07)
Trumpet A {news reader} for {Microsoft Windows}, using the {WinSock} library. There is also an {MS-DOS} version. Trumpet is {shareware} from Australia. {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet)}. {(ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/winsock/stacks/trumpwsk/)}. {news:alt.winsock.trumpet}. [Author?] (1995-01-12)
UKUUG Ltd. "body" The UK's Unix and Open Systems User Group is a non-profit organisation and technical forum for the advocacy of {open systems}, particularly {Unix} and Unix-like {operating systems}, the promotion of free and {open source} software, and the advancement of open programming {standards} and networking {protocols}. UKUUG aims to cater for all those working in, or interested in open systems and open standards. It has been known as UKUUG since 1977, but produced its first magazine - UK Universities UNIX Newsletter - in December 1976. UKUUG used to stand for "United Kingdom Unix Users Group" but is now just "UKUUG Ltd." {UKUUG Home (http://ukuug.org/)}. (2006-08-23)
U-NET Limited A {dial-up} {Internet} access provider based in Warrington, UK. Speeds 4800 - 28.8kbps. The currently support {Microsoft Windows} and {RISC OS} users. For 12 pounds to join and 12 pounds per month or 100 pounds per year you get a full {SLIP} account with a pernament {IP address} and {POP3} {electronic mail} account. Membership includes a disk with {Mosaic}, {Eudora}, {Trumpet2}, Newsreader, {FTP} and {Telnet} and full {Internet} access. Users can choose their own {user name} and {hostname}. Allows some extra services such as more than one POP3 account per access account. User name is significant so that a company can have accounts with the same hostname (i.e. their company name) but the mail going to diffent machines. Mail in users POP3 account is accessible from anywhere not just via the dial-up connection. On your next business trip you can still check your {e-mail} (provided you can get onto the Internet). {(http://u-net.com/)}. E-mail: "hi@u-net.com". (1994-11-18)
Uniform Resource Locator "web" (URL, previously "Universal") A {standard} way of specifying the location of an object, typically a {web page}, on the {Internet}. Other types of object are described below. URLs are the form of address used on the {World-Wide Web}. They are used in {HTML} documents to specify the target of a {hypertext link} which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer). Here are some example URLs: http://w3.org/default.html http://acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif http://foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator http://w3.org/default.html
Unix to Unix Copy "networking, messaging" (uucp) A {Unix} utility program and {protocol} that allows one Unix system to send files to another via a {serial line} which may be a cable going directly from one machine's {serial port} to another's or may involve a {modem} at each end of a telephone line. Software is also available to allow uucp to work over {Ethernet} though there are better alternatives in this case, e.g. {FTP} or {rcp} for file transfer, {SMTP} for {electronic mail} or {NNTP} for {news}. The term is now also used to describe the large international network which uses UUCP to pass {Usenet} {news} and {electronic mail}, also known as "UUCPNET". {Unix manual page}: uucp(1). See also {cu}, {uuencode}. (1997-01-12)
unshar A {Unix} utility that removes {e-mail} and {news} {header} lines from its input, and feeds the remainder (which is presumed to be a {shar file}) to /bin/sh to unpack it. unshar is designed for unpacking archives directly from the news or mail systems simply by {piping} a message into it.
unsinew ::: v. t. --> To deprive of sinews or of strength.
Usenet news {Usenet}
Usenet "messaging" /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ (Or "Usenet news", from "Users' Network") A distributed {bulletin board} system and the people who post and read articles thereon. Originally implemented in 1979 - 1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott and Steve Daniel at Duke University, and supported mainly by {Unix} machines, it swiftly grew to become international in scope and, before the advent of the {web}, probably the largest decentralised information utility in existence. Usenet encompassed government agencies, universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes and home computers of all descriptions. As of early 1993, it hosted over 1200 {newsgroups} ("groups" for short) and an average of 40 megabytes (the equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day. By November 1999, the number of groups had grown to over 37,000. To join in, you need a {Usenet provider (https://www.usenetstorm.com)}. Originally you needed a {news reader} program but there are now several web gateways, cheifly {Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/)} (originally {Deja News}). Some {web browsers} used to include news readers and {URLs} beginning "news:" referred to Usenet newsgroups. {Network News Transfer Protocol} is a {protocol} used to transfer news articles between a news {server} and a {news reader}. In the beginning, not all Usenet hosts were on the Internet. The {uucp} {protocol} was sometimes used to transfer articles between servers, though this became increasingly rare with the spread of the {Internet}. [Gene Spafford "spaf@cs.purdue.edu", "What is Usenet?", regular posting to {news:news.announce.newusers}]. (2017-09-26)
USENIX "body" Since 1975, the USENIX Association has provided a forum for the communication of the results of innovation and research in {Unix} and modern {open systems}. It is well known for its technical conferences, tutorial programs, and the wide variety of publications it has sponsored over the years. USENIX is the original not-for-profit membership organisation for individuals and institutions interested in {Unix} and {Unix}-like systems, by extension, {X}, {object-oriented} technology, and other advanced tools and technologies, and the broad interconnected and interoperable computing environment. USENIX's activities include an annual technical conference; frequent specific-topic conferences and symposia; a highly regarded tutorial program covering a wide range of topics, introductory through advanced; numerous publications, including a book series, in cooperation with The {MIT Press}, on advanced computing systems, proceedings from USENIX symposia and conferences, the quarterly journal "Computing Systems", and the biweekly newsletter; "login: "; participation in various {ANSI}, {IEEE} and {ISO} {standards} efforts; sponsorship of local and special technical groups relevant to Unix. The chartering of SAGE, the {System Administrators Guild} as a Special Technical Group within USENIX is the most recent. {(http://usenix.org)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.org.usenix}. (1994-12-07)
uuencode "communications" (Unix-to-Unix encode) A {Unix} program for encoding {binary} data as {ASCII}. Uuencode was originally used with {uucp} to transfer binary files over {serial lines} which did not preserve the top bit of characters, but is now used for sending binary files by {e-mail} and posting to {Usenet} newsgroups etc. The program uudecode reverses the effect of uuencode, recreating the original binary file exactly. Uuencoded data starts with a line of the form begin "mode" "file" where "mode" is the files read/write/execute permissions as three {octal} digits and "file" is the name to be used when recreating the binary data. Uuencode repeatedly takes in a group of three bytes, adding trailing zeros if there are less than three bytes left. These 24 bits are split into four groups of six which are treated as numbers between 0 and 63. Decimal 32 is added to each number and they are output as ASCII characters from 32 (space) to 32+63 = 95 (underscore). Each group of sixty output characters (corresponding to 45 input bytes) is output as a separate line preceded by an 'M' (ASCII code 77 = 32+45). At the end of the input, if there are N output characters left after the last group of sixty and N"0 then they will be preceded by the character whose code is 32+N. Finally, a line containing just a single space is output, followed by one containing just "end". Sometimes each data line has an extra dummy character added to avoid problems which mailers that strip trailing spaces. These characters are ignored by uudecode. Despite using this limited range of characters, there are still some problems encountered when uuencoded data passes through certain old computers. The worst offenders are computers using non-ASCII character sets such as EBCDIC. {Base 64} encoding is probably now more commonly used than uuencode. (2004-07-17)
V.90 "protocol" An {ITU-T} {standard} {modem} serial line {protocol} allowing download speeds of up to 56 {kbps} with upload speeds of 33.6 {kbps}. {V.90} modems are designed for connections that are digital at one end and have only one digital-to-analogue conversion. As of 1998-02-06 the V.90 standard, formerly called V.pcm, has been given final approval by {ITU-T}. On 1998-10-27 the ITU-T announced that approval of the V.90 standard was completed. Interoperability testing is complete or in progress for several modem manufacturers. The V.90 standard reconciles two competing standards, {X2} and {K56flex}. The {ITU-T} has initiated the approval process for a new all-digital version of the protocol, to be known as {V.91}. {ITU Press Release 98-04 (http://itu.int/newsroom/press/releases/1998/98-04.html)}. and {NP-3 (http://itu.int/newsroom/press/releases/1998/NP-3.html)}. (1999-01-25)
veeblefetzer "jargon" /vee'b*l-fetz'*/ (Or "veeblefeetzer"?) A purposely nonsensical sounding word applied to any sort of obscure or complicated object, e.g. a piece of computer code, model railroad equipment, auto parts, etc. The more immediate origin of the word is "Mad" Magazine. In the late 1950s and early 1960s it used the word along the same lines, especially in its send-ups of big business. "North American Veeblefetzer" was the subject of satires of an annual reports, an in-house newsletter, and more. A Veeblefetzer, in their case, was a robot-like device that did something or other. The more distant source was probably a 19th century yiddish word, possibly with limited usage. In German, "Fetzer" is any contraption, while "Veeble" is a likely corruption of "Webel" -- meaning weaving. Textile mills of this period were crammed with very complicated, wildly active and very loud pieces of machinery. See also {veeblefester}. [veeblefeetzer or veeblefetzer?] (1996-03-31)
verbage "spelling, jargon" /ver'b*j/ Speech or writing with an excess of words or of obscure words. Although identical in meaning, and almost in spelling, to the common word {verbiage}, Patrick Flatley believes he was the first to coin the word "verbage", as a portmanteau of "verbal" and "garbage", in the article cited below (itself a prime example of verbiage). [Fordham University student newspaper, "The Observer", 1982-10-06, p6]. (2011-12-21)
Virtual Memory System "operating system" (VMS) {DEC}'s proprietary {operating system} originally produced for its {VAX} {minicomputer}. VMS V1 was released in August 1978. VMS was renamed "OpenVMS" around version 5.5. The first version of VMS on {DEC Alpha} was known as OpenVMS for AXP V1.0, and the correct way to refer to the operating system now is OpenVMS for VAX or OpenVMS for Alpha. The renaming also signified the fact that the {X/Open} consortium had certified OpenVMS as having a high support for {POSIX} standards. VMS is one of the most secure operating systems on the market (making it popular in financial institutions). It currently (October 1997) has the best {clustering} capability (both number and distance) and is very scalable with {binaries} portable from small desktop {workstations} up to huge {mainframes}. Many {Unix} fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the {hacker}'s favourite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. {FAQ (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/comp/os/vms/top.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.os.vms}. [How does its performance compare with other OSes?] (1999-06-03)
virtual reality (VR) 1. "application" Computer simulations that use 3D graphics and devices such as the {data glove} to allow the user to interact with the simulation. 2. "games" A form of network interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games, interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and "true confessions" magazines. In a virtual reality forum (such as {Usenet}'s {news:alt.callahans} newsgroup or the {MUD} experiments on {Internet} and elsewhere), interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel complete with scenery, "foreground characters" that may be personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common "background characters" manipulable by all parties. The one iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a character without the consent of the person who "owns" it, otherwise, anything goes. See {bamf}, {cyberspace}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-30)
Visual C++ A {C} and {C++} programming environment sold by {Microsoft} Corporation. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.c++}. [Differences? Features?] (1994-12-21)
visualisation "graphics" Making a visible presentation of numerical data, particularly a graphical one. This might include anything from a simple X-Y graph of one dependent variable against one independent variable to a {virtual reality} which allows you to fly around the data. {Gnuplot} is the {Free Software Foundation}'s utility for producing various kinds of graphs. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics}. The {Computer Graphics Resource Listing} contains pointers to several visualisation tools. {comp.graphics FAQ (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-info/comp.graphics/)}. {Electronic Visualization Laboratory, University of Illinois at Chicago (http://ncsa.uiuc.edu/EVL/docs/Welcome.html)}. (2002-02-21)
visual programming language "language" (VPL) Any programming language that allows the user to specify a program in a two-(or more)-dimensionsional way. Conventional textual languages are not considered two-dimensional since the {compiler} or {interpreter} processes them as one-dimensional streams of characters. A VPL allows programming with visual expressions - spatial arrangements of textual and graphical symbols. VPLs may be further classified, according to the type and extent of visual expression used, into {icon}-based languages, {form}-based languages and {diagram languages}. {Visual programming environments} provide graphical or iconic elements which can be manipulated by the user in an interactive way according to some specific spatial grammar for program construction. A visually transformed language is a non-visual language with a superimposed visual representation. Naturally visual languages have an inherent visual expression for which there is no obvious textual equivalent. {Visual Basic}, {Visual C++} and the entire {Microsoft} Visual family are not, despite their names, visual programming languages. They are textual languages which use a graphical {GUI builder} to make programming interfaces easier. The user interface portion of the programming environment is visual, the languages are not. Because of the confusion caused by the multiple meanings of the term "{visual programming}", Fred Lakin has proposed the term "executable graphics" as an alternative to VPL. Some examples of visual programming languages are {Prograph}, {Pict}, {Tinkertoy}, {Fabrik}, {CODE 2.0} and {Hyperpascal}. {(http://cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ianr/vpl.html)}. {(http://cuiwww.unige.ch/eao/www/readme.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.visual} (NOT for {Visual Basic} or {Visual C++}). (1995-02-10)
WAITS /wayts/ The mutant cousin of {TOPS-10} used on a handful of systems at {SAIL} up to 1990. There was never an "official" expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glossed as "West-coast Alternative to ITS". Though WAITS was less visible than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted enormous indirect influence. The early screen modes of {Emacs}, for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's "E" editor - one of a family of editors that were the first to do "real-time editing", in which the editing commands were invisible and where one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting. The modern style of multi-region windowing is said to have originated there, and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere played major roles in the developments that led to the XEROX Star, the Macintosh, and the Sun workstations. {Bucky bits} were also invented there thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS legacy. One notable WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was a news-wire interface that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and UPI dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a still-unusual level of support for what is now called "multimedia" computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched to programming terminals. Ken Shoemake adds: Some administrative body told us we needed a name for the operating system, and that "SAIL" wouldn't do. (Up to that point I don't think it had an official name.) So the anarchic denizens of the lab proposed names and voted on them. Although I worked on the OS used by CCRMA folks (a parasitic subgroup), I was not writing WAITS code. Those who were, proposed "SAINTS", for (I think) Stanford AI New Time-sharing System. Thinking of ITS, and AI, and the result of many people using one machine, I proposed the name WAITS. Since I invented it, I can tell you without fear of contradiction that it had no official meaning. Nevertheless, the lab voted that as their favorite; upon which the disgruntled system programmers declared it the "Worst Acronym Invented for a Time-sharing System"! But it was in keeping with the creative approach to acronyms extant at the time, including self-referential ones. For me it was fun, if a little unsettling, to have an "acronym" that wasn't. I have no idea what the voters thought. :) [{Jargon File}] (2003-11-17)
warlording "jargon" The act of excoriating a bloated, ugly or derivative {sig block}. Common grounds for warlording include the presence of a signature rendered in a {BUAF}, over-used or cliched {sig quotes}, ugly {ASCII art}, or simply excessive size. The original "Warlord" was a {BIFF}-like {newbie} c. 1991 who featured in his sig a particularly large and obnoxious ASCII graphic resembling the sword of Conan the Barbarian in the 1981 John Milius movie; the group name alt.fan.warlord was sarcasm, and the characteristic mode of warlording is devastatingly sarcastic praise. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:alt.fan.warlord}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-29)
welcome ::: n. --> Received with gladness; admitted willingly to the house, entertainment, or company; as, a welcome visitor.
Producing gladness; grateful; as, a welcome present; welcome news.
Free to have or enjoy gratuitously; as, you are welcome to the use of my library.
Salutation to a newcomer.
Kind reception of a guest or newcomer; as, we entered the
well-connected Said of a computer installation, asserts that it has reliable {electronic mail} links with the network and/or that it relays a large fraction of available {Usenet} newsgroups. "Well-known" can be almost synonymous, but also implies that the site's name is familiar to many (due perhaps to an archive service or active {Usenet} users).
What You See Is All You Get "jargon" (WYSIAYG) /wiz'ee-ayg/ Describes a user interface under which "What You See Is *All* You Get"; an unhappy variant of {WYSIWYG}. Visual, "{point-and-drool interfaces}" are easy to learn but often lack depth; they often frustrate advanced users who would be better served by a command-style interface. When this happens, the frustrated user has a WYSIAYG problem. This term is most often used of editors, {word processors}, and document formatting programs. WYSIWYG "{desktop publishing}" programs, for example, are a clear win for creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in them, especially things like newsletters and presentation slides. When typesetting book-length manuscripts, on the other hand, scale changes the nature of the task; one quickly runs into WYSIAYG limitations, and the increased power and flexibility of a command-driven formatter like {TeX} or {Unix}'s {troff} becomes not just desirable but a necessity. Compare {YAFIYGI}. (1999-03-03)
Wide Area Information Servers "networking, information science" (WAIS) A distributed information retrieval system. WAIS is supported by {Apple Computer}, {Thinking Machines} and Dow Jones. {Clients} are able to retrieve documents using keywords. The search returns a list of documents, ranked according to the frequency of occurrence of the keyword(s) used in the search. The client can retrieve text or {multimedia} documents stored on the {server}. WAIS offers simple {natural language} input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a "relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial searches to influence future searches. It uses the {ANSI Z39.50} service. {Public domain} implementations are available. Other information retrieval systems include {archie}, {Gopher}, {Prospero}, and {web}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.infosystems.wais}. {Telnet (telnet://sunsite.unc.edu)}. (1995-03-13)
WIMP "operating system" Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers (or maybe Windows, Icons, Mouse, {Pull-down menus}). The style of {graphical user interface} invented at {Xerox PARC}, popularised by the {Apple Macintosh} and now available in other varieties such as the {X Window System}, {OSF}/{Motif}, {NeWS}, {RISC OS} and {Microsoft Windows}. See {menuitis}, {user-obsequious}, {window system}. (2007-09-12)
Windows NT "operating system" (Windows New Technology, NT) {Microsoft}'s 32-bit {operating system} developed from what was originally intended to be {OS/2} 3.0 before {Microsoft} and {IBM} ceased joint development of OS/2. NT was designed for high end {workstations} (Windows NT 3.1), servers (Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server), and corporate networks (NT 4.0 Enterprise Server). The first release was {Windows NT 3.1}. Unlike {Windows 3.1}, which was a graphical environment that ran on top of {MS-DOS}, Windows NT is a complete operating system. To the user it looks like Windows 3.1, but it has true {multi-threading}, built in networking, security, and {memory protection}. It is based on a {microkernel}, with 32-bit addressing for up to 4Gb of {RAM}, virtualised hardware access to fully protect applications, installable file systems, such as {FAT}, {HPFS} and {NTFS}, built-in networking, {multi-processor} support, and {C2 security}. NT is also designed to be hardware independent. Once the machine specific part - the {Hardware Abstraction Layer} (HAL) - has been ported to a particular machine, the rest of the operating system should theorertically compile without alteration. A version of NT for {DEC}'s {Alpha} machines was planned (September 1993). NT needs a fast {386} or equivalent, at least 12MB of {RAM} (preferably 16MB) and at least 75MB of free disk space. NT 4.0 was followed by {Windows 2000}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.os.ms-windows.nt.setup}, {news:comp.os.ms-windows.nt.misc}. (2002-06-10)
Windows sockets "networking, standard" (Winsock) A specification for {Microsoft Windows} network software, describing how applications can access network services, especially {TCP/IP}. Winsock is intended to provide a single {API} to which application developers should program and to which multiple network software vendors should conform. For any particular version of {Microsoft Windows}, it defines a binary interface ({ABI}) such that an application written to the Windows Sockets API can work with a conformant {protocol} implementation from any network software vendor. Winsock was conceived at Fall Interop '91 during a {Birds of a Feather} session. Windows Sockets is supported by {Microsoft Windows}, {Windows for Workgroups}, {Win32s}, {Windows 95} and {Windows NT}. It will support protocols other than {TCP/IP}. Under {Windows NT}, {Microsoft} will provide Windows Sockets support over {TCP/IP} and {IPX}/{SPX}. {DEC} will be implementing {DECNet}. {Windows NT} will include mechanisms for multiple {protocol} support in Windows Sockets, both 32-bit and 16 bit. Mark Towfiq said, "The next rev. of Winsock will not be until toward the end of 1993. We need 1.1 of the {API} to become firmly settled and implemented first." {Windows Sockets API (ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/micro/pc-stuff/ms-windows/winsock)}. or {(ftp://microdyne.com/pub/winsock)} or send a message "help" to either "ftpmail@SunSite.UNC.Edu" or "ftpmail@DECWRL.DEC.Com". {Windows Sockets specification (ftp://rhino.microsoft.com)}. Currently NetManage (NEWT), Distinct, FTP and Frontier are shipping Winsock {TCP/IP} stacks, as is {Microsoft} (Windows NT and {TCP/IP} for WFW), Beame & Whiteside Software (v1.1 compliant), and Sun PC-NFS. Windows 95 has "dial-up networking" which supports Winsock and TCP/IP. winsock.dll is available from some {TCP/IP} stack vendors. {Novell} has one in beta for their {Lan Workplace} for {DOS}. Peter Tattam "peter@psychnet.psychol.utas.edu.au" is alpha-testing a shareware Windows Sockets compliant {TCP/IP} stack {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet/winsock/winsock.zip)}. and {(ftp://ftp.utas.edu.au/pc/trumpet/winsock/winpkt.com)}. {The Consummate Winsock App List (http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~Neuroses/cwsapps.html)}. [Adapted from: Aboba, Bernard D., comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Frequently Asked Questions, 1993 {Usenet}: {news:news.answers}, {(ftp://netcom1.netcom.com/pub/mailcom/IBMTCP/)}]. [Current status?] (1996-06-20)
window system "operating system" {Software} which allows a {computer}'s {display} to be divided into rectangular areas which act like a separate input/output devices under the control of different {application} programs. This gives the user the ability to see the output of several processes at once and to choose which one will receive input by selecting its window, usually by pointing at it with a {mouse}. Examples are the {X Window System}, proprietary systems on the {Macintosh} and {NeXT}, {NeWS} on {Suns}, {RISC OS} on the {Archimedes} and {Microsoft Windows}. See also {WIMP}. (2015-03-07)
winterly ::: a. --> Like winter; wintry; cold; hence, disagreeable, cheerless; as, winterly news.
wireless local area network "networking" (WLAN /W-lan/, or "LAWN" /lorn/, sometimes "WiLAN" /wi-lan/) A communication system that transmits and receives data using modulated electromagnetic waves, implemented as an extension to, or as an alternative for, a {wired} {LAN}. WLANs are typically found within a small {client} {node}-dense locale (e.g. a campus or office building), or anywhere a traditional network cannot be deployed for logistical reasons. Benefits include user mobility in the coverage area, speed and simplicity of physical setup, and {scalability}. Being a military spin-off, WLANs also provide security features such as {encryption}, {frequency hopping}, and {firewalls}. Some of these are intrinsic to the {protocol}, making WLANs at least as secure as wired networks, and usually more so. The drawbacks are high initial cost (mostly {hardware}), limited range, possibility of mutual interference, amd the need to security-enable clients. The established protocols are covered by {IEEE 802.11 (http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/)}. Recent developments include the {Bluetooth} project and other WPAN, or {Personal Area Network} initiatives, accessible through {IEEE 802.15 working group (http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/15/)}. {Wireless Lan Association (http://wlana.org/)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.dcom.lans.misc}, {news:comp.std.wireless}. (2003-09-23)
wireless "networking" A term describing a computer {network} where there is no physical connection (either copper cable or {fibre optics}) between sender and receiver, but instead they are connected by radio. Applications for wireless networks include multi-party {teleconferencing}, distributed work sessions, {personal digital assistants}, and electronic newspapers. They include the transmission of voice, video, {images}, and data, each traffic type with possibly differing {bandwidth} and quality-of-service requirements. The wireless network components of a complete source-destination path requires consideration of mobility, {hand-off}, and varying transmission and {bandwidth} conditions. The wired/wireless network combination provides a severe bandwidth mismatch, as well as vastly different error conditions. The processing capability of fixed vs. mobile terminals may be expected to differ significantly. This then leads to such issues to be addressed in this environment as {admission control}, {capacity assignment} and {hand-off} control in the wireless domain, flow and error control over the complete end-to-end path, dynamic bandwidth control to accommodate bandwidth mismatch and/or varying processing capability. {Usenet} newsgroup {news:comp.std.wireless}. (1995-02-27)
woman "tool" A replacement for the {Unix} {man} {documentation} browsing command. Version 1.157 of woman runs under/on {386BSD}, {OSF}, {Apollo} {Domain/OS}, {BSD}, {HP-UX}, {IBM} {RS-6000}, {Irix}, {Linux}, {Solaris}, {Sony} {NEWS}, {SunOS}, {Ultrix}, {Unicos}. Posted to comp.sources.reviewed Volume 3, Issue 50 on 05 Jul 1993 by Arne Henrik Juul "arnej@pvv.unit.no", archive-name woman-1.157. {FTP USC, USA (ftp://usc.edu/archive/usenet/sources/comp.sources.reviewed/volume3/woman-1.157/)}. {FTP Imperial, UK (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/comp.sources.reviewed/volume3/woman-1.157/)}. (1995-03-21)
XRN A newsreader program for {Usenet} news running under the {X Window System}.
XScheme "language" {Scheme} in {C} with {object-oriented} extensions by David Betz. Version 0.28 runs on {IBM PC}, {Macintosh}, {Atari} and {Amiga}. {(ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/comp.sources.amiga/volume90)}. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.lisp.x}. (1992-02-02)
X Window System "operating system, graphics" A specification for device-independent windowing operations on {bitmap display} devices, developed initially by {MIT}'s Project {Athena} and now a {de facto standard} supported by the {X Consortium}. X was named after an earlier window system called "W". It is a window system called "X", not a system called "X Windows". X uses a {client-server} protocol, the {X protocol}. The server is the computer or {X terminal} with the screen, keyboard, mouse and server program and the clients are {application programs}. Clients may run on the same computer as the server or on a different computer, communicating over {Ethernet} via {TCP/IP} protocols. This is confusing because {X clients} often run on what people usually think of as their server (e.g. a file server) but in X, it is the screen and keyboard etc. which is being "served out" to the applications. X is used on many {Unix} systems. It has also been described as over-sized, over-featured, over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated. X11R6 (version 11, release 6) was released in May 1994. {(http://x.org/)}. See also {Andrew project}, {PEX}, {VNC}, {XFree86}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.windows.x}, {news:comp.x}, {news:comp.windows.x.apps}, {news:comp.windows.x.intrinsics}, {news:comp.windows.x.announce}, {news:comp.sources.x}, {news:comp.windows.x.motif}, {news:comp.windows.x.pex}. (1999-04-02)
Zoomer "computer" A {PDA} from {Casio}, based on the {GEOS} {microkernel} {operating system}. {(http://biostat.washington.edu/zoomer.html)}. {(http://eit.com/mailinglists/zoomer/resources.html)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.sys.pen}, {news:comp.sys.handhelds}, {news:comp.sys.palmtops}. (1995-01-23)
KEYS (10k)
1 website
1 site
1 Saigyo
1 R Buckminster Fuller
1 ken-wilber
1 Joseph Campbell
1 Jack Butcher
1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810342
1 George Carlin
1 Galatians 1:15).
1 Chogyam Trungpa
1 Chamtrul Rinpoche
1 Bill Hicks
1 Attar of Nishapur
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
33 Joanna Newsom
30 Marc Newson
26 Anonymous
12 Stephen King
12 Henry David Thoreau
10 Mark Twain
9 William Shakespeare
9 Stephen Colbert
9 Sophocles
9 Jon Stewart
8 Thomas Jefferson
7 Rick Riordan
7 Bill Gates
6 Jay Leno
6 David Letterman
6 Chuck Palahniuk
5 Rupert Murdoch
5 Megyn Kelly
5 J K Rowling
5 Gilbert K Chesterton
1:Bad news? Keep building. Good news? Keep building. No news? Keep building." ~ Jack Butcher, #KEYS
2:The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there's no ground.
~ Chogyam Trungpa,#KEYS
3:I have no news of coming or passing away: it happened much faster than one breath." ~ Attar of Nishapur, (1145 - 1221) Persian poet, Wikipedia., #KEYS
4:Each stage of development, remember, has a dialectic of progress - in plain language, every new development is good news, bad news. ~ ken-wilber, #KEYS
5:Not Stopping To Mark The Trail :::
Not stopping to mark the trail,
let me push even deeper
into the mountain!
Perhaps there's a place
where bad news can never reach me! ~ Saigyo,#KEYS
6:God, who had specially chosen me while I was still in my mother's womb, called me through his grace and chose to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach the Good News about him to the pagans ~ Galatians 1:15)., #KEYS
7:One of our problems is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We're interested in the news of the day ...When you get to be older and you turn to the inner life -- well, if you don't know where it is or what it is, you'll be sorry. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
8:If you could take the bliss and happiness that comes from meditation, and put it into a bottle, it would be the most popular drink in the world. Of course, this is not possible. But the good news is that it is free, it is good for your health, and it is always available. ~ Chamtrul Rinpoche, #KEYS
9:andai on Oct 28, 2017 | parent | favorite | on: Alan Kay on Lisp\nI wonder if LISP and LSD encourage similar ways of thinking.\n\ntempodox on Oct 28, 2017 [-]\nBased on my own experiences with both, I'd say: Yes. Although I'm sure you couldn't prove it mathematically (yet). ~ website, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15573502, #KEYS
10:The final result is a system where programmers, artists, animators, and designers are productively programming directly in an S-expression Scheme-like language. Dan closed his talk by wowing the audience with the trailer for the game, which has now been released and is garnering extremely positive reviews. ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810342, #KEYS
11:nabla9 on July 15, 2018 [-] Common Lisp as hackish vs protective is nice way to describe it.\n\nAnother way to describe it exploratory vs implementatory.\n\nIn some ways Common Lisp is like Mathematica for programming. It's a language for a computer architect to develop and explore high level concept. It's not a accident that early Javascript prototype was done in common lisp or that metaobject protocols, aspect-oriented programming, etc. were first implemented and experimented with Common Lisp. ~ site, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17533341, #KEYS
12:Today's news consists of aggregates of fragments. Anyone who has taken part in any event that has subsequently appeared in the news is aware of the gross disparity between the actual and the reported events. We also learn frequently of prefabricated and prevaricated evens of a complex nature purportedly undertaken for the purposes wither of suppressing or rigging the news, which in turn perverts humanity's tactical information resources. All history becomes suspect. Probably our most polluted resource is the tactical information to which humanity spontaneously reflexes. ~ R Buckminster Fuller, #KEYS
13:Always that same LSD story, you've all seen it. 'Young man on acid, thought he could fly, jumped out of a building. What a tragedy.' What a dick! Fuck him, he's an idiot. If he thought he could fly, why didn't he take off on the ground first? Check it out. You don't see ducks lined up to catch elevators to fly south-they fly from the ground, ya moron, quit ruining it for everybody. He's a moron, he's dead-good, we lost a moron, fuckin' celebrate. Wow, I just felt the world get lighter. We lost a moron! I don't mean to sound cold, or cruel, or vicious, but I am, so that's the way it comes out. Professional help is being sought. How about a positive LSD story? Wouldn't that be news-worthy, just the once? To base your decision on information rather than scare tactics and superstition and lies? I think it would be news-worthy. 'Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves' . . . 'Here's Tom with the weather. ~ Bill Hicks, #KEYS
14:But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never gonna get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want: They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. ~ George Carlin, #KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The brain is drawn to bad news. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 2:We're news junkies in my house. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 3:Nobody likes the bringer of bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 4:Nobody likes the man who brings bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 5:None love the messenger who brings bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 6:Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove 7:That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 8:It is an ill thing to be the first to bring news of ill. ~ aeschylus, @wisdomtrove 9:Babies, we are told, are the latest news from heaven. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 10:The steeples swam in amethyst, the news like squirrels swam. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 11:News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 12:I've seen the promised land, and there is good news. You can have it all. ~ tim-ferris, @wisdomtrove 13:Turn off the TV, especially the news, and recapture many usable hours. ~ steve-pavlina, @wisdomtrove 14:It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove 15:I'd rather get bad news from an honest man than lies from a flatterer. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 16:News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 17:Is it not wonderful news to believe that salvation lies outside ourselves? ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 18:To be able to proclaim the Good News to the poor we must know what is poverty. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 19:Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it. ~ stephen-king, @wisdomtrove 20:If you have to release bad news to the public, it would help if you are not ugly. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 21:The best news the World has ever heard came from a graveyard - Christ is risen! ~ soren-kierkegaard, @wisdomtrove 22:First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove 23:The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 24:Spreading the news is your duty as a Christian, and there are many ways to do this. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 25:It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 26:Everytime you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 27:The good news is that the bad news can be turned into good news when you change your attitude. ~ robert-h-schuller, @wisdomtrove 28:The Gospel is called the good news. My message is a message of hope, that's God's [message] for you. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 29:If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news? ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 30:The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is for ever good news. ~ charles-spurgeon, @wisdomtrove 31:When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 32:But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 33:I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 34:The truth is, we know so little about life, we don't really know what the good news is and what the bad news is. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 35:It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper. ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 36:I like photographers - you don't ask questions. (To a gathering of the White House News Photographers Association) ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 37:Our chaotic, confused world has no greater need than to hear the message of good news - the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 38:The good news may be that Nature is phasing out the white man, but the bad news is that's who She thinks we all are. ~ alice-walker, @wisdomtrove 39:All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 40:A newspaper that reduces its coverage of the news important to its community is certain to reduce its readership as well ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 41:One little person, giving all of her time to peace, makes news. Many people, giving some of their time, can make history. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 42:Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 43:The good news isn't that God is victorious. How can He not be victorious? The good news is we can be victorious, too. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 44:I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 45:Dreams as soul messages... each nightly communication brings the latest-breaking news available in special edition just for you! ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 46:Each stage of development, remember, has a dialectic of progress& 47:The good news is that more than ever, value accrues to those that show up, those that make a difference, those that do work that matters. ~ seth-godin, @wisdomtrove 48:The New York Daily News suggested that my biggest war crime was not killing myself like a gentleman. Presumably Hitler was a gentleman. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 49:I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons. ~ ogden-nash, @wisdomtrove 50:Lady Middleton ... exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper. & 51:It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. ~ mark-twain, @wisdomtrove 52:There's only one person out of order in the whole world: you. That's good news, because it leaves only one person to change. How convenient! ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 53:It took me years to work out the difference between net and gross. In meetings I just used to say, & 54:When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 55:Good news from heaven the angels bring, Glad tidings to the earth they sing: To us this day a child is given, To crown us with the joy of heaven. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 56:Nothing lasts forever - except forever. That's the good news. It's a good thing that nothing lasts forever because things would get terribly boring. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 57:What is will? It is a decision. It is a decision to be something. We really aren't anything in particular. We can be anything. That's the good news. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 58:When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 59:When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 60:Honesty and integrity are absolutely essential for success in life - all areas of life. The really good news is that anyone can develop both honesty and integrity. ~ zig-ziglar, @wisdomtrove 61:News is that which comes from the North, East, West and South, and if it comes from only one point on the compass, then it is a class; publication and not news. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 62:The news that reaches your consciousness is incomplete and often not to be relied on... . Turn your eyes inward, look into your own depths, learn first to know yourself! ~ sigmund-freud, @wisdomtrove 63:Look at the limes in this drink, how they float. That's good news. Next time I'm on a boat, and it capsizes, I will reach for a lime. I'm saved by the buoyancy of citrus. ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove 64:The first quality of the commander-in-chief is a cool head to receive a correct impression of things. He should not allow himself to be confused by either good or bad news. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 65:The good news is that you don't have to stop thoughts completely to meditate. It takes a long time to stop thought impeccably. What you need is to detach yourself from thought. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 66:Behold , I have graven you upon the palm of my hand, that is what Jesus came on earth to do: to proclaim, to give us the Good News that God loves us, that we are precious to Him. ~ mother-teresa, @wisdomtrove 67:I don't have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 68:So the bad news is that there’s always something bad about life we can choose to focus on. And the good news is that there’s always something good about life we can choose to focus on. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 69:Men in England are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by brutes who refuse them bread, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern, and therefore wish to enslave. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove 70:I have a problem with the strip that runs along the bottom of the news programs. Don't these idiots who run the news programs know we don't want to read? That's why we're watching TV. ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 71:For they (art and music) are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 72:Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost. ~ napoleon-bonaparte, @wisdomtrove 73:Stop consuming the headline news every day. – Most news has no long term value. Mainstream media primarily focuses on ‘what’s hot now’ instead of ‘what will be useful tomorrow.’ ~ marc-and-angel-chernoff, @wisdomtrove 74:I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news. ~ john-muir, @wisdomtrove 75:Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing. ~ criss-jami, @wisdomtrove 76:Reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. All you have to do is open a newspaper on any given day to weigh the good news versus the bad news, and you'll see what I mean. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 77:& 78:The media shows the tiniest percentage of what people do. There are millions and millions of people doing wonderful things all over the world, and they're generally not the ones being touted in the news. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 79:Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies - what television did kill was cinema newsreel. TV does it much better because it can deliver it instantly. Who wants last week's news? ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 80:In real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 81:The good news - and it is largely good news - is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark ~ tom-peters, @wisdomtrove 82:You come to me for advice, but you can't cope with anything you don't recognize. Hmmm. So we'll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh Well, business as usual , I suppose. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 83:We do not become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 84:You can't help some increase from this point. I don't want any viewer to go away think a magic wand exists in Congress. So they're going to see some more bad news. But if we do this, we're doing the right thing. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 85:The conscience of America seems to be paralyzed... We seem to be insensible to the things that are now taking place on motion picture screens and on the news stands that are constantly stimulating our young people. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 86:The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 87:For things to change you need to change. For things to get better you need to get better. The good news is you can change, you can get better and you can start right where you are at and you can go as far as you want to go. ~ jim-rohn, @wisdomtrove 88:This is my letter to the world, that never wrote to me, the simple news that nature told, with tender majesty. Her message is committed, to hands I cannot see; for love of her, sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me. ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 89:I hate how on TV they have to fill so many minutes. It means they have to put in anything, and by doing so they sort of trivialize news; news becomes this commodity that they need to fill dead time between commercials with. ~ chuck-palahniuk, @wisdomtrove 90:I'll tell you how the sun rose, a ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, "That must have been the sun! ~ emily-dickinson, @wisdomtrove 91:Habits of pessimism lead to depression, wither achievement, and undermine physical health. The good news is that pessimism can be unlearned, and that with its removal depression, underachievement, and poor health can be alleviated. ~ martin-seligman, @wisdomtrove 92:It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 93:The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven't been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care. ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 94:The anti-pleasure movement in self-discovery is very strong. I have big news for them, if they ever get to enlightenment, which is unlikely the way they're approaching it, they're going to find that enlightenment is very pleasurable. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 95:The polls demonstrate that 50 percent of Americans who get their news from TV think Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers attack. Man, have they got ways for getting half-truths out right away now, thanks to TV! I think TV is a calamity in a democracy. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 96:We sought a tribal society, to be close to each other, not to sit behind a television with our families and not see our families, not just to watch the evening news and the inane comedies designed to pacify the multitudes, but rather to explore ourselves. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 97:After once having made the mistake of watching television news, I had worried for a while about an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out human civilization. The anchorwoman had said it was not merely possible but probable. At the end of the report, she smiled. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 98:And so it is to the printing press& 99:I'm for everybody. You may not agree with me, but to me it's not my job to try to straighten everybody out. The Gospel is called the good news. My message is a message of hope, that's God's [message] for you. You can live a good life no matter what's happened to you. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove 100:nothing's news. it's the same old thing in disguise. only one thing comes without a disguise and you only see it once, or maybe never. like getting hit by a freight train. makes us realize that all our moaning about long lost girls in gingham dresses is not so important after all. ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 101:Give up on news. It’s a never-ending cycle. And if you’ve paid attention to the news as long as I have (I’m a former journalist), you know it’s all the same, year after year. Unless your job depends on it, the news is usually a waste of your attention. Let go of the need to stay updated. ~ leo-babauta, @wisdomtrove 102:We need to pledge ourselves anew to the cause of Christ. We must capture the spirit of the early church. Wherever the early Christians went, they made a triumphant witness for Christ. Whether on the village streets or in the city jails, they daringly proclaimed the good news of the gospel. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 103:I remember one day I came home and shouted to my grandmother, "Grandma, Sarah is pregnant!" Poor Sarah! For weeks before I had read how difficult it was for her to get pregnant. "Grandma! I have news for you!" "What did you learn?" "I have news, Grandma: Sarah is pregnant!" [Genesis 16 - 21]. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove 104:But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 105:To define is to limit, to set boundaries, to compare and to contrast, and for this reason, the universe, the all, seems to defy definition... .Just as no one in his senses would look for the morning news in a dictionary, no one should use speaking and thinking to find out what cannot be spoken or thought. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 106:Listen up! I've got some really good news! Everything is okay! Being alive is weird and scary and never really makes sense, but that's all right because life is like a dream . . . so there's nothing to be alarmed about . . . it all turns out all right in the end . . . because when you die in a dream, you wake up. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 107:There's lots of law these days, but not much justice. Celebrities murder their wives and go free. A mother kills her children, and the news people on TV say she's the victim and want you to send money to her lawyers. When everything's upside down like this, what fool just sits back and thinks justice will prevail? ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 108:And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 109:I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 110:This is the good and happy news, that Christ has paid for our sin, and through His suffering has redeemed us from eternal death. It is His kingdom and His ministry, to preach the Gospel to the poor; that is His purpose. For to the great and holy He cannot come. They do not wish to be counted sinners, and therefore do not need His Gospel. ~ martin-luther, @wisdomtrove 111:Sometimes, life seems to have a higher meaning. Events unfold in uncanny sequences. Long-forgotten acquaintances turn up with news that changes lives. A stranger appears and speaks a few words of wisdom, solving a previously insoluble problem, or something in a recent dream transpires in reality. Suddenly the existence of God seems confirmed. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 112:Anyone buying this book is going to be out a tidy sum if he is sucked in by the title. I wish I could write a real sexy book that would be barred from the mails. Apparently nothing whets a reader's appetite for literature more than the news that the author has been thrown into a federal pokey for disturbing the libido of millions of Americans. ~ groucho-marx, @wisdomtrove 113:I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves-before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine. ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 114:Venerable are letters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost. Life would split asunder without them. & 115:When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers ‚Äì so many caring people in this world. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 116:Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove 117:Our media, which is like a planetary nervous system, are far more sensitive to breakdowns than to breakthroughs. They filter out our creativity and successes, considering them less newsworthy than violence, war, and dissent. When we read newspapers and watch television news, we feel closer to a death in the social body than to an awakening. ~ barbara-marx-hubbard, @wisdomtrove 118:And the most interesting natural structure? A giant, two-thousand-mile-long fish in orbit around Jupiter, according to a reliable report in the Weekly World News. The photograph was very convincing, and I'm only surprised that more-reputable journals like New Scientist, or even just The Sun, haven't followed up with more details. We should be told. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 119:I do not live happily or comfortably With the cleverness of our times. The talk is all about computers, The news is all about bombs and blood. This morning, in the fresh field, I came upon a hidden nest. It held four warm, speckled eggs. I touched them. Then went away softly, Having felt something more wonderful Than all the electricity of New York City. ~ mary-oliver, @wisdomtrove 120:Usually they are quick to discover that I cannot see or hear... . It is not training but love which impels them to break their silence about me with the thud of a tail rippling against my chair on gambols round the study, or news conveyed by expressive ear, nose, and paw. Often I yearn to give them speech, their motions are so eloquent with things they cannot say. ~ hellen-keller, @wisdomtrove 121:I have got this letter which actually goes out the day after I die. It has already been written. And it says that: "Yesterday I died". And then it says: "That's bad news for me, but it's not bad news for you, the shareholders of Berkshire". And then I go on and explain what is going to happen. I know that is one time when they will be really interested in hearing from me. ~ warren-buffet, @wisdomtrove 122:I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the & 123:A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences. ~ john-steinbeck, @wisdomtrove 124:If you can sit quietly after difficult news; if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm; if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy; if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate; you can fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill; if you can always find contentment just where you are: you are probably a dog. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 125:When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news, that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence. ~ henry-ward-beecher, @wisdomtrove 126:Kramer: "You’re wasting your life."George: "I am not. What you call wasting, I call living. I’m living my life."Kramer: "OK, like what? No, tell me. Do you have a job?"George: "No."Kramer: "You got money?"George: "No."Kramer: "Do you have any action at all?"George: "No."Kramer: "Do you have any conceivable reason for even getting up in the morning?"George: "I like to get the Daily News." Seinfeld TV show ~ jerry-seinfeld, @wisdomtrove 127:Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 128:The Chicago City News Bureau was a tripwire for all the newspapers in town when I was there, and there were five papers, I think. We were out all the time around the clock and every time we came across a really juicy murder or scandal or whatever, they'd send the big time reporters and photographers, otherwise they'd run our stories. So that's what I was doing, and I was going to university at the same time. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 129:There is a Wonderful story in the Gospel of Luke (6:12-26). Jesus went up to the mountain to pray at night; in the morning he came down from the mountain and called his twelve apostles around him. In the afternoon he went out on the plain with them to preach the Good News and heal the sick. He had communion with God first, then he had community, and then he went out to do the work of God. That's the order of things. ~ henri-nouwen, @wisdomtrove 130:What does a life without anxiety look like? With God as your helper, you'll sleep better tonight and smile more tomorrow. You'll reframe the way you face your fears. You'll learn how to talk yourself off the ledge, view bad news through the lens of sovereignty, discern the lies of Satan, and tell yourself the truth. You'll discover a life that's characterized by calm and will develop tools for facing the onslaughts of anxiety. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 131:Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told. ~ sun-tzu, @wisdomtrove 132:Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your reputation. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise. There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth, and pursue it steadily. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy nation. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 133:Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. Yet I do not suppose there is one paper in England that can be straightforwardly bribed with hard cash. In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 134:Had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 135:Seeking approval is one of the main way people lose the awareness of it. Seeking is always stressful. It puts your happiness in other people's hands. When you question the thoughts that cause your seeking, like "My mother doesn't love me." or "I should be thinner," you begin to find your own approval. It just appears. And when you have that awareness, it's easy to approve of other people. This is the way to be truly happy. We are 100% responsible for our own happiness. This is very good news! ~ byron-katie, @wisdomtrove 136:Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a Speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. ~ george-orwell, @wisdomtrove 137:The farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control. My heart aches for America and its deceived people. The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah's day, Nineveh was the lone world superpower-wealthy, unconcerned, and self-centered. When the Prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God's warning, people heard and repented. I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation. It's something I long for. ~ billy-graham, @wisdomtrove 138:A few really dedicated people can offset the masses of out of harmony people, so we who work for peace must not falter, we must continue to pray for peace and to act for peace in whatever way we can. We must continue to speak for peace and to live the way of peace; to inspire others, we must continue to think of peace and know that peace is possible. What we dwell upon we help bring to manifestation. One little person giving all of her time to peace makes news. Many people giving some of their time can make history. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 139:The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was so overcome by joy that he organised festive prayers to celebrate the occasion and commissioned Giorgio Vasari to decorate one of the Vatican’s rooms with a fresco of the massacre (the room is currently off-limits to visitors). More Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty-four hours than by the polytheistic Roman Empire throughout its entire existence. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 140:The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing. These things‚Äîthe beauty, the memory of our own past‚Äîare good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 141:Peace happens when people pray. "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" Casting is an intentional act to relocate an object. Let this "throwing" be your first response to bad news. As you sense anxiety welling up inside you, cast it in the direction of Christ. Do so specifically and immediately. Find a promise of God that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it. These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and activate the angels of heaven. Miracles are set into motion. Your answer may not come overnight, but it will come. And you will overcome. ~ max-lucado, @wisdomtrove 142:The glass ceiling of happiness is held in place by two stout pillars, one psychological, the other biological. On the psychological level, happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don’t become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. Dramatic improvements in conditions, as humankind has experienced in recent decades, translate into greater expectations rather than greater contentment. If we don’t do something about this, our future achievements too might leave us as dissatisfied as ever. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 143:Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Good things keep happening all around us, but much of the time we don’t notice them; even when we do, we often hardly feel them. Someone is nice to you, you see an admirable quality in yourself, a flower is blooming, you finish a difficult project—and it all just rolls by. Instead, actively look for good news, particularly the little stuff of daily life: the faces of children, the smell of an orange, a memory from a happy vacation, a minor success at work, and so on. Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open up to it—dig in! Savor the experience. It’s delicious! Make it last by staying with it for 5, 10, even 20 seconds. ~ rick-hanson, @wisdomtrove 144:When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion, and we are admonished not to call it fake news in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath). Note, however, that I am not denying the effectiveness or potential benevolence of religion. Just the opposite. For better or worse, fiction is among the most effective tools in humanity’s tool kit. By bringing people together, religious creeds make large-scale human cooperation possible. They inspire people to build hospitals, schools, and bridges in addition to armies and prisons. Adam and Eve never existed, but Chartres Cathedral is still beautiful. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 145:Eventually, we may reach a point when it will be impossible to disconnect from this all-knowing network even for a moment. Disconnection will mean death. If medical hopes are realised, future people will incorporate into their bodies a host of biometric devices, bionic organs and nano-robots, which will monitor our health and defend us from infections, illnesses and damage. Yet these devices will have to be online 24/7, both in order to be updated with the latest medical news, and in order to protect them from the new plagues of cyberspace. Just as my home computer is constantly attacked by viruses, worms and Trojan horses, so will be my pacemaker, my hearing aid and my nanotech immune system. If I don’t update my body’s anti-virus program regularly, I will wake up one day to discover that the millions of nano-robots coursing through my veins are now controlled by a North Korean hacker. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 146:So if you blame Facebook, Trump, or Putin for ushering in a new and frightening era of post-truth, remind yourself that centuries ago millions of Christians locked themselves inside a self-reinforcing mythological bubble, never daring to question the factual veracity of the Bible, while millions of Muslims put their unquestioning faith in the Quran. For millennia, much of what passed for news and facts in human social networks were stories about miracles, angels, demons, and witches, with bold reporters giving live coverage straight from the deepest pits of the underworld. We have zero scientific evidence that Eve was tempted by the serpent, that the souls of all infidels burn in hell after they die, or that the creator of the universe doesn’t like it when a Brahmin marries a Dalit—yet billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 147:Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations that've long since bought and paid for, the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and the information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. ~ george-carlin, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Excuse us for the news, ~ Chuck D, #NFDB
2:CNN is not fake news. ~ Jolene Ivey, #NFDB
3:news-cramm’d. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
4:What's the news? ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
5:Bad news is just an excuse. ~ Neil Young, #NFDB
6:Business news is sexy. ~ Maria Bartiromo, #NFDB
7:Don't sell on bad news. ~ Walter Schloss, #NFDB
8:There is no news industry. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
9:he good news is: I’m alive. ~ Holly Smale, #NFDB
10:for news of upcoming releases! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
11:Bad news has good legs. ~ Richard Llewellyn, #NFDB
12:Convert bad news to good news. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
13:Only conflict is news, and ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
14:I heard the news today, oh boy. ~ David Bowie, #NFDB
15:The real news is bad news. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
16:No Good News in This Chapter ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
17:Teaching is bringing the news. ~ Frank McCourt, #NFDB
18:We're news junkies in my house. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
19:No day is safe from news of you. ~ Sylvia Plath, #NFDB
20:Self knowledge is always bad news. ~ John Barth, #NFDB
21:Good news. “Come fast,” he suggests. ~ M R Carey, #NFDB
22:Good news comes in large packages ~ Hazel Gaynor, #NFDB
23:Literature is news that stays news. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
24:I'm very wary of news on television. ~ Val Kilmer, #NFDB
25:Nobody likes the bringer of bad news. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
26:No news at 4:30 a.m. is good. ~ Lady Bird Johnson, #NFDB
27:Tabloid news is tabloid news. ~ Elizabeth Edwards, #NFDB
28:Because nobody wants bad news. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
29:I want to democratize business news. ~ Neil Cavuto, #NFDB
30:The good news is that we are Buddha. ~ Albert Low, #NFDB
31:There is no bad time for good news. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
32:Paris va porter plainte contre Fox News ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
33:The news is glorified gossip. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
34:All news is an exaggeration of life. ~ Daniel Schorr, #NFDB
35:I decided to make news, not give it. ~ Daisy Fuentes, #NFDB
36:I only watch MSNBC for the news. ~ Andre Leon Talley, #NFDB
37:News photography teaches you to think fast. ~ Weegee, #NFDB
38:The world news might not be therapeutic. ~ Ken Kesey, #NFDB
39:A master passion is the love of news. ~ George Crabbe, #NFDB
40:I don’t read the news. I make the news ~ Denrele Edun, #NFDB
41:Nobody likes the man who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
42:There's villainous news abroad. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
43:When bad news sells, money politics buys. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
44:For news of the heart, watch the face. ~ Camron Wright, #NFDB
45:News as wholesome as the morning air. ~ George Chapman, #NFDB
46:San Francisco “Eyewitness” news team had ~ Gregg Olsen, #NFDB
47:Secrets of the heart are seldom news. ~ Jennifer Stone, #NFDB
48:Stay a little and news will find you. ~ George Herbert, #NFDB
49:That was bad news. Terrible. The worst. ~ Shayla Black, #NFDB
50:To the old, the new is usually bad news. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
51:We want someone to bring us the news. ~ William Gaddis, #NFDB
52:Evening News she had bought earlier and ~ Lucinda Riley, #NFDB
53:Good news from heaven the angels bring, ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
54:It's always bad news when you kill your date ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
55:[News is] a first rough draft of history. ~ Phil Graham, #NFDB
56:bad news travels faster than good. ~ Catherine the Great, #NFDB
57:It's easy to get bogged down in bad news. ~ Maggie Smith, #NFDB
58:None love the messenger who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
59:This is Frank Carson, News at Ten, Sober. ~ Frank Carson, #NFDB
60:A billion people died on the news tonight. ~ Jack Johnson, #NFDB
61:Fools make news, and wise men carry it. ~ Dorothy Dunnett, #NFDB
62:In a terrified world, false news was king. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
63:The news makes me sad, so I don't watch it. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
64:The news of my death is greatly exaggerated. ~ W C Fields, #NFDB
65:Truth and news are not the same thing. ~ Katharine Graham, #NFDB
66:A piece of bad news wrapped in a protein coat. ~ Nick Lane, #NFDB
67:Bad news always travels faster than good. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
68:I try not to watch the news. Too depressing. ~ J A Konrath, #NFDB
69:Transmit good news to your family. Tell ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
70:Bon à rien. Bad loque
Bad luck. Bad news ~ S E Jakes,#NFDB
71:I believe our world desperately needs Good News. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
72:No one loves the messenger who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
73:To make the news, often you must create news. ~ Roger Stone, #NFDB
74:Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace. ~ John Dryden, #NFDB
75:It is difficult to get the news from poems ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
76:News of the murder had her all in a tizzy. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
77:Stephen Colbert is also then turned into news. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
78:The good news is I peed before going to sleep. ~ John Scalzi, #NFDB
79:What news? There's nothing to tell. I'm a nun. ~ Ken Follett, #NFDB
80:Good news for senior citizens: Death is near! ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
81:Good news gets good results. Broadcast it. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
82:News is to the mind what sugar is to the body. ~ Rolf Dobelli, #NFDB
83:Television news is akin to audible wallpaper. ~ George F Will, #NFDB
84:We are choked with News and starved of History. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
85:For evil news rides post, while good news baits. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
86:I am, and remain, passionate about news. ~ Valerie Trierweiler, #NFDB
87:Jealousy lasts forever. Bad news for the young. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
88:News you can't read calmly, don't read at all! ~ Andrey Kurkov, #NFDB
89:Start spreading the news, I am leaving today. ~ Frank Sinatra, #NFDB
90:The cruelty of children comes as news to no one. ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
91:There's good news and slightly less good news. ~ Joanne Harris, #NFDB
92:What joy is better than the news of friends? ~ Robert Browning, #NFDB
93:If the news is that important, it will find me. ~ Brian Stelter, #NFDB
94:It is not good news, but we have to face reality. ~ Pascal Lamy, #NFDB
95:News anchor leaves CNN after tweets on Paris attack ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
96:NEWS: Nothing Educational or Worth Seeing. It ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
97:So much of the news was invented for propaganda. ~ Elsa Morante, #NFDB
98:today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers, ~ Jane Green, #NFDB
99:Web traffic figures for the BBC news website: ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
100:We cannot make good news out of bad practice. ~ Edward R Murrow, #NFDB
101:We mortals hear only the news, and know nothing at all. ~ Homer, #NFDB
102:If you know how to live, even death is good news ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
103:That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
104:The nature of bad news affects the teller. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
105:The news and the truth are not the same thing. ~ Walter Lippmann, #NFDB
106:There's always good news wrapped up in bad news. ~ Frank Delaney, #NFDB
107:In my experience , big words ornament bad news. ~ Roshani Chokshi, #NFDB
108:News told, rumors heard, truth implied, facts buried. ~ Toba Beta, #NFDB
109:Anything that comes from the north is bad news. ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
110:Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news! ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
111:I that do bring the news made not the match. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
112:No news is ever as good or as bad as it first seems ~ Paul Hoffman, #NFDB
113:Now, if I even say the wrong thing I make the news. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
114:Poetry is everything that headline news is not. ~ Naomi Shihab Nye, #NFDB
115:Bad news on the doorstep;I couldn’t take one more step ~ Don McLean, #NFDB
116:He who laughs last has not yet heard the bad news. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
117:me. Jesus, it’s all over the news, right?” Bennie ~ Lisa Scottoline, #NFDB
118:news” is often a polite way of saying “editor’s whim. ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
119:To a journalist, good news is often not news at all. ~ Phil Donahue, #NFDB
120:To control the negativity instinct, expect bad news. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
121:appeared on Fox News as a military analyst, and this is ~ Brian Haig, #NFDB
122:Dead news like dead love has no phoenix in its ashes. ~ Enid Bagnold, #NFDB
123:Fake news has been around as long as news has been around. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
124:How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
125:I'm a huge news junkie. I love what the news does. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
126:I'm so fast I could hit you before God gets the news. ~ Muhammad Ali, #NFDB
127:It is an ill thing to be the first to bring news of ill. ~ Aeschylus, #NFDB
128:The good news is, nobody can be a better you than you. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
129:Twitter is my main tool for ensuring news balance. ~ Ethan Zuckerman, #NFDB
130:Well, the good news is I killed the space monster. ~ Brian Clevinger, #NFDB
131:When you become a celebrity, your shit becomes news. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
132:Without news to feed it, the biggest story starves. ~ Emlyn Williams, #NFDB
133:All new news is old news happening to new people ~ Malcolm Muggeridge, #NFDB
134:I don't have time for the news clippings. I got my own mission. ~ Nas, #NFDB
135:Not a lot of people watch cable news, they just don't. ~ Scott Pelley, #NFDB
136:the public never is independently responsive to news. ~ Edwin Lefevre, #NFDB
137:There was only so much news you could digest in one day. ~ Jojo Moyes, #NFDB
138:I dont look for good-news stories or bad-news stories. ~ Richard Engel, #NFDB
139:I Have Bad News and - No, Actually I Just Have Bad News ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
140:I have news for you, there is no Superman (it’s up to us.) ~ Tom Mboya, #NFDB
141:I'm still a news junkie. I mean, I always was, I am now. ~ Joan Lunden, #NFDB
142:Like you, I am tired of waking up to news of death. ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo, #NFDB
143:My relationship with sartorial news is only what I like. ~ Alexa Chung, #NFDB
144:...news' is often a polite way of saying 'editor's whim. ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
145:What's wan man's news is another man's throubles. ~ Finley Peter Dunne, #NFDB
146:Yes. It’s been on the news a lot with that other hole ~ Elly Griffiths, #NFDB
147:A lot of news is just entertainment masquerading as news. ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
148:A lot of people take shots at news channels. ~ George Stroumboulopoulos, #NFDB
149:Bad news? Oh, festering fungus! What sort of bad news? ~ Cornelia Funke, #NFDB
150:Bad news, Ringo" said Cole. "We're all going to die ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
151:Bad news should be followed with soup. Then a nap. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
152:Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
153:Great news for someone is always bad news for someone else ~ John Green, #NFDB
154:I have to watch the news or my day is not complete. ~ Patricia Clarkson, #NFDB
155:I'm a very straight-laced, conservative news kind of guy. ~ Bob Edwards, #NFDB
156:Ladies and Gentleman, I'm afraid I've got some BAD NEWS. ~ Wade Barrett, #NFDB
157:Loyalty may be good news, but it is rarely good advice. ~ Michael Dobbs, #NFDB
158:No news is good news. No journalists is even better. ~ Nicolas Bentley, #NFDB
159:Someone has to spread the good news that we survived. ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
160:There's no new news, just old news with new dates ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
161:The status quo is never news, only challenges to it. ~ Malorie Blackman, #NFDB
162:Good news, Doc: all my internal injuries are psychological. ~ A G Riddle, #NFDB
163:If you've got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine. ~ J J Cale, #NFDB
164:I think of a poem as being deeper than headline news. ~ Naomi Shihab Nye, #NFDB
165:People love to hear good news about their bad habits. ~ John A McDougall, #NFDB
166:The good news is you get to choose what follows the “I am. ~ Joel Osteen, #NFDB
167:Better to have bad news that's true than good news we made up ~ Eric Ries, #NFDB
168:heard the shattering news about Paloma, he spent another ~ Danielle Steel, #NFDB
169:If you don't like the news go out and make some of your own. ~ Wes Nisker, #NFDB
170:In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zaf n, #NFDB
171:In small towns, news travels at the speed of boredom. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon, #NFDB
172:news, but word of the hunters coming to the island spread ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
173:Oxytocin is a Teflon hormone - bad news rolls off it. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
174:The pressure to be timely with news has increased every year. ~ Mary Hart, #NFDB
175:What a newspaper prints is news – but not always truth! ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
176:What?” she said. “I watch Fox News. I know stuff. ~ Michaelbrent Collings, #NFDB
177:father loved to watch old westerns and the evening news, ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
178:It is never good news when a parent resorts to your full name. ~ Ivan Doig, #NFDB
179:It is not an event; it is a piece of news. ~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, #NFDB
180:Jesus does not just bring good news; he is the good news. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
181:news is never all the news, only what they want to show you, ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
182:News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center. ~ Walter Cronkite, #NFDB
183:The bad news motivated the drill instructors that much more. ~ R Lee Ermey, #NFDB
184:The gospel is only good news when we understand the bad news. ~ R C Sproul, #NFDB
185:To have news value is to have a tin can tied to one's tail. ~ T E Lawrence, #NFDB
186:What?" "Marilyn Monroe hit the news by wearing that polka ~ Janet Tronstad, #NFDB
187:Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
188:Gravitas is the soup bone in the stew of television news. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
189:I don't have to deal with the issues of the daily news cycle. ~ Ron Suskind, #NFDB
190:I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
191:I stand with the Santa Barbara News-Press. How about you? ~ Michelle Malkin, #NFDB
192:News in not what happened but a story about what happened. ~ Robert Darnton, #NFDB
193:OK cosmos, I could use some good news. Go on, surprise me. ~ William Meikle, #NFDB
194:Professional Wizard Incinerates Amateur Vampire. News at ten. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
195:The news of my pregnancy spread like a forest fire in summer ~ John Sculley, #NFDB
196:This is my idea of heaven, coming home and watching the news. ~ Rita Moreno, #NFDB
197:We are not important to the universe. That's the bad news. ~ Sean M Carroll, #NFDB
198:All news is lies and all propaganda is disguised as news. ~ Willi Munzenberg, #NFDB
199:People essentially like local news better than network news. ~ Roone Arledge, #NFDB
200:Quit sharing bad news and gossip you aren't a garbage truck. ~ Grant Cardone, #NFDB
201:She's a person; the doctor pronounces her dead, not the news. ~ Aaron Sorkin, #NFDB
202:Should she deliver the news of their impending marriage? ~ Shadonna Richards, #NFDB
203:Television is to news as bumperstickers are to philosophy. ~ Richard M Nixon, #NFDB
204:Television's very dependent on images. That's not what news is. ~ Kurt Loder, #NFDB
205:There is no reason to confuse television news with journalism. ~ Nora Ephron, #NFDB
206:Babies, we are told, are the latest news from heaven. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
207:Elvis Presley’s death was a turning point in news coverage; ~ Jeannette Walls, #NFDB
208:I don't watch a lot of television. Sports and news, that's it. ~ Larry Hagman, #NFDB
209:The man who laughs has simply not yet had the terrible news. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
210:The ordinary public is a puppet of worthless news and media. ~ Santosh Kalwar, #NFDB
211:There is indeed a business like show business. It's the news. ~ Paul Krassner, #NFDB
212:They are words you don't easily forget: I don't have good news. ~ Joel Siegel, #NFDB
213:but now the news of the world aged him more than time itself. ~ Paulette Jiles, #NFDB
214:Don't they watch the news? Uranus isn't even a planet anymore. ~ Richard Price, #NFDB
215:I get most of my news updates from electronic and social media. ~ LeVar Burton, #NFDB
216:I had a great '70s. I survived it, and that's always good news. ~ Jeff Bridges, #NFDB
217:More people are probably run over each year by TV news vans. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
218:News Coverage!! As news expose rather than cover events. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
219:Some people choose to wait for news and others make their own. ~ Josh Malerman, #NFDB
220:The evening news is a concept whose time has come and gone. ~ Bernard Goldberg, #NFDB
221:The good leader repeats the good news, keeps the worst to himself. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
222:The Internet is to news," he said, "what car horns are to music. ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
223:The public is not interested in news in the public interest. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
224:The steeples swam in amethyst, the news like squirrels swam. ~ Emily Dickinson, #NFDB
225:This country is a better place because Fox News has succeeded. ~ Bill O Reilly, #NFDB
226:Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
227:You never want to have to give your child bad news of any kind. ~ Jonathan Dee, #NFDB
228:By swap news do you mean drink?" "I do, and that excessively. ~ Joe Abercrombie, #NFDB
229:I don't think business news is just for old white men with money. ~ Neil Cavuto, #NFDB
230:Journalism delivers news, but not necessarily relevance. ~ Khang Kijarro Nguyen, #NFDB
231:News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens. ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
232:Osama bin Laden's death has been in the news all day. Leftish ~ Craig Ferguson, #NFDB
233:Phone calls in the dead of the night never brought good news. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
234:The world is insane. You only have to watch the news to know it. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
235:Give bad news swiftly, and spread out the good news. Machiavelli. ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
236:If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own. ~ Wes Scoop Nisker, #NFDB
237:If your news must be bad, tell it soberly and promptly. ~ Henry Howarth Bashford, #NFDB
238:People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. ~ A J Liebling, #NFDB
239:That certainly is good news, which we will savor with great delight, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
240:Today’s hard news stories were yesterday’s dystopian SF. Rereading ~ Pat Cadigan, #NFDB
241:TV has gotten so boring that the only thing I watch is the news. ~ Brigid Berlin, #NFDB
242:What Ailes was selling, at its heart, was not news, but empowerment. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
243:But bad news came at night, as if the sun were already in mourning. ~ Karen White, #NFDB
244:Gathering news in Russia was like mining coal with a hat pin. ~ Mary Heaton Vorse, #NFDB
245:I've written thousands of stories, started hundreds of news cycles. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
246:liberals have no compelling truth, no ‘good news,’ to proclaim. ~ Nancy R Pearcey, #NFDB
247:Sensationalism seems to sell more than wonderful-positive news. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
248:The worse the news, the more effort should go into communicating it. ~ Andy Grove, #NFDB
249:A daily newspaper should report the news, not play at geopolitics. ~ Rafael Correa, #NFDB
250:I dont know how to read. I get all my news from Jon Stewart every day. ~ Ira Glass, #NFDB
251:It's a game. That's why we call it 'the news.' It's just a game. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
252:I wouldn't make a connection between the daily news and volcanoes. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
253:never a good time for news like that.” She took a deep breath. “If the ~ Ginny Dye, #NFDB
254:Poetry is news brought to the mountains by a unicorn and an echo. ~ Czeslaw Milosz, #NFDB
255:Sometimes it may be something I hear in the news that affects me. ~ Chath Piersath, #NFDB
256:Stay away from Marcus. He's f**kin' bad news with a capital F**k. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
257:Tell people the good news from a heart of love and a life of service. ~ John Piper, #NFDB
258:There was an old Hungarian proverb: ‘Only a fool rushes bad news. ~ Sidney Sheldon, #NFDB
259:Wars might come and go, but the seven o'clock news lives forever. ~ Lewis H Lapham, #NFDB
260:With that news her life had been abruptly, irrevocably altered. Come ~ Erik Larson, #NFDB
261:You have to get up pretty early in the morning to invent the news. ~ Lauren Beukes, #NFDB
262:You’ve heard the wonderful news, I presume?” “No. Has Mr. Trump died? ~ John Boyne, #NFDB
263:Advertisements constitute the only 'good news' in the newspaper. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
264:Daily news and sugar confuse our system in the same manner. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
265:Explicitly Christian themes are regularly excluded from news articles. ~ Gary DeMar, #NFDB
266:He who is still laughing is he who hasn't heard the terrible news. ~ Bertolt Brecht, #NFDB
267:If it's called THE USA Today, why is all the news from yesterday? ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
268:Ill news are swallow-winged, but what is good walks on crutches. ~ Philip Massinger, #NFDB
269:It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news. ~ John Mellencamp, #NFDB
270:left on; a woman with a low, bored voice was reading a news bulletin ~ Daniel Silva, #NFDB
271:Literature is news that stays news. ~ Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934), Chapter 8., #NFDB
272:People are reading news for free on the web, that's got to change. ~ Rupert Murdoch, #NFDB
273:pessimists live longer! Good news is much easier to believe than bad. ~ Dave Duncan, #NFDB
274:The good news is, we're not bankrupt. The bad news is, we're close. ~ Richard Codey, #NFDB
275:Wherever we find news, excitement, mystery and adventure, there, too, we ~ Stan Lee, #NFDB
276:Americans should demand real news, more transparency and more truth. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
277:history’s just old news, prophecy that’s well past its sell-by date. ~ Mark Lawrence, #NFDB
278:I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
279:I've never been shocked by anything on television, except the news. ~ Justin Theroux, #NFDB
280:People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
~ A J Liebling,#NFDB
281:The great novel of twentieth-century New York might be the Daily News. ~ Pete Hamill, #NFDB
282:The only way to do news on television is not to be terrified of it. ~ David Brinkley, #NFDB
283:There is no one so leadenfooted as the reluctant bringer of bad news. ~ Mary Stewart, #NFDB
284:What 'primitive' men called gossip, 'civilized' men call news. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
285:Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
286:Being inundated with constant "bad" news from the media doesn't help. ~ Brenda Strong, #NFDB
287:I don't need to read the news. I see it on the faces of everyone I meet. ~ Greg Brown, #NFDB
288:I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations. ~ William Hurt, #NFDB
289:In any case, it couldn’t hurt to be the bearer of such marvellous news. ~ Jan Guillou, #NFDB
290:Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the ~ Lesslie Newbigin, #NFDB
291:news flash: Men, you have the power to make or break a relationship. ~ John M Gottman, #NFDB
292:News is not a game show. You don't win a car if you happen to be right. ~ John Oliver, #NFDB
293:(on fox news).... it's like watching a Disney movie about the news. ~ Stephen Colbert, #NFDB
294:The best way to make news is to announce a new category, not a new product. ~ Al Ries, #NFDB
295:The local TV news is the greatest danger in your life. It's all crap. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
296:The media is news gatherers. Why in the world are the media a factor? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
297:Fox News would say whatever makes the most people tune into Fox News. ~ Naomi Alderman, #NFDB
298:I'm afraid it isn't good news. The Council seems to have gone quite mad. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
299:It is not true that virtually all news in a totalitarian state is false. ~ Konrad Zuse, #NFDB
300:News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
301:News travels fast in places where nothing much ever happens. Ferris ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
302:Sometimes, news is best served fresh. Sometimes, it’s better when baked. ~ Jeff Jarvis, #NFDB
303:The greater the speed of our news, the slower the speed of our time. ~ Kanishk Tharoor, #NFDB
304:The tax code is 10 times the size of the Bible with none of the good news. ~ Paul Ryan, #NFDB
305:18John used many such warnings as he announced the Good News to the people. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
306:60 Minutes, the most watched and most respected news program on the tube. ~ Mark Bowden, #NFDB
307:Bad news travels at the speed of light; good news travels like molasses. ~ Tracy Morgan, #NFDB
308:Good news didn't seem real until you'd told at least a dozen friends. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
309:I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel. ~ Rupert Murdoch, #NFDB
310:I covered the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Israel for ABC News. ~ Leslie Cockburn, #NFDB
311:If we don’t understand the bad news, we will never grasp the good news. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
312:It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
313:I've seen the promised land, and there is good news. You can have it all. ~ Tim Ferriss, #NFDB
314:News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity. ~ Bill Moyers, #NFDB
315:She obviously had disappointing news in her teens and wasn't yet recovered. ~ Ken Bruen, #NFDB
316:Skelgill shrugs, as though perhaps there is no news as such, and now he ~ Bruce Beckham, #NFDB
317:The American future is here, and there's great news: the future votes. ~ Rosario Dawson, #NFDB
318:The news used to be to report facts and allow you to make the decision. ~ Jesse Ventura, #NFDB
319:What is happening now is not normal. It is not fake news. It is not okay. ~ James Comey, #NFDB
320:6So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
321:All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
322:All the news of home you read, more about the war and of bloody changes. ~ Joni Mitchell, #NFDB
323:If the gospel is old news to you, it will be dull news to everyone else. ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
324:If you're watching cable news, you are going to get a distorted picture. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
325:I'll give anything for a good copy now, be it true or false, so it be news. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
326:In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation. ~ Voltaire, #NFDB
327:News Item
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
~ Dorothy Parker,#NFDB
328:News represents another form of advertising, not liberal propaganda. ~ Christopher Lasch, #NFDB
329:So much for the journalist and the news being mutually exclusive. Nash ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
330:The beautiful thing about faking a news show is the topicality is delayed. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
331:The difference between Opinion and News is the adjectives used. ~ Benjamin Kane Ethridge, #NFDB
332:There was a reason I was so into yoga. I was high-strung(news flash!). ~ Jennifer Echols, #NFDB
333:The world was quickly forgetting us. And there was little news to report. ~ John Marsden, #NFDB
334:Today's news, which may be yesterday's anyway, will be eclipsed tomorrow. ~ Graham Swift, #NFDB
335:But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror. ~ Seamus Heaney, #NFDB
336:First rule in this world baby... don't believe ANYTHING you see on the news. ~ Kanye West, #NFDB
337:Fox News is worse than al Qaeda. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan. ~ Keith Olbermann, #NFDB
338:Great news! Hosting Oscars counts five hours toward my community service! ~ Billy Crystal, #NFDB
339:I'd rather get bad news from an honest man than lies from a flatterer. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
340:I’d rather get bad news from an honest man than lies from a flatterer, ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
341:I, for one, am a CNN junkie. I’m convinced it stands for Chris Needs News. ~ Chris Colfer, #NFDB
342:I'm into politics, and I love watching the heavier news magazine shows. ~ Chelsea Handler, #NFDB
343:In general, I think very few people have a sustained interest in news. ~ John Hockenberry, #NFDB
344:It is no news to me that tales of hidden races are as old as all mankind. ~ H P Lovecraft, #NFDB
345:Leaks and whispers are a daily routine of news-gathering in Washington. ~ William Greider, #NFDB
346:News is something somebody doesn't want printed; all else is advertising. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
347:News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising. ~ Katharine Graham, #NFDB
348:Our willingness to believe the news is, in many cases, not entirely innocent. ~ Eula Biss, #NFDB
349:Police blog or entertainment news, it's just good to see your name in print. ~ J B Smoove, #NFDB
350:The good news is that even minimal activity can significantly extend life. ~ Howard Coble, #NFDB
351:The really great athletes make their news on the field, not off the field. ~ Jimmy Haslam, #NFDB
352:Those who do not read the news are uninformed. Those who do are misinformed. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
353:We live in a time of fake news - things that are made up and manufactured. ~ Neil Portnow, #NFDB
354:WHEN THE DOORBELL rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news. ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
355:When the doorbell rings at three in the morning, it's never good news. ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
356:Words are nets through which all truth escapes
("News From The World") ~ Paula Fox,#NFDB
357:You can forge anything these days, and we're living in a fake news era. ~ Bashar al Assad, #NFDB
358:Anything that begins 'I don't know how to tell you this' is never good news. ~ Ruth Gordon, #NFDB
359:Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
360:Frontline' does 10 news shows a year, so one a week is quite an undertaking. ~ Bill Kurtis, #NFDB
361:In other news, a recent report suggests that things may not be as they seem. ~ Joseph Fink, #NFDB
362:Is it not wonderful news to believe that salvation lies outside ourselves? ~ Martin Luther, #NFDB
363:I think the news people no longer have any idea of what covering the news is. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
364:Many of us get our news from social networks, blogs, and daily aggregators. ~ Chris Hughes, #NFDB
365:News, if unreported, has no impact. It might as well have not happened at all ~ Gay Talese, #NFDB
366:News is nothing but words, and you can never really tell if words are news. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
367:No good news awaits
I warned you right at the start
Turn away, reader ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
368:The good news is: If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
369:There's no point in watching a 24-hour news cycle if all the "news" is wrong. ~ John Ringo, #NFDB
370:[V]irtue is not news, and virtuous men, like happy nations, have no history. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
371:You acquire a new kind of intelligence when you stay away from instant news. ~ Manu Joseph, #NFDB
372:For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news. ~ Gloria Borger, #NFDB
373:If a guy takes a call on a date, it better be very bad news, like someone died. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
374:I only got the opportjnity to co-host a talk show because I failed at news. ~ Oprah Winfrey, #NFDB
375:It’s showing Fox News—fair and balanced for those who like falling over. ~ Michael Robotham, #NFDB
376:It's tough to break yourself as news to a town that already knows you. ~ Barbara Kingsolver, #NFDB
377:I’ve seen the promised land, and there is good news. You can have it all. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
378:Sarah Palin is joining Fox News. The new slogan is 'hair and unbalanced.' ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
379:Television saved the movies. The Internet is going to save the news business. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
380:The good-news stories in medicine are early detection, early intervention. ~ Thomas R Insel, #NFDB
381:The news had, for Flaubert, armed stupidity and given authority to fools. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
382:The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place, sonny. That’s ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
383:Fox News has changed its slogan from 'Fair and Balanced' to 'See, I told you so!' ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
384:If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. ~ Rob Bell, #NFDB
385:I have fits of melancholia when I watch the news, but we all do, don't we? ~ Julian Fellowes, #NFDB
386:I really enjoy delivering life-changing news to people who really deserve it. ~ Jeff Brazier, #NFDB
387:It is good news, worthy of all acceptation; and yet not too good to be true. ~ Matthew Henry, #NFDB
388:Terribly sad news about Stuart Cable, such a lovely, warm, funny, talented man. ~ Rob Brydon, #NFDB
389:divorce is always good news because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
390:Give bad news swiftly, and spread out the good news. Machiavelli.” Charpentier ~ Louise Penny, #NFDB
391:If you let the news spoil your appetite, there wouldn’t be a day you could eat. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
392:I read Google News and use NetNewsWire to keep up with general and tech news. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
393:It's not that stock prices are capricious. It's that the news is capricious. ~ Burton Malkiel, #NFDB
394:I well believe it, to unwilling ears; None love the messenger who brings bad news ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
395:News flash, Bozo. Don't ever tell a girl to relax. It only makes us madder. ~ Jess Rothenberg, #NFDB
396:Put on your shoes so that you are ready to spread the Good News that gives peace. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
397:The good news for Nigeria is that they're two-nil down very early in the game. ~ Kevin Keegan, #NFDB
398:Well, good news, " Blitzen said. "I found the bag. Bad news...I found the bag. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
399:African Americans watch the same news at night that ordinary Americans do. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
400:Bad news sells because the amygdala is always looking for something to fear. ~ Peter Diamandis, #NFDB
401:CBS News finally received anthrax in the mail. As usual, we're number three. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
402:If they asked me, I did two shifts. I did sports, I did news, because I loved it. ~ Larry King, #NFDB
403:Our task is to listen to the news that is always arriving out of silence. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
404:The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
405:The paper landed on the table, but the news was stapled to his chest. A tattoo. ~ Markus Zusak, #NFDB
406:This may be news to Big Money politicians, but they actually don't own our votes. ~ Jill Stein, #NFDB
407:To be able to proclaim the Good News to the poor we must know what is poverty. ~ Mother Teresa, #NFDB
408:We left because some people choose to wait for news and others make their own. ~ Josh Malerman, #NFDB
409:WHEN THE DOORBELL rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news. Alex ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
410:When the doorbell rings at three o'clock in the morning its never good news ~ Anthony Horowitz, #NFDB
411:You don't tell us how to stage the news and we don't tell you how to cover it. ~ Larry Speakes, #NFDB
412:God’s call to radical generosity begins with the good news that he doesn’t need us ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
413:[I read news] because no one's going to tell me what they really think of something. ~ Ed Helms, #NFDB
414:Listening to the news! Again?” “Well, it changes every day, you see,” said Harry. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
415:The A-listers and the A+ listers, are reporting the news, they're not making it. ~ Guy Kawasaki, #NFDB
416:What a scandal, if I die. Yeah, I'm gonna kill myself, get a little headline news. ~ Elton John, #NFDB
417:You just have to open the newspapers in most Western news to see real violence. ~ Ray Stevenson, #NFDB
418:You may be yesterday's news to some but you will be tomorrows front page to many ~ James Church, #NFDB
419:You never hear the word “breasts” in a positive scenario. Breasts are bad news. ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
420:Bad news sells because the amygdala is always looking for something to fear. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
421:Christmas shows us that Christianity is not good advice. It is good news. THE ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
422:Every news organization should ideally be as broadly representative as possible. ~ Judy Woodruff, #NFDB
423:God’s call to radical generosity begins with the good news that he doesn’t need us! ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
424:I can make a song up about anything: garbage, the weather, things in the news. ~ Marvin Hamlisch, #NFDB
425:I'm a little bit of a news political junkie, a little bit of a reader of history. ~ David Mandel, #NFDB
426:It's not the news that makes the newspaper, but the newspaper that makes the news. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
427:Keep sharing the good news; we have not yet exhausted the number of God's elect. ~ Kevin DeYoung, #NFDB
428:my friends plunged into a borderless sea of reminiscences and personal news. ~ Sarah Orne Jewett, #NFDB
429:Okay note to self: news of the end of the world is best taken on an empty stomach. ~ Lola St Vil, #NFDB
430:she felt that little tingle at the base of her skull that warned her of bad news. ~ Lisa Jackson, #NFDB
431:The good news of Jesus always liberates and His perfect love removes every fear. ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
432:The good news: the rest of my life didn’t look like it was going to be very long. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
433:The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and ~ John Piper, #NFDB
434:You'll always get the good news; it's how fast you get the bad news that counts. ~ Harvey Mackay, #NFDB
435:Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
436:During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
437:If the internet has taught us anything, it's that you want less news and more cats. ~ Peter Sagal, #NFDB
438:If you have to release bad news to the public, it would help if you are not ugly. ~ Mitch Hedberg, #NFDB
439:I never think too far into the future. I'm too busy thinking about tomorrow's news. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
440:I think the big news there - most post-menopausal women I know are not celibate. ~ Laurie Simmons, #NFDB
441:I want a news service that tells me what no one knows but is true nonetheless. ~ Michael Crichton, #NFDB
442:News makes things black and white. Documentary filmmaking should do the opposite. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
443:Some sad news from Australia... the inventor of the boomerang grenade died today. ~ Johnny Carson, #NFDB
444:The bad news is that only the bad people reach the news because they are noisier. ~ Javier Bardem, #NFDB
445:The big news of the Bible is not that you fight for God but that God fights for you. ~ Max Lucado, #NFDB
446:The thought that so many people get their news from social media really is scary. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
447:We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too. ~ Helen Hayes, #NFDB
448:You can't get all of your news from Jon Stewart, especially since it's a comedy show. ~ Joe Klein, #NFDB
449:divorce is always good news because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce.” Any ~ Amy Poehler, #NFDB
450:Fox News wonders if returned POW is now an 'Islamic warrior' rss@dailykos.com (Hunter) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
451:Great News! If you quit being cunty the whole world will stop being against you! ~ Sarah Silverman, #NFDB
452:In pop culture news, Lady Gaga got married. And yes, she was wearing white meat. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
453:News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
454:The Gay News critic wrote that I 'carried the lilt of the Irish without the brogue'. ~ Stephen Fry, #NFDB
455:The good news is, the stock market is closed and it can't hurt us again until tomorrow. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
456:The news lies all the time. They tell us what they think we would want to hear. ~ Malorie Blackman, #NFDB
457:When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news. ~ Charles A Dana, #NFDB
458:When you can’t count on anything else, you can count on the news to make you sick. ~ Lauren Oliver, #NFDB
459:All his life Reeve had reacted to good news and bad by wanting to throw things. ~ Caroline B Cooney, #NFDB
460:And what if that news anchor is creepy? He's too smooth, and he has that hairpiece. ~ Leila Howland, #NFDB
461:BREAKING NEWS: You're awesome and designed for success; live this day accordingly! ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
462:But news right now is like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff. ~ Ali Smith, #NFDB
463:Fox News Anchor Arrested The Huffington Post Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett was arrested ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
464:I consider PirateBallerina to be the most credible news source in the Denver area. ~ Ward Churchill, #NFDB
465:I've worked with Ed Bradley, Dan Rather and lots of different local news anchors. ~ Mika Brzezinski, #NFDB
466:Often, when I read the news, I have to make sure I am not, in fact, reading The Onion. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
467:The best news the World has ever heard came from a graveyard - Christ is risen! ~ Soren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
468:The good news is that Jesus is coming back. The bad news is that he's really pissed off. ~ Bob Hope, #NFDB
469:This is especially good news because what is learned can be unlearned and vice versa. ~ Pete Walker, #NFDB
470:False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
471:First the doctor told me the good news: I was going to have a disease named after me. ~ Steve Martin, #NFDB
472:If I had my way, the news cycle would be dedicated to the victims, not their killer. ~ Kristen Brand, #NFDB
473:If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV. ~ Val Kilmer, #NFDB
474:I get the news I need on the weather report
And I have nothing to do today but smile ~ Paul Simon,#NFDB
475:In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
476:In today's amphetamine world of news junkies, speed trumps thoughtfulness too often. ~ Ellen Goodman, #NFDB
477:I've always loved news. I've always loved storytelling and being where the scene is. ~ Abby Huntsman, #NFDB
478:News is what people don't want you to print. Everything thing else is ads. ~ William Randolph Hearst, #NFDB
479:Sometimes in the news, "luck" is just a matter of "capitalizing on someone else's pain. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
480:Stick with something basic that is guaranteed to kill any and all arousal like Fox News. ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
481:Texas liberals are the camels of good news. We can cross entire deserts between oases. ~ Molly Ivins, #NFDB
482:The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. ~ Billy Graham, #NFDB
483:What a sour little doodad the telephone is, and what little good news we get from it! ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
484:When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda. ~ Studs Terkel, #NFDB
485:You know all those dangerous mutants you hear about in the news? I'm the worst one. ~ Aaron Stanford, #NFDB
486:By the time something reaches the cover of Time magazine, it's old news anyway. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
487:If you watch the news and don't like it, then this is your counter program to the news. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
488:I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news. Alaska isn't a foreign country. ~ Sarah Palin, #NFDB
489:Individual investors predictably flock to stocks in companies that are in the news. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
490:No matter how professional soldiers might be, an avoided battle was always good news. ~ David Eddings, #NFDB
491:Nothing could be older than the daily news, nothing deader than yesterday's newspaper. ~ Edward Abbey, #NFDB
492:Spreading the news is your duty as a Christian, and there are many ways to do this. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
493:The good news is, the cake is baked. Barack Obama will not be reelected president. ~ Michele Bachmann, #NFDB
494:The news is not gender-neutral, but it's usually reported as though it's gender-neutral. ~ Jane Fonda, #NFDB
495:You’re completely out of control.” “You say that like this is news to you or something. ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
496:bad news has a way of slithering into good days and making a mockery of complacent joys. ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
497:'Fox News' will one day come to an end. Led Zeppelin will not. It's as simple as that. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
498:Hearing and believing the good news will release the power of God into your situation. ~ Joseph Prince, #NFDB
499:His edges had been gently rounded by nuanced debate and foreign coffee and morning news. ~ Jane Harper, #NFDB
500:I always hate speculation on the news, so I don't want to be somebody who speculates. ~ Angelina Jolie, #NFDB
501:I don't watch the news, I don't care about politics, I don't care about other sports. ~ Conor McGregor, #NFDB
502:I get enough fashion news in my professional life. I like interiors during my downtime. ~ Robin Givhan, #NFDB
503:Imagine what things would be like if the news media actually sided with civilization. ~ Glenn Reynolds, #NFDB
504:I started my own magazine with drawings, commentary, news, film reviews and drawings. ~ Carlos Fuentes, #NFDB
505:It is hard news that catches readers. Features hold them. ~ Alfred Harmsworth 1st Viscount Northcliffe, #NFDB
506:Leah motioned to his body. “I have news for you, Seth. This form is far from ordinary. ~ Dianne Duvall, #NFDB
507:My parents didn't hide reality. I watched cartoons and the news with equal fascination. ~ Jello Biafra, #NFDB
508:News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.’ We ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
509:She told you something?"
"Yes. You're evil."
His brows shot up. "That's news? ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
510:To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news. ~ David Sedaris, #NFDB
511:You never know what a day will bring, which is both the good news and band news of life. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
512:Clinton Cash book had been hyped by Rand Paul and Fox News as a ticking time bomb. ~ Kimberly Guilfoyle, #NFDB
513:Like there’s any difference between the quality of “news” since the Media’s gone out. ~ Gary Shteyngart, #NFDB
514:most of the stories in the Boston News-Letter were simply copied from the London papers. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
515:Okay, I'm guessing you're gonna give us the bad news first because there's no good news? ~ Cindy Gerard, #NFDB
516:Scandal has a thousand stringers; good news doesn't know the editor's phone number. ~ William Raspberry, #NFDB
517:...surely by now you must know: It’s love; it’s love—but will there ever be good news?... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
518:The extreme deprivation we see on the news ends up stereotyping the majority of mankind. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
519:The good news is, President Obama was born in America. The bad news is, so was Donald Trump. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
520:The good news is that you are alive. The essential thing is that you must live ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
521:The news hit Paul hard. He said little, but as a neurosurgeon, he knew what lay ahead. ~ Paul Kalanithi, #NFDB
522:They say I'm old news. Well who the new star? Cause if I'm goin anywhere it's probably too far. ~ Drake, #NFDB
523:A savage is simply a human organism that has not received enough news from the human race. ~ John Ciardi, #NFDB
524:, bad news has a way of slithering into good days and making a mockery of complacent joys. ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
525:Because the Empire controls the media, we can turn any news to the Emperor's advantage. ~ Daniel Wallace, #NFDB
526:Every president feels that he has gotten unfair, dishonest coverage from the news media. ~ Judy Woodruff, #NFDB
527:Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all z the people. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
528:Festus, good news!’ he shouted. ‘Our navigation readings are completely messed up! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
529:I don't like news channels so I have six websites that I check and I get the daily update. ~ Jen Kirkman, #NFDB
530:I’m fascinated, both by the news and also by the randomness of this continued conversation. ~ K F Breene, #NFDB
531:I'm sorry for croaking at you this evening. This is PM, I'm Eddie Mair: the walrus of news. ~ Eddie Mair, #NFDB
532:It will finally be broadcast on the national news, to outrage, and to an instant forgetting. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
533:I want the news delivered unbiased. I thought that was the whole point with journalism. ~ Aaron McGruder, #NFDB
534:Just rejoice at the news and congratulate our armed forces and the Marines. Rejoice! ~ Margaret Thatcher, #NFDB
535:...Mrs. Mullet, when it came to gossip, was equaled only by the News of the World. ~ Alan Bradley, #NFDB
536:News, Current News, Live Updates on India & World Nuns freed after hostage ordeal arrive ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
537:Officially it was almost spring but someone had forgotten to pass the news on to winter. ~ Robert Harris, #NFDB
538:The good news is that anyone who fears God will never have any reason to be afraid of God. ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
539:The Gospel is ‘Good News’, not ‘Good History’, because when it’s preached, it happens. ~ Reinhard Bonnke, #NFDB
540:The standards are being lowered, not just on the Internet, but in all of news and media. ~ Vince McMahon, #NFDB
541:WE ARE STRUGGLING FOR A UNITING WORD BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT WE HAVE A UNITING MOVEMENT. ~ Emma Watson, #NFDB
542:When you're reading the news and sometimes you just think, "How bad can things get"? ~ John Gallagher Jr, #NFDB
543:You’ve seen the news, about the United Nations negotiations with the Bensky administration? ~ Tim LaHaye, #NFDB
544:Carl F. H. Henry was reputed to say, “The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time. ~ J D Greear, #NFDB
545:Facebook News Feed Eradicator: ¿Necesitas centrarte? Líbrate de Facebook y de tu yo más ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
546:Honestly, I'm more into the computer, the Internet, and checking out scores or the news. ~ Martina Hingis, #NFDB
547:It has certainly never been news to me that a brave and brilliant man could love other men. ~ J K Rowling, #NFDB
548:The bad news is we don't have any control. The good news is we can't make any mistakes. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
549:The brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
550:The good news is hopeful doesn't mean dumb. The bad news is cynical doesn't mean smart. ~ Sarah Silverman, #NFDB
551:Watching news showing all the same sex marriages. How long before first same sex divorce? ~ Alonzo Bodden, #NFDB
552:When an Occupy demo in the centre of Frankfurt makes world news, I shall hurry to join in. ~ Nigel Farage, #NFDB
553:You never know what a day will bring, which is both the good news and the bad news of life. ~ Deb Caletti, #NFDB
554:a sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
555:Be able to notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news ~ Marilyn vos Savant, #NFDB
556:Denial is often the first line of defense: refusing to accept that the bad news is true. ~ Paul Fleischman, #NFDB
557:Doesn’t big news always leak before it’s meant to? Aren’t secrets usually spilled? ~ Karen Thompson Walker, #NFDB
558:Everything takes me forever. It's all lurch, flail. I hope that is good news to you writers. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
559:It's always better to deliver the news yourself rather than allow your boss to be surprised. ~ Mary Cheney, #NFDB
560:It's gonna be short if it's news; put it at the top. Style's not an issue, just make it news. ~ Kurt Loder, #NFDB
561:I've just had some bad news. Tomorrow is the mother in law's funeral. And she's cancelled it. ~ Les Dawson, #NFDB
562:I would have to say News Radio is the highlight of my career. I love the character so much. ~ Stephen Root, #NFDB
563:Son, Last Sunday the host of a popular news show ask me what it meant to loose my body. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
564:There’s an old joke about Alzheimer’s: the good news is that you meet new people every day. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
565:We find it natural that we pay for a plumber or a mechanic, but demand our news for free. ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
566:For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. ~ Heidi Baker, #NFDB
567:Fox News is hated because they're elitists, and the worst winners television's ever seen. ~ Keith Olbermann, #NFDB
568:Get your news from six or nine sources and you can usually tell the bullshit from the reality. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
569:humans, particularly those who build things, only listen to leading indicators of good news. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
570:It is better to be making the news than taking it, to be an actor rather than a critic. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
571:I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life. ~ John Oliver, #NFDB
572:MY DOCTOR phoned and said you don't deserve this news, but your lungs are crystal clear'. ~ Nicholas Haslam, #NFDB
573:Some sad news, President Bush's lapdog passed away. Gee, I didn't even know Tony Blair was sick? ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
574:The elimination of the barbaric terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is good news for the world. ~ Spencer Bachus, #NFDB
575:What did he make of the news that President Wilson was sending American troops to France? ~ Corrie ten Boom, #NFDB
576:with a friendly laugh he said the news was surprising right up until the moment you heard it. ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
577:An ethics of desire is good news for those of us who have become allergic to an ethics of law. ~ Jean Vanier, #NFDB
578:A new star shines bright.
Angels herald the good news.
The Christ child is born. ~ Richelle E Goodrich,#NFDB
579:Certainly it constitutes bad news if the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
580:If you are verifying information for yourself, you will not send on fake news to others. If ~ Timothy Snyder, #NFDB
581:I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
582:I'm sort of obsessed with the news. That is a syndrome. But I don't watch a whole lot of TV. ~ Sam Waterston, #NFDB
583:It is not the purpose of literature to purvey news. For news consult the Almanac de Gotha. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
584:I was the editor of the News of the World; I was the editor of the Sun and chief executive. ~ Rebekah Brooks, #NFDB
585:The bad news is we don't have any control.
The good news is we can't make any mistakes. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
586:The bad news is we don’t have any control. The good news is you can’t make any mistakes. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
587:The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn't. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
588:The evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe He wasn’t. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
589:The U.S. news media have a critical role to play in educating the public about climate change. ~ Amy Goodman, #NFDB
590:We can break news really fast. When an earthquake happens, there are people Twittering about it. ~ Biz Stone, #NFDB
591:We're all surrounded by what I call faux language, fake language of commerce, of news media. ~ Toni Morrison, #NFDB
592:A message was scribbled on the wall: Life is for sale. Alert the news for the media. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
593:Apparently there is nothing in the news that falls between inhuman acts of horror and kittens. ~ Gary Janetti, #NFDB
594:Bad news should always come after lunch.. first thing in the morning everything left a bruise. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
595:Done up. The good news? A lot rhymes with “done up.” The bad news? A lot rhymes with “done up. ~ Angie Thomas, #NFDB
596:I have my faults. But when I hear bad news that’s palpably true, I don’t argue or ask for proof. ~ K J Parker, #NFDB
597:I wanted the truth, and I wanted the news, and I'd be damned before I settled for anything less. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
598:Messengers who confirm bad news are likely to become the recipients of gratuitous violence. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
599:One day you're the leader of Iraq, the next day you're being checked for fleas on Fox News. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
600:Tell your husbands any bad news when everything is calm, not just as they come through the door. ~ Indra Devi, #NFDB
601:The best way to mess with the head of your reader is to strategize the delivery of bad news. ~ Benjamin Percy, #NFDB
602:The good news is God isn’t waiting for your perfect youth talk to do a mighty work through you. ~ Doug Fields, #NFDB
603:The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
604:To know the gospel . . . to really know the gospel . . . is to know him who is the good news. ~ Leonard Sweet, #NFDB
605:Certainly it constitutes bad news when the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
606:Christians obscured the good news by their efforts to restore morality to the broader culture? ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
607:Festus, good news!’ he [Leo] shouted. ‘Our navigation readings are completely messed up! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
608:If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news? ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
609:I have a theory that the Internet makes people stupider. And Also FOX News makes people stupider. ~ Bill Maher, #NFDB
610:I have not moved out of the comedian's box into the news box. The news box is moving towards me. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
611:indeed, bad news has a way of slithering into good days and making a mockery of complacent joys. ~ Imbolo Mbue, #NFDB
612:I think you can look at a woman's legs while she delivers the news and still take her seriously. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
613:Stop reading the news for a week; you will see that the world will turn from red to blue! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
614:The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
615:The crow never brought good news, like I was needed in Cancún to rub sunscreen on horny coeds. ~ Mario Acevedo, #NFDB
616:The good news is" he paused, carefully choosing his words, "I kissed you, and you're still here. ~ Lauren Kate, #NFDB
617:The old saw about bad news traveling fast has never been truer than in the age of the Internet. ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
618:When the heart no longer feels the truth of hell, the gospel passes from good news to simply news ~ John Piper, #NFDB
619:with a friendly laugh he said the news was surprising right up until the moment you heard it. He ~ Amor Towles, #NFDB
620:You're crazy," Neil said to Andrew in an undertone. "This is news to no one," Andrew said. Neil ~ Nora Sakavic, #NFDB
621:A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. ~ Henry Fielding, #NFDB
622:Ask how to live? Write, write, write, anything; The world's a fine believing world, write news. ~ John Fletcher, #NFDB
623:How well aware the body was of what it wanted. How quickly it gleaned the news it could use. ~ Jonathan Franzen, #NFDB
624:I always had an attitude that whatever came my way, I’d overcome it. I wouldn’t let it hold me back. ~ NBC News, #NFDB
625:If you've got some news that you don't want to get noticed, put it out Friday afternoon 4:00 pm. ~ David Gergen, #NFDB
626:I specialize in cool inside movie news. Specifically, the news from movies that excite us fans. ~ Harry Knowles, #NFDB
627:Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray. ~ Milan Kundera, #NFDB
628:Mr. President, you've got to buy some democrats," Graham said. The good news is they come cheap. ~ Bob Woodward, #NFDB
629:News conferences are the only chance the American public has to see Ronald Reagan use his mind. ~ Sam Donaldson, #NFDB
630:People realized that they could come on Fox News Sunday, and they would be well and fairly treated. ~ Brit Hume, #NFDB
631:Tell me the news, again, whatever it is... sorrow and I are hardly strangers. I can bear the worst. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
632:The five million people who watch cable news are the political nation, the people who really care. ~ David Frum, #NFDB
633:"The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation." ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
634:The perception is that more important people watch news in the evenings than in the mornings. ~ Reese Schonfeld, #NFDB
635:We can be skeptical, suitably skeptical, and we can trust news outlets, some more than others. ~ Daniel Levitin, #NFDB
636:You don't want to go around willy-nilly suing news organizations. That's probably self-defeating. ~ Bill Keller, #NFDB
637:Charging for news online won't work if what is provided is the same as is available elsewhere. ~ Robert G Picard, #NFDB
638:Everytime you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That's it. That's my heart. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
639:here is the known hand again knowing remembering
at night after the doubting and the news of age ~ W S Merwin,#NFDB
640:He supposed that some things probably shouldn’t be run to make a profit, and news was one of them. ~ Evan Currie, #NFDB
641:I can never resist telling people good news. I mean, why not brighten someone else's life too? ~ Sophie Kinsella, #NFDB
642:illness of Bep’s father—bad news that makes her want to fall asleep as a release from thinking. ~ Francine Prose, #NFDB
643:I think we're doing pretty well. It's clear the media, of course, always gives you the bad news. ~ Freeman Dyson, #NFDB
644:Neurotics would like to sleep all the time, and to be awakened only when there is good news. ~ Mignon McLaughlin, #NFDB
645:So here I am, against my will and yours too, well I know-- no one wants the man who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles, #NFDB
646:The gospel is not advice to be followed; it is news, good (eu) news about what has been done. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
647:The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education and fine arts. ~ George Orwell, #NFDB
648:This world needs more than good works. It needs good news. Good works come out of the good news. ~ Mark Driscoll, #NFDB
649:We're a divided country on sexual issues. That's why every news cycle brings more controversy. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
650:At nearly two months,the idea of it as news was fading in the hearts of all but my family-and Ruth ~ Alice Sebold, #NFDB
651:At the Hoho’s Family Restaurant, Beverly treats herself to peanut butter pancakes and world news. ~ Karen Russell, #NFDB
652:Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
653:Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
654:Good morning, this is Dan Rather, with the news. Today, [person] died in an insanely nonhumorous manner ~ Tao Lin, #NFDB
655:He did not accept the good news of God; he strained it to his heart, and was jubilant over it. ~ George MacDonald, #NFDB
656:In all my years as a news commentator I was never once, able to tell the truth, about anything. ~ Walter Cronkite, #NFDB
657:My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral. ~ Julie Chen, #NFDB
658:Offer up every joy, be awake at all moments to the news that is always arriving out of silence. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, #NFDB
659:She came leaping towards me, like Lady Macbeth coming to get first-hand news from the guest-room. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
660:The desperately poor are not going to come to us to hear the Good News. We have to go to them. ~ Jackie Pullinger, #NFDB
661:The good news is that we have a very active part of America that wants some radical progress. ~ Patricia Arquette, #NFDB
662:the television news paused for a commercial--Coming up next: Are we all going to die Tomorrow? ~ J Maarten Troost, #NFDB
663:When I made coffee and Xeroxed and distributed newspapers at ABC News, I thought my life was over. ~ Katie Couric, #NFDB
664:...after rare beef and wine, when the lobes turn red, was the time to ask favours or tell bad news. ~ M F K Fisher, #NFDB
665:A good culture is like the old RIP routing protocol: Bad news travels fast; good news travels slow. ~ Ben Horowitz, #NFDB
666:A man who has to go to the village to get the news hasn't heard from himself in a long time. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
667:A need to share good news can also be thought of as an attempt to find and maintain social connections. ~ Nir Eyal, #NFDB
668:He gives me a look like I’ve gone crazy. He’s an idiot. I’ve always been crazy, so how’s that any news? ~ Jo Raven, #NFDB
669:I have come with urgent news: we must find another mountain, if not another world, to call our own. ~ Casey Gerald, #NFDB
670:I think what we try to do is bring the news to our viewers in a very comprehensive responsible way. ~ Wolf Blitzer, #NFDB
671:My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne. ~ Tina Fey, #NFDB
672:My view is Fox News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and I don't comment on Fox News. ~ Howard Dean, #NFDB
673:News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television. ~ Val Kilmer, #NFDB
674:Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me. ~ Charles Kettering, #NFDB
675:She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use. ~ Elvis Costello, #NFDB
676:The bad news is that this orchard has suddenly developed very dishonourable intentions toward us. Run! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
677:you know what they say about messengers, right"?
Excuse me?"
Too much bad news will get you shot. ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
678:For the reader who has put away comic books, but isn't yet ready for editorials in the Daily News. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
679:I don't have to watch the evening news to see that the world is bad, I only have to look at myself. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
680:If the one who is to get us the news is in chains, the news may get to us but with chains! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
681:I never liked the news; it pretends to be all different, every day, when in fact it is all the same. ~ Adam Roberts, #NFDB
682:I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health. ~ Tom Petty, #NFDB
683:It's not the world that's got so much worse but the news coverage that's got so much better. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
684:I visit Fox News every now and again, and it's nice, because the Eye of Mordor is above the building. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
685:Maybe once he wished I was his daughter, because it was plain that my news was hard for him to hear. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
686:News is like food: it is the cooking and serving that makes it acceptable, not the material itself. ~ Rose Macaulay, #NFDB
687:Somewhere along the way the hopes of something better had become the dread of something worse. News ~ David Downing, #NFDB
688:The good news about me is that my friends and social network is entirely independent of politics. ~ Andrew Sullivan, #NFDB
689:The good news is we had this idea of cloud computing. The bad news is we were 10 years too early. ~ Marc Andreessen, #NFDB
690:The good news is you both are still kinda young and have all your teeth,” D.J. finished optimistically. ~ D A Young, #NFDB
691:The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. It is the stalest repetition. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
692:The sheer volume of bad news had gotten beyond anybody’s ability to process into a narrative. ~ Charlie Jane Anders, #NFDB
693:The window reflected the news. It was about power and sports and anger and death. So it goes. Billy ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
694:Unfortunately,” he said, “we have short memories. Most heroes are forgotten by the next news cycle. ~ Jack McDevitt, #NFDB
695:we the people should expect integrity from the news media and unbiased reporting of newsworthy events. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
696:Good news, they found Nemo! The bad news is, they found him in one of Wolfgang Puck's puff pastries. ~ Billy Crystal, #NFDB
697:Here's the good news. If I realize that I'm insane, then I'm okay with it. I'm not dangerous insane. ~ Charlie Sheen, #NFDB
698:I'm on cloud nine.. i wouldn't even say cloud nine... more like cloud ten... cloud nine was old news. ~ Darren Criss, #NFDB
699:I watch news from the minute I wake up till 11. Then I switch to Charlie Rose. Fox News all the way. ~ Brigid Berlin, #NFDB
700:Not wi’ news like this. Brace yourself, Bridget, as the Irishman said to his missus by way of foreplay. ~ M C Beaton, #NFDB
701:People write negatives things, cause they feel that's what sells. Good news to them, doesn't sell. ~ Michael Jackson, #NFDB
702:Price makes news, not the other way around. A market is going to go where a market is going to go. ~ Michael W Covel, #NFDB
703:Proof that life would go on — no matter what devastating news had come into their lives that week. ~ Karen Kingsbury, #NFDB
704:There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair. ~ Donella Meadows, #NFDB
705:The single most loving act we can do is share the good news of Jesus Christ, that God saves sinners. ~ Matt Chandler, #NFDB
706:A thousand people drowned in floods in China are news: a solitary child drowned in a pond is tragedy. ~ Josephine Tey, #NFDB
707:Each time there is a news story, sometimes that gives ideas to people who then turn into criminals. ~ Nicolas Sarkozy, #NFDB
708:God sends His people forth as ambassadors into a fallen, lost world, bearing amazing good news. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
709:In France, ballet is on TV ... It's on the eight-o'clock news. It's a cool thing to be a dancer. ~ Benjamin Millepied, #NFDB
710:Newsmen winding up the nation, a little bad news helps circulation, pass on the panic to the population. ~ Ray Davies, #NFDB
711:There is no path set for this kind of shock, and for the grief that attends such terrible news. ~ Jacqueline Winspear, #NFDB
712:the thunder and bombast of what passes for news programming today--Motto: All terror, all the time ~ J Maarten Troost, #NFDB
713:All I got was the news that he'd married an absolute honey, and an admonition to eat my heart out. ~ Lindsay Armstrong, #NFDB
714:And he reports the battle news, and then says, ‘Oh, and by the way, Pan wants you to build him a temple. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
715:Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
716:If you don't have a hologram, how can you understand what's going on in the news? Right? Am I right? ~ Joe Scarborough, #NFDB
717:I've always loved watching the news on TV. As a kid, I loved watching Walter Cronkite, for some reason. ~ Will Ferrell, #NFDB
718:(Later, I'l learn that's the structure of an elegy: lament, consolation; bad news, followed by good news.) ~ Mary Karr, #NFDB
719:So, good news/bad news: good news that I'm progressing; bad news that life is short and art is long. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
720:The good news was that the streets were litter-free, maybe because no one had anything to throw away. ~ Nelson DeMille, #NFDB
721:The headlines are never in the news! And so, what I am saying is the news is never on the headlines ~ Sahndra Fon Dufe, #NFDB
722:The news is not a mirror of social conditions, but the report of an aspect that has obtruded itself. ~ Walter Lippmann, #NFDB
723:The old, old gospel is the newest thing in the world; in its very essence it is for ever good news. ~ Charles Spurgeon, #NFDB
724:There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair. ~ Donella H Meadows, #NFDB
725:To a philosopher all news is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
726:Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.
[News conference, April 21 1961] ~ John F Kennedy,#NFDB
727:Whenever I watch a documentary about the space, I find the news in the world very funny and dull! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
728:As a news person, you can't spend all your time responding to a Comedy Central star. It's not what we do. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
729:But me contradicting a news story is not going to make my words fact. It will just create a new news story. ~ Megan Fox, #NFDB
730:I have some bad news to break to you about most Shadowhunters and their ability with the photocopier. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
731:I listen to music I'm looking to record or catch up on news and TV, whatever is on the TV at the gym! ~ Martina McBride, #NFDB
732:So Fox News is the voice of America and Obama is Stalin? Oh my God! I guess that makes me Yakov Smirnoff. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
733:Sometimes I look around cable news and it's like you wonder whether you're looking at anchors or authors. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
734:Stay with CBS now for more news, including: Is there a pall over the mall as holiday shoppers think small? ~ Dan Rather, #NFDB
735:Television has created a nation of news junkies who tune in every night to get their fix on the world. ~ Robert MacNeil, #NFDB
736:The best thing about television news is, it's immediate. Everything at a news network happens quickly. ~ Tucker Carlson, #NFDB
737:The good news in investing is there are no HR problems. If there are no humans, there are no problems! ~ Mohnish Pabrai, #NFDB
738:The good news is that the president gets another chance. The bad news is that he'll be two weeks older. ~ Johnny Carson, #NFDB
739:The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
740:This is a dark age. That's not news. It's a dark time when we have to be particularly aware of danger. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
741:We need to make progress. Otherwise we're waiting for news in a world where there is no longer any news. ~ Ray Bradbury, #NFDB
742:When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
743:Write letters to your editors, write to your members of Congress, and write to your news stations. ~ Nicholas D Kristof, #NFDB
744:If't be summer news, Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st But keep that count'nance still. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
745:It's kind of a strange world when you can trust a game format or platform more than the network news. ~ Michael Ironside, #NFDB
746:I was really lucky to work at CBS news. I was blessed to be able to live my dream in many ways at CBS news. ~ Dan Rather, #NFDB
747:No philosophy, no religion, has ever brought so glad a message to the world as this good news of Atheism. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
748:The bad news (or good news, depending on your point of view) is that things have always been like this. ~ Thomas Piketty, #NFDB
749:The good news is you survived. The bad news is you're hurt and no one can heal you but yourself. ~ Clementine von Radics, #NFDB
750:There has to a certain responsibility, whether it's TV news, online news, to sort out opinion from fact. ~ Barbara Boxer, #NFDB
751:Typical news accounts and commentaries about school shootings and rampage killings rarely mention gender. ~ Jackson Katz, #NFDB
752:When you're through learning, you're through. ~ Anonymous, as quoted in "Weather Vane", National 4-H News (January 1951), #NFDB
753:Wouldn't it be great if our national news media had standards as high as the National Football League's? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
754:As an entrepreneur, what drives you has to be the good news; otherwise, you just don't get out of bed. ~ Natalie Massenet, #NFDB
755:Good news for me, although even in Texas I don't think impersonating a maid would be classified as a crime. ~ Sue Grafton, #NFDB
756:I don't watch the news. I get really emotional about it, and I carry that stuff with me for a long time. ~ Missy Peregrym, #NFDB
757:If news is not really news unless it is bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation ~ Norman Cousins, #NFDB
758:If you watch the news, you see politicians use human vulnerabilities to get in and earn people's trust. ~ Morena Baccarin, #NFDB
759:Ignore the junk news - work on a worthwhile project, make a plan, or do something to enhance your life. ~ Jeffrey Gitomer, #NFDB
760:In this world we live in now, with a 24/7 news cycle, perception can sometimes be more powerful than reality. ~ Omar Epps, #NFDB
761:I watch 'Al Jazeera.' They have news that you can't find anywhere else. They do great documentaries, too. ~ Dick Van Dyke, #NFDB
762:Letters should be written to send news, to say
send me news, to say
meet me at the train station. ~ Anne Michaels,#NFDB
763:Maybe some of today's papers have too many 'feel-good' features, but there is a lot of good news out there. ~ Ben Bradlee, #NFDB
764:Silvery dancing strands that seemed the pure play of light, light as evanescent news, ideas borne on light. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
765:Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed. ~ Jhumpa Lahiri, #NFDB
766:The good news is, we have a huge opportunity here because the President`s [Barack Obama] policies have failed. ~ Jeb Bush, #NFDB
767:There's an awful lot of terrible television which I could do, but I mostly stick to Have I Got News for You. ~ Ian Hislop, #NFDB
768:The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and that’s good news for the bodyguard business. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
769:The tendency for politicians to claim credit for favorable news is as natural as flatulence in cows. ~ Robert J Samuelson, #NFDB
770:Willie appeared completely calm about the news of Mother. She always said she could make tea in a tornado. ~ Ruta Sepetys, #NFDB
771:And for whatever reason I've loved the news since I can remember. I loved it when I was in elementary school. ~ Dan Rather, #NFDB
772:At The Huffington Post, we thought of the front page as a one-stop shop for everything you'd need in news. ~ Jonah Peretti, #NFDB
773:Contemporary Democrats are people who can't stand the idea that someone, somewhere is experiencing good news. ~ Rich Lowry, #NFDB
774:Good news. President Bush is creating thousands of new jobs. Unfortunately, all of them are at the White House. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
775:Listening, you reflect that you are probably the worst person on the planet. But this is not exactly news. ~ Rebecca Stead, #NFDB
776:My phone’s dead, and I have to find the microwave to read the time: 8:12. Only bad news comes this early. ~ Krysten Ritter, #NFDB
777:No more dead dogs and slashed swans for us," whispered Dick Alderman, like this was good news-
It wasn't. ~ David Peace,#NFDB
778:On an average day 7 minutes of news happens. Yet there are currently three full-time, 24-hour news networks. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
779:The Gospel is news of what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach God. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
780:This is good news: you don’t have to know the exact cause of suffering in order to find hope and comfort. ~ Edward T Welch, #NFDB
781:We have to find climate-friendly ways of encouraging economic growth. The good news is we think they exist. ~ Jim Yong Kim, #NFDB
782:What makes the gospel good news isn’t the concept, but the real-life person who has been changed by it.[90] ~ Jen Hatmaker, #NFDB
783:God has made a way of salvation for the lost. Not a way, but the way. And this is the good news - the gospel. ~ David Platt, #NFDB
784:Is there any good news?' Tesla said.
Who ever promised that? Who ever said there'd be good news? ~ Clive Barker,#NFDB
785:I wanted to walk away in denial, watch the news and believe the cat was faking the whole thing for attention. ~ Erika Lopez, #NFDB
786:News objectivity is a twentieth-century myth. We only complain about propaganda when we don't agree with it. ~ Frank Miller, #NFDB
787:The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
788:The good news is you are a beloved child of God; the bad news is you don’t get to choose your siblings. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
789:There was something not quite right about her eagerness, an eerie kind of voyeurism in her need for bad news. ~ Kim Edwards, #NFDB
790:The way we do it on the Fox News Channel is the straight news anchors like us give a hard time to both sides. ~ Megyn Kelly, #NFDB
791:Today they have proven once again that the mainstream media can't print enough bad news about our troops. ~ Joe Scarborough, #NFDB
792:What’s news?” She put the magazine down and looked at me. “Philip K. Dick is dead.” “Who’s that?” I asked. ~ Adrian McKinty, #NFDB
793:Because I have an opinion, I have become public enemy number one to the Fox News Channel and the right wing. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
794:First of all, very few people listen to Hugh Hewitt, radio show, that`s the good news. Check out the ratings. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
795:Hope was a balancing act. Too little left a person unable to hang on. Too much made bad news unable to bear. ~ Melinda Leigh, #NFDB
796:I think the idea of creating a television news source that is not beholden to corporate interests is nirvana. ~ Phil Donahue, #NFDB
797:News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising. ~ Alfred Harmsworth 1st Viscount Northcliffe, #NFDB
798:She had an internal clock set to her mother’s hunger for news, but sometimes it felt good to ignore it. ~ Elizabeth Mckenzie, #NFDB
799:The “good news” part of this point is that we can cooperate in salvation, as we cannot cooperate in creation. ~ Peter Kreeft, #NFDB
800:The Gospel is good news not good advice. Advice = what we should do. News = report of what was done for us. ~ Timothy Keller, #NFDB
801:We have defeated Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The good news is Iraq is ours, and the bad news is Iraq is ours. ~ David Letterman, #NFDB
802:A newspaper is not just for reporting the news as it is, but to make people mad enough to do something about it. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
803:For writers - even sportswriters - bad news is always easier than good, since it is, after all, more familiar. ~ Richard Ford, #NFDB
804:Have you ever had a gay friend lose weight and you can't decide if it's good news or not? Hey you look... great? ~ Dana Gould, #NFDB
805:I have some bad news. Bjork cannot be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her. ~ Jon Stewart, #NFDB
806:I just think there is so little positive news out there, that we should showcase the good whenever we can... ~ Jason F Wright, #NFDB
807:I sometimes wonder: If you add together his time spent on golf, Twitter and cable news, what’s left? ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
808:I was first to break the news about the death of Lady Diana. The CNN team couldn't get into makeup fast enough. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
809:I was pretty sick for a couple of weeks--too sick for the Mrs. to give me the news. And it's a wonder I didn't ~ Ring Lardner, #NFDB
810:My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the news which I have inspires me yet more. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
811:Normally you have news, weather and travel.....but not on snow day, on snow day news is weather is travel. ~ Michael McIntyre, #NFDB
812:Now that I exist in the mainstream majority, I'm not really so controversial any more, am I? Not really news. ~ Michael Moore, #NFDB
813:Since I arrived at CNN, it has grown into one of the largest and most trusted news organizations in the world. ~ Jim C Walton, #NFDB
814:The carpeting on the stair risers caught, racing up to the first-floor level as if to tell dreadful good news. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
815:The good and the bad news is that politicians rarely do what they say they are going to do when they campaign. ~ Charles Koch, #NFDB
816:The good news is that it doesn't cost much money to change your thinking. In fact, it can be done for free. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
817:The work of a science blogger is largely comprised of correcting and criticizing bad science news reporting. ~ Steven Novella, #NFDB
818:Unless we can grasp our own beliefs as truly good news, we cannot easily communicate them to a thirsty world. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
819:[...]you know what they say about messengers, right"?
Excuse me?"
Too much bad news will get you shot."[...] ~ J R Ward,#NFDB
820:Boys are unpredictable. This maybe not be news, but I'm starting to think it's one of the best things about them. ~ Kate Brian, #NFDB
821:discovered that some of our efforts can actually drown out the good news and become stumbling blocks to faith. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
822:He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry. He delivered all news as though it were good. ~ Leif Enger, #NFDB
823:I have always been politically active and vaguely dissatisfied with the state of news, but I wasn't sure why. ~ Thomas Sadoski, #NFDB
824:Such news only served to increase her belief that men were not so much gifted with penises as cursed with them. ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
825:The bad news that we are all guilty is met with the best news that God loves and forgives guilty people. ~ Tullian Tchividjian, #NFDB
826:[The Internal Revenue Code is] about 10 times the size of the Bible and, unlike the Bible, contains no good news ~ Don Nickles, #NFDB</