Chapter V: Rare: book (14)

:power cycle: /vt./ (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle')
To power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the
intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.
Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare
{Vulcan nerve pinch}, {bounce} (sense 4), and {boot}, and
see the "{AI Koans}" (in Appendix A) about Tom Knight
and the novice.

:power hit: /n./ A spike or drop-out in the electricity
supplying your machine; a power {glitch}. These can cause
crashes and even permanent damage to your machine(s).

:PPN: /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ /n. obs./ [from `Project-Programmer
Number'] A user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant
progeny at SAIL, BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers
from the PDP-10 era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on
other systems as well.

:precedence lossage: /pre's*-dens los'*j/ /n./ [C
programmers] Coding error in an expression due to unexpected
grouping of arithmetic or logical operators by the compiler. Used
esp. of certain common coding errors in C due to the
nonintuitively low precedence levels of `&', `|',
`^', `<<', and `>>' (for this reason, experienced C
programmers deliberately forget the language's {baroque}
precedence hierarchy and parenthesize defensively). Can always be
avoided by suitable use of parentheses. {LISP} fans enjoy
pointing out that this can't happen in *their* favorite
language, which eschews precedence entirely, requiring one to use
explicit parentheses everywhere. See {aliasing bug}, {memory
leak}, {memory smash}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on
core}, {overrun screw}.

:prepend: /pree`pend'/ /vt./ [by analogy with `append'] To
prefix. As with `append' (but not `prefix' or `suffix' as a
verb), the direct object is always the thing being added and not
the original word (or character string, or whatever). "If you
prepend a semicolon to the line, the translation routine will pass
it through unaltered."

:prestidigitization: /pres`t*-di`j*-ti:-zay'sh*n/ /n./ 1. The
act of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand.
2. Data entry through legerdemain.

:pretty pictures: /n./ [scientific computation] The next step
up from {numbers}. Interesting graphical output from a program
that may not have any sensible relationship to the system the
program is intended to model. Good for showing to {management}.

:prettyprint: /prit'ee-print/ /v./ (alt. `pretty-print')
1. To generate `pretty' human-readable output from a {hairy}
internal representation; esp. used for the process of
{grind}ing (sense 1) program code, and most esp. for LISP code.
2. To format in some particularly slick and nontrivial way.

:pretzel key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.

:priesthood: /n. obs./ [TMRC] The select group of system
managers responsible for the operation and maintenance of a batch
operated computer system. On these computers, a user never had
direct access to a computer, but had to submit his/her data and
programs to a priest for execution. Results were returned days or
even weeks later. See {acolyte}.

:prime time: /n./ [from TV programming] Normal high-usage hours
on a timesharing system; the day shift. Avoidance of prime time
was traditionally given as a major reason for {night mode}
hacking. The rise of the personal workstation has rendered this
term, along with timesharing itself, almost obsolete. The hackish
tendency to late-night {hacking run}s has changed not a bit.

:printing discussion: /n./ [XEROX PARC] A protracted,
low-level, time-consuming, generally pointless discussion of
something only peripherally interesting to all.

:priority interrupt: /n./ [from the hardware term] Describes
any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack
mode}. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an
{SO} for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane
interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity.
Also called an {NMI} (non-maskable interrupt), especially in
PC-land.

:profile: /n./ 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text
file automatically read from each user's home directory and
intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customize
the program's behavior. Used to avoid {hardcoded} choices (see
also {dot file}, {rc file}). 2. [techspeak] A report on the
amounts of time spent in each routine of a program, used to find
and {tune} away the {hot spot}s in it. This sense is often
verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time (such as
call counts) and/or report at granularities other than per-routine,
but the idea is similar. 3.[techspeak] A subset of a standard used
for a particular purpose. This sense confuses hackers who wander
into the weird world of ISO standards no end!

:progasm: /proh'gaz-m/ /n./ [University of Wisconsin] The
euphoria experienced upon the completion of a program or other
computer-related project.

:proglet: /prog'let/ /n./ [UK] A short extempore program
written to meet an immediate, transient need. Often written in
BASIC, rarely more than a dozen lines long, and containing no
subroutines. The largest amount of code that can be written off
the top of one's head, that does not need any editing, and that
runs correctly the first time (this amount varies significantly
according to one's skill and the language one is using). Compare
{toy program}, {noddy}, {one-liner wars}.

:program: /n./ 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing
it to turn one's input into error messages. 2. An exercise in
experimental epistemology. 3. A form of art, ostensibly intended
for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost
inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.

:Programmer's Cheer: "Shift to the left! Shift to the
right! Pop up, push down! Byte! Byte! Byte!" A joke so old it
has hair on it.

:programming: /n./ 1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of
paper (or, in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging
an empty file). "Bloody instructions which, being taught, return
to plague their inventor" ("Macbeth", Act 1, Scene 7) 2. A
pastime similar to banging one's head against a wall, but with
fewer opportunities for reward. 3. The most fun you can have with
your clothes on (although clothes are not mandatory).

:programming fluid: /n./ 1. Coffee. 2. Cola. 3. Any
caffeinacious stimulant. Many hackers consider these essential for
those all-night hacking runs. See {wirewater}.

:propeller head: /n./ Used by hackers, this is syn. with
{computer geek}. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all
techies. Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (originally
invented by old-time fan Ray Faraday Nelson) of propeller beanies
as fannish insignia (though nobody actually wears them except as a
joke).

:propeller key: /n./ [Mac users] See {feature key}.

:proprietary: /adj./ 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior;
implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched
brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers.
2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a
product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that
puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on
service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the
customer in.

:protocol: /n./ As used by hackers, this never refers to
niceties about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal
Nuncio or the order in which one should use the forks in a
Russian-style place setting; hackers don't care about such things.
It is used instead to describe any set of rules that allow
different machines or pieces of software to coordinate with each
other without ambiguity. So, for example, it does include niceties
about the proper form for addressing packets on a network or the
order in which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers
Problem. It implies that there is some common message format and
an accepted set of primitives or commands that all parties involved
understand, and that transactions among them follow predictable
logical sequences. See also {handshaking}, {do protocol}.

:provocative maintenance: /n./ [common ironic mutation of
`preventive maintenance'] Actions performed upon a machine at
regularly scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in
a usable state. So called because it is all too often performed by
a {field servoid} who doesn't know what he is doing; such
`maintenance' often *induces* problems, or otherwise
results in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for
an indeterminate amount of time. See also {scratch monkey}.

:prowler: /n./ [Unix] A {daemon} that is run periodically (typically
once a week) to seek out and erase {core} files, truncate
administrative logfiles, nuke `lost+found' directories, and
otherwise clean up the {cruft} that tends to pile up in the
corners of a file system. See also {GFR}, {reaper},
{skulker}.

:pseudo: /soo'doh/ /n./ [Usenet: truncation of `pseudonym']
1. An electronic-mail or {Usenet} persona adopted by a human for
amusement value or as a means of avoiding negative repercussions of
one's net.behavior; a `nom de Usenet', often associated with
forged postings designed to conceal message origins. Perhaps the
best-known and funniest hoax of this type is {B1FF}. See also
{tentacle}. 2. Notionally, a {flamage}-generating AI program
simulating a Usenet user. Many flamers have been accused of
actually being such entities, despite the fact that no AI program
of the required sophistication yet exists. However, in 1989 there
was a famous series of forged postings that used a
phrase-frequency-based travesty generator to simulate the styles of
several well-known flamers; it was based on large samples of their
back postings (compare {Dissociated Press}). A significant
number of people were fooled by the forgeries, and the debate over
their authenticity was settled only when the perpetrator came
forward to publicly admit the hoax.

:pseudoprime: /n./ A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied
points) with one point missing. This term is an esoteric pun
derived from a mathematical method that, rather than determining
precisely whether a number is prime (has no divisors), uses a
statistical technique to decide whether the number is `probably'
prime. A number that passes this test was, before about 1985,
called a `pseudoprime' (the terminology used by number theorists
has since changed slightly; pre-1985 pseudoprimes are now
`probable primes' and `pseudoprime' has a more restricted meaning
in modular arithmetic). The hacker backgammon usage stemmed from
the idea that a pseudoprime is almost as good as a prime: it does
the job of a prime until proven otherwise, and that probably won't
happen.

:pseudosuit: /soo'doh-s[y]oot`/ /n./ A {suit} wannabee; a
hacker who has decided that he wants to be in management or
administration and begins wearing ties, sport coats, and (shudder!)
suits voluntarily. It's his funeral. See also {lobotomy}.

:psychedelicware: /si:`k*-del'-ik-weir/ /n./ [UK] Syn.
{display hack}. See also {smoking clover}.

:psyton: /si:'ton/ /n./ [TMRC] The elementary particle
carrying the sinister force. The probability of a process losing
is proportional to the number of psytons falling on it. Psytons
are generated by observers, which is why demos are more likely to
fail when lots of people are watching. [This term appears to have
been largely superseded by {bogon}; see also {quantum
bogodynamics}. --ESR]

:pubic directory: /pyoob'ik d*-rek't*-ree/) /n./ [NYU]
(also `pube directory' /pyoob' d*-rek't*-ree/) The `pub'
(public) directory on a machine that allows {FTP} access. So
called because it is the default location for {SEX} (sense 1).
"I'll have the source in the pube directory by Friday."

:puff: /vt./ To decompress data that has been crunched by
Huffman coding. At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder
program was actually *named* `PUFF', but these days it is
usually packaged with the encoder. Oppose {huff}, see
{inflate}.

:punched card:: n.obs. [techspeak] (alt. `punch card') The
signature medium of computing's {Stone Age}, now obsolescent
outside of some IBM shops. The punched card actually predated
computers considerably, originating in 1801 as a control device for
mechanical looms. The version patented by Hollerith and used with
mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 U.S. Census was a piece
of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm. There is a widespread myth
that it was designed to fit in the currency trays used for that
era's larger dollar bills, but recent investigations have falsified
this.

IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married
the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as
patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column,
80 columns per card. Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and
hole shapes were tried at various times.

The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the
IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards
distributed with many varieties of computers even today. See
{chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card},
{dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}.

:punt: /v./ [from the punch line of an old joke referring to
American football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt!"] 1. To give up,
typically without any intention of retrying. "Let's punt the
movie tonight." "I was going to hack all night to get this
feature in, but I decided to punt" may mean that you've decided
not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even
going to put in the feature. 2. More specifically, to give up on
figuring out what the {Right Thing} is and resort to an
inefficient hack. 3. A design decision to defer solving a problem,
typically because one cannot define what is desirable sufficiently
well to frame an algorithmic solution. "No way to know what the
right form to dump the graph in is -- we'll punt that for now."
4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off to some other
section of the design. "It's too hard to get the compiler to do
that; let's punt to the runtime system."

:Purple Book: /n./ 1. The "System V Interface Definition".
The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade
of off-lavender. 2. Syn. {Wizard Book}. Donald Lewine's
"POSIX Programmer's Guide" (O'Reilly, 1991, ISBN
0-937175-73-0). See also {{book titles}}.

:purple wire: /n./ [IBM] Wire installed by Field Engineers to work
around problems discovered during testing or debugging. These are
called `purple wires' even when (as is frequently the case) their
actual physical color is yellow.... Compare {blue wire},
{yellow wire}, and {red wire}.

:push: [from the operation that puts the current information
on a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved
on a stack] (Also PUSH /push/ or PUSHJ /push'J/, the latter
based on the PDP-10 procedure call instruction.) 1. To put
something onto a {stack} or {pdl}. If one says that
something has been pushed onto one's stack, it means that the
Damoclean list of things hanging over ones's head has grown longer
and heavier yet. This may also imply that one will deal with it
*before* other pending items; otherwise one might say that the
thing was `added to my queue'. 2. /vi./ To enter upon a
digression, to save the current discussion for later. Antonym of
{pop}; see also {stack}, {pdl}.

= Q = =====

:quad: /n./ 1. Two bits; syn. for {quarter}, {crumb},
{tayste}. 2. A four-pack of anything (compare {hex}, sense
2). 3. The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for
various arcane purposes mostly related to I/O. Former
Ivy-Leaguers and Oxford types are said to associate it with
nostalgic memories of dear old University.

:quadruple bucky: /n. obs./ 1. On an MIT {space-cadet
keyboard}, use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta,
hyper, and super) while typing a character key. 2. On a Stanford
or MIT keyboard in {raw mode}, use of four shift keys while
typing a fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control
and meta keys on *both* sides of the keyboard. This was very
difficult to do! One accepted technique was to press the
left-control and left-meta keys with your left hand, the
right-control and right-meta keys with your right hand, and the
fifth key with your nose.

Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice,
because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to
some character that was easier to type. If you want to imply that
a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say
something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes
while whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is
quadruple-bucky-cokebottle." See {double bucky}, {bucky
bits}, {cokebottle}.

:quantifiers:: In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric
prefixes used in the SI (Syst`eme International) conventions for
scientific measurement have dual uses. With units of time or
things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they retain their
usual meanings of multiplication by powers of 1000 = 10^3.
But when used with bytes or other things that naturally come in
powers of 2, they usually denote multiplication by powers of
1024 = 2^(10).

Here are the SI magnifying prefixes, along with the corresponding
binary interpretations in common use:

prefix decimal binary
kilo- 1000^1 1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024
mega- 1000^2 1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576
giga- 1000^3 1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824
tera- 1000^4 1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
peta- 1000^5 1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
exa- 1000^6 1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
zetta- 1000^7 1024^7 = 2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424
yotta- 1000^8 1024^8 = 2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176

Here are the SI fractional prefixes:

*prefix decimal jargon usage*
milli- 1000^-1 (seldom used in jargon)
micro- 1000^-2 small or human-scale (see {micro-})
nano- 1000^-3 even smaller (see {nano-})
pico- 1000^-4 even smaller yet (see {pico-})
femto- 1000^-5 (not used in jargon--yet)
atto- 1000^-6 (not used in jargon--yet)
zepto- 1000^-7 (not used in jargon--yet)
yocto- 1000^-8 (not used in jargon--yet)

The prefixes zetta-, yotta-, zepto-, and yocto- have been included
in these tables purely for completeness and giggle value; they were
adopted in 1990 by the `19th Conference Generale des Poids et
Mesures'. The binary peta- and exa- loadings, though well
established, are not in jargon use either -- yet. The prefix
milli-, denoting multiplication by 1/1000, has always
been rare in jargon (there is, however, a standard joke about the
`millihelen' -- notionally, the amount of beauty required to
launch one ship). See the entries on {micro-}, {pico-}, and
{nano-} for more information on connotative jargon use of these
terms. `Femto' and `atto' (which, interestingly, derive not
from Greek but from Danish) have not yet acquired jargon loadings,
though it is easy to predict what those will be once computing
technology enters the required realms of magnitude (however, see
{attoparsec}).

There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of
10. In the following table, the `prefix' column is the
international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the
`binary' column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the
corresponding power of 2. The B-suffixed forms are commonly used
for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns that may
(but do not always) pluralize with `s'.

prefix decimal binary pronunciation
kilo- k K, KB, /kay/
mega- M M, MB, meg /meg/
giga- G G, GB, gig /gig/,/jig/

Confusingly, hackers often use K or M as though they were suffix or
numeric multipliers rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars", "2M
of disk space". This is also true (though less commonly) of G.

Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is `k'; some use
this strictly, reserving `K' for multiplication by 1024 (KB is
thus `kilobytes').

K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is
64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of
`a G' as short for `a grand', that is, $1000). Whether one
pronounces `gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks
the proper pronunciation of `giga-' is.

Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in
magnitude) -- for example, describing a memory in units of
500K or 524K instead of 512K -- is a sure sign of the
{marketroid}. One example of this: it is common to refer to the
capacity of 3.5" {microfloppies} as `1.44 MB' In fact, this is a
completely {bogus} number. The correct size is 1440 KB, that
is, 1440 * 1024 = 1474560 bytes. So the `mega' in `1.44 MB' is
compounded of two `kilos', one of which is 1024 and the other of
which is 1000. The correct number of megabytes would of course be
1440 / 1024 = 1.40625. Alas, this fine point is probably lost on
the world forever.

[1993 update: hacker Morgan Burke has proposed, to general
approval on Usenet, the following additional prefixes:

groucho
10^(-30)
harpo
10^(-27)
harpi
10^(27)
grouchi
10^(30)

We observe that this would leave the prefixes zeppo-, gummo-, and
chico- available for future expansion. Sadly, there is little
immediate prospect that Mr. Burke's eminently sensible proposal
will be ratified.]

:quantum bogodynamics: /kwon'tm boh`goh-di:-nam'iks/ /n./ A
theory that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources
(such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and
{suit}s in general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and
computers), and bogosity potential fields. Bogon absorption, of
course, causes human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to
fail (and may also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however,
the precise mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not
yet understood and remain to be elucidated. Quantum bogodynamics
is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and
software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons,
which the former absorb. See {bogon}, {computron},
{suit}, {psyton}.

:quarter: /n./ Two bits. This in turn comes from the `pieces
of eight' famed in pirate movies -- Spanish silver crowns that
could be broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make
change. Early in American history the Spanish coin was considered
equal to a dollar, so each of these `bits' was considered worth
12.5 cents. Syn. {tayste}, {crumb}, {quad}. Usage:
rare. General discussion of such terms is under {nybble}.

:ques: /kwes/ 1. /n./ The question mark character (`?',
ASCII 0111111). 2. /interj./ What? Also frequently verb-doubled
as
"Ques ques?" See {wall}.

:quick-and-dirty: /adj./ Describes a {crock} put together
under time or user pressure. Used esp. when you want to convey
that you think the fast way might lead to trouble further down the
road. "I can have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but
I'll have to rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying
design problem." See also {kluge}.

:quine: /kwi:n/ /n./ [from the name of the logician Willard
van Orman Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] A program that generates a
copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the
shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a
common hackish amusement. Here is one classic quine:

((lambda (x)
(list x (list (quote quote) x)))
(quote
(lambda (x)
(list x (list (quote quote) x)))))

This one works in LISP or Scheme. It's relatively easy to write
quines in other languages such as Postscript which readily handle
programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in
languages like C which do not. Here is a classic C quine for ASCII
machines:

char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main()
{printf(f,34,f,34,10);}%c";
main(){printf(f,34,f,34,10);}

For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the interior line
breaks. Some infamous {Obfuscated C Contest} entries have been
quines that reproduced in exotic ways.

:quote chapter and verse: /v./ [by analogy with the mainstream
phrase] To cite a relevant excerpt from an appropriate {bible}.
"I don't care if `rn' gets it wrong; `Followup-To: poster' is
explicitly permitted by {RFC}-1036. I'll quote chapter and
verse if you don't believe me." See also {legalese},
{language lawyer}, {RTFS} (sense 2).

:quotient: /n./ See {coefficient of X}.

:quux: /kwuhks/ /n./ [Mythically, from the Latin
semi-deponent verb quuxo, quuxare, quuxandum iri; noun form
variously `quux' (plural `quuces', anglicized to `quuxes')
and `quuxu' (genitive plural is `quuxuum', for four u-letters
out of seven in all, using up all the `u' letters in Scrabble).]
1. Originally, a {metasyntactic variable} like {foo} and
{foobar}. Invented by Guy Steele for precisely this purpose
when he was young and naive and not yet interacting with the real
computing community. Many people invent such words; this one seems
simply to have been lucky enough to have spread a little. In an
eloquent display of poetic justice, it has returned to the
originator in the form of a nickname. 2. /interj./ See {foo};
however, denotes very little disgust, and is uttered mostly for the
sake of the sound of it. 3. Guy Steele in his persona as `The
Great Quux', which is somewhat infamous for light verse and for the
`Crunchly' cartoons. 4. In some circles, used as a punning
opposite of `crux'. "Ah, that's the quux of the matter!"
implies that the point is *not* crucial (compare {tip of
the ice-cube}). 5. quuxy: /adj./ Of or pertaining to a quux.

:qux: /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard {metasyntactic
variable}, after {baz} and before the quu(u...)x series.
See {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}. This appears to be a
recent mutation from {quux}, and many versions (especially older
versions) of the standard series just run {foo}, {bar},
{baz}, {quux}, ....

:QWERTY: /kwer'tee/ /adj./ [from the keycaps at the upper
left] Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard
(sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as
opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts or a {space-cadet
keyboard} or APL keyboard.

Historical note: The QWERTY layout is a fine example of a {fossil}.
It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist,
but this is wrong; it was designed to allow *faster* typing
-- under a constraint now long obsolete. In early typewriters,
fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism. So Sholes
fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs
(he did a far from perfect job, though; `th', `tr', `ed', and `er',
for example, each use two nearby keys). Also, putting the letters
of `typewriter' on one line allowed it to be typed with particular
speed and accuracy for {demo}s. The jamming problem was
essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but
the keyboard layout lives on.

= R = =====

:rabbit job: /n./ [Cambridge] A batch job that does little, if
any, real work, but creates one or more copies of itself, breeding
like rabbits. Compare {wabbit}, {fork bomb}.

:rain dance: /n./ 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a
hardware problem, with the expectation that nothing will be
accomplished. This especially applies to reseating printed circuit
boards, reconnecting cables, etc. "I can't boot up the machine.
We'll have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance." 2. Any arcane
sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order
to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals
that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity
or motion. Compare {magic}, {voodoo programming}, {black
art}, {cargo cult programming}, {wave a dead chicken}; see
also {casting the runes}.

:rainbow series: /n./ Any of several series of technical
manuals distinguished by cover color. The original rainbow series
was the NCSC security manuals (see {Orange Book}, {crayola
books}); the term has also been commonly applied to the PostScript
reference set (see {Red Book}, {Green Book}, {Blue Book},
{White Book}). Which books are meant by "`the' rainbow
series" unqualified is thus dependent on one's local technical
culture.

:random: /adj./ 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical
definition); weird. "The system's been behaving pretty
randomly." 2. Assorted; undistinguished. "Who was at the
conference?" "Just a bunch of random business types."
3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected. "He's just a
random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not
well organized. "The program has a random set of misfeatures."
"That's a random name for that function." "Well, all the names
were chosen pretty randomly." 5. In no particular order, though
deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file
is opened one is chosen randomly." 6. Arbitrary. "It generates
a random name for the scratch file." 7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e.,
poorly done and for no good apparent reason. For example, a
program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless
way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded
using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values
with non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
without first saving four extra registers. What {randomness}!
8. /n./ A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students
who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 9. n.
Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the
hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2. "I went to the talk,
but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".
10. /n./ (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. See
also {J. Random}, {some random X}.

:random numbers:: /n./ When one wishes to specify a large but
random number of things, and the context is inappropriate for
{N}, certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is,
easily recognized as placeholders). These include the following:

17
Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see 23.
23
Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and
5).
42
The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe,
and Everything. (Note that this answer is completely
fortuitous. `:-)')
69
From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS
culture.
105
69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.
666
The Number of the Beast.

For further enlightenment, study the "Principia Discordia",
"{The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}", "The Joy
of Sex", and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:18). See also
{Discordianism} or consult your pineal gland. See also {for
values of}.

:randomness: /n./ 1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous
inelegance. 2. A {hack} or {crock} that depends on a complex
combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon
which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).
"This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the character
in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six
bits -- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing."
"What randomness!" 3. Of people, synonymous with `flakiness'.
The connotation is that the person so described is behaving
weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons which are
(a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are probably as
inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are likely to pass
with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe it's just
randomness. See if he calls back."

:rape: /vt./ 1. To {screw} someone or something, violently;
in particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably.
Often used in describing file-system damage. "So-and-so was
running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping
the master directory." 2. To strip a piece of hardware for parts.
3. [CMU/Pitt] To mass-copy files from an anonymous ftp site.
"Last night I raped Simtel's dskutl directory."

:rare mode: /adj./ [Unix] CBREAK mode (character-by-character
with interrupts enabled). Distinguished from {raw mode} and
{cooked mode}; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?) mode"
is used in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode. Usage: rare.

:raster blaster: /n./ [Cambridge] Specialized hardware for
{bitblt} operations (a {blitter}). Allegedly inspired by
`Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable stereo
Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto blaster'.

:raster burn: /n./ Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of
looking at low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp.
graphics monitors. See {terminal illness}.

:rat belt: /n./ A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed,
self-locking plastic kind that you can remove only by cutting (as
opposed to a random twist of wire or a twist tie or one of those
humongous metal clip frobs). Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.

:rat dance: /n./ [From the {Dilbert} comic strip of November
14, 1995] A {hacking run} that produces results which, while
superficially coherent, have little or nothing to do with its
original objectives. There are strong connotations that the coding
process and the objectives themselves were pretty {random}. (In
the original comic strip, the Ratbert is invited to dance
on Dilbert's keyboard in order to produce bugs for him to fix, and
authors a Web browser instead.) Compare {Infinite-Monkey
Theorem}.

This term seems to have become widely recognized quite rapidly
after the original strip, a fact which testifies to Dilbert's huge
popularity among hackers. All too many find the perverse
incentives and Kafkaesque atmosphere of Dilbert's mythical
workplace reflective of their own experiences.

:rave: /vi./ [WPI] 1. To persist in discussing a specific
subject. 2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one
knows very little. 3. To complain to a person who is not in a
position to correct the difficulty. 4. To purposely annoy another
person verbally. 5. To evangelize. See {flame}. 6. Also used
to describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly
bullshitting. `Rave' differs slightly from {flame} in that
`rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the
person speaking that is annoying, while {flame} implies somewhat
more strongly that the tone or content is offensive as well.

:rave on!: /imp./ Sarcastic invitation to continue a {rave},
often by someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes
this is unlikely.

:ravs: /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' /n./ Jiao-zi (steamed or
boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried). A Chinese appetizer, known
variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal
translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'. The
term `rav' is short for `ravioli', and among hackers always
means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind. Both consist
of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no
cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good
ones include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by
steaming or frying. A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a
potsticker is always the fried kind (so called because it sticks to
the frying pot and has to be scraped off). "Let's get
hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs." See also
{{oriental food}}.

:raw mode: /n./ A mode that allows a program to transfer bits
directly to or from an I/O device (or, under {bogus} systems
that make a distinction, a disk file) without any processing,
abstraction, or interpretation by the operating system. Compare
{rare mode}, {cooked mode}. This is techspeak under Unix,
jargon elsewhere.

:rc file: /R-C fi:l/ /n./ [Unix: from `runcom files' on
the {CTSS} system ca.1955, via the startup script
`/etc/rc'] Script file containing startup instructions for an
application program (or an entire operating system), usually a text
file containing commands of the sort that might have been invoked
manually once the system was running but are to be executed
automatically each time the system starts up. See also {dot
file}, {profile} (sense 1).

:RE: /R-E/ /n./ Common spoken and written shorthand for
{regexp}.

:read-only user: /n./ Describes a {luser} who uses computers
almost exclusively for reading Usenet, bulletin boards, and/or
email, rather than writing code or purveying useful information.
See {twink}, {terminal junkie}, {lurker}.

:README file: /n./ Hacker's-eye introduction traditionally
included in the top-level directory of a Unix source distribution,
containing a pointer to more detailed documentation, credits,
miscellaneous revision history, notes, etc. (The file may be named
README, or READ.ME, or rarely ReadMe or readme.txt or some other
variant.) In the Mac and PC worlds, software is not usually
distributed in source form, and the README is more likely to
contain user-oriented material like last-minute documentation
changes, error workarounds, and restrictions. When asked, hackers
invariably relate the README convention to the famous scene in
Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" in which
Alice confronts magic munchies labeled "Eat Me" and "Drink Me".

:real: /adj./ Not simulated. Often used as a specific antonym
to {virtual} in any of its jargon senses.

:real estate: /n./ May be used for any critical resource
measured in units of area. Most frequently used of `chip real
estate', the area available for logic on the surface of an
integrated circuit (see also {nanoacre}). May also be used of
floor space in a {dinosaur pen}, or even space on a crowded
desktop (whether physical or electronic).

:real hack: /n./ A {crock}. This is sometimes used
affectionately; see {hack}.

:real operating system: /n./ The sort the speaker is used to.
People from the BSDophilic academic community are likely to issue
comments like "System V? Why don't you use a *real*
operating system?", people from the commercial/industrial Unix
sector are known to complain "BSD? Why don't you use a
*real* operating system?", and people from IBM object
"Unix? Why don't you use a *real* operating system?" Only
{MS-DOS} is universally considered unreal. See {holy wars},
{religious issues}, {proprietary}, {Get a real computer!}

:Real Programmer: /n./ [indirectly, from the book
"Real Men Don't Eat Quiche"] A particular sub-variety of
hacker: one possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that
is arrogant even when justified by experience. The archetypal
`Real Programmer' likes to program on the {bare metal} and is
very good at same, remembers the binary opcodes for every machine
he has ever programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a
debugger to edit his code because full-screen editors are for
wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't
been {bum}med into a state of {tense}ness just short of
rupture. Real Programmers never use comments or write
documentation: "If it was hard to write", says the Real
Programmer, "it should be hard to understand." Real Programmers
can make machines do things that were never in their spec sheets;
in fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real
Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its
crockishness appalls. Real Programmers live on junk food and
coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap
out of other programmers -- because someday, somebody else might
have to try to understand their code in order to change it. Their
successors generally consider it a {Good Thing} that there
aren't many Real Programmers around any more. For a famous (and
somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see
"{The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer}" in Appendix A.
The term itself was popularized by a 1983 Datamation article
"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" by Ed Post, still
circulating on Usenet and Internet in on-line form.

You can browse "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" from the
Datamation home page http://www.datamation.com.

:Real Soon Now: /adv./ [orig. from SF's fanzine community,
popularized by Jerry Pournelle's column in "BYTE"] 1. Supposed
to be available (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now
according to somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical. 2. When
one's gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one to get to
it (in other words, don't hold your breath). Often abbreviated
RSN. Compare {copious free time}.

:real time: 1. [techspeak] /adj./ Describes an application
which requires a program to respond to stimuli within some small
upper limit of response time (typically milli- or microseconds).
Process control at a chemical plant is the classic example. Such
applications often require special operating systems (because
everything else must take a back seat to response time) and
speed-tuned hardware. 2. /adv./ In jargon, refers to doing
something
while people are watching or waiting. "I asked her how to find
the calling procedure's program counter on the stack and she came
up with an algorithm in real time."

:real user: /n./ 1. A commercial user. One who is paying
*real* money for his computer usage. 2. A non-hacker.
Someone using the system for an explicit purpose (a research
project, a course, etc.) other than pure exploration. See
{user}. Hackers who are also students may also be real users.
"I need this fixed so I can do a problem set. I'm not complaining
out of randomness, but as a real user." See also {luser}.

:Real World: /n./ 1. Those institutions at which
`programming' may be used in the same sentence as `FORTRAN',
`{COBOL}', `RPG', `{IBM}', `DBASE', etc. Places where
programs do such commercially necessary but intellectually
uninspiring things as generating payroll checks and invoices.
2. The location of non-programmers and activities not related to
programming. 3. A bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is
shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as
9 to 5 (see {code grinder}). 4. Anywhere outside a university.
"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the Real World." Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation,
talking of someone who has entered the Real World is not unlike
speaking of a deceased person. It is also noteworthy that on the
campus of Cambridge University in England, there is a gaily-painted
lamp-post which bears the label `REALITY CHECKPOINT'. It marks the
boundary between university and the Real World; check your notions
of reality before passing. This joke is funnier because the
Cambridge `campus' is actually coextensive with the center of
Cambridge town. See also {fear and loathing}, {mundane}, and
{uninteresting}.

:reality check: /n./ 1. The simplest kind of test of software
or hardware; doing the equivalent of asking it what 2 + 2 is
and seeing if you get 4. The software equivalent of a {smoke
test}. 2. The act of letting a {real user} try out prototype
software. Compare {sanity check}.

:reaper: /n./ A {prowler} that {GFR}s files. A file
removed in this way is said to have been `reaped'.

:rectangle slinger: /n./ See {polygon pusher}.

:recursion: /n./ See {recursion}. See also {tail
recursion}.

:recursive acronym:: /n./ A hackish (and especially MIT)
tradition is to choose acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously
to themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations. The classic
examples were two MIT editors called EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS")
and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a
Scheme compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and
{GNU} (q.v., sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" -- and a
company with the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU
Support". See also {mung}, {EMACS}.

:Red Book: /n./ 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on {{PostScript}} ("PostScript Language Reference
Manual", Adobe Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN
0-201-10174-2, or the 1990 second edition ISBN 0-201-18127-4); the
others are known as the {Green Book}, the {Blue Book}, and
the {White Book} (sense 2). 2. Informal name for one of the 3
standard references on Smalltalk ("Smalltalk-80: The
Interactive Programming Environment" by Adele Goldberg
(Addison-Wesley, 1984; QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN 0-201-11372-4); this
too is associated with blue and green books). 3. Any of the 1984
standards issued by the CCITT eighth plenary assembly. These
include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group 1
through 4 fax standards. 4. The new version of the {Green Book}
(sense 4) -- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a ISO 9945-1 -- is (because of
the color and the fact that it is printed on A4 paper) known in the
USA as "the Ugly Red Book That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in
Europe as "the Ugly Red Book That's A Sensible Size". 5. The NSA
"Trusted Network Interpretation" companion to the {Orange
Book}. See also {{book titles}}.

:red wire: /n./ [IBM] Patch wires installed by programmers who have
no business mucking with the hardware. It is said that the only
thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a
{softy} with a soldering iron.... Compare {blue wire},
{yellow wire}, {purple wire}.

:regexp: /reg'eksp/ /n./ [Unix] (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')
1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular
expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by Unix
utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.
These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those
described under {glob}. For purposes of this lexicon, it is
sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character
sets using `^'; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic
character' with `[^A-Za-z]'. 2. Name of a well-known PD
regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered Usenetter
Henry Spencer <[email protected]>.

:register dancing: /n./ Many older processor architectures
suffer from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers. This
is especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their
generated code needs places to store temporaries for things like
intermediate values in expression evaluation. Some designs with
this problem, like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of
special-purpose registers that can be pressed into service,
providing suitable care is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects
on the state of the processor: while the special-purpose register
is being used to hold an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is
required in which the previous value of the register is saved and
then restored just before the official function (and value) of the
special-purpose register is again needed.

:reincarnation, cycle of: /n./ See {cycle of reincarnation}.

:reinvent the wheel: /v./ To design or implement a tool
equivalent to an existing one or part of one, with the implication
that doing so is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid
criticism. On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden
rollers, and some kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times
before you get them right. On the third hand, people reinventing
the wheel do tend to come up with the moral equivalent of a
trapezoid with an offset axle.

:religion of CHI: /ki:/ /n./ [Case Western Reserve
University] Yet another hackish parody religion (see also
{Church of the SubGenius}, {Discordianism}). In the mid-70s,
the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were
taught in Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and
run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named
CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever
the worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she
would recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN,
ARCCOS, ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five
functions in the appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the
special pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more
common /ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of
11:08's arrival was {considered harmful}.

:religious issues: /n./ 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.

:replicator: /n./ Any construct that acts to produce copies of
itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a
program (see {quine}, {worm}, {wabbit}, {fork bomb},
and {virus}), a pattern in a cellular automaton (see {life},
sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or {nanobot}. It is even
claimed by some that {{Unix}} and {C} are the symbiotic halves
of an extremely successful replicator; see {Unix conspiracy}.

:reply: /n./ See {followup}.

:restriction: /n./ A {bug} or design error that limits a
program's capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that
nobody can quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a
{feature}. Often used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make
it sound as though some crippling bogosity had been intended by the
designers all along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical
constraints of a nature no mere user could possibly comprehend
(these claims are almost invariably false).

Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a
quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a
power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1. If you impose a limit of
107 items in a list, everyone will know it is a random number -- on
the other hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason
(involving 0- or 1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less
{flamage} for it. Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are
always especially suspect.

:retcon: /ret'kon/ [short for `retroactive continuity',
from the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.comics] 1. /n./ The common
situation in pulp fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) 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. 2. /vt./ To write such a story about a
character
or fictitious object. "Byrne has retconned Superman's cape so
that it is no longer unbreakable." "Marvelman's old adventures
were retconned into synthetic dreams." "Swamp Thing was
retconned from a transformed person into a sentient vegetable."
"Darth Vader was retconned into Luke Skywalker's father in
"The Empire Strikes Back".

[This term is included because it is a good example of hackish
linguistic innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.
The word `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and
lose its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for
the record, it started here. --ESR]

[1993 update: some comics fans on the net now claim that retcon was
independently in use in comics fandom before rec.arts.comics.
In lexicography, nothing is ever simple. --ESR]

:RETI: /v./ Syn. {RTI}

:retrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ /n./ Refers to
emulations of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software,
or implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such
implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies,
written mostly for {hack value}, of more `serious' designs.
Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the
`pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)' program on V7 and other early Unix
versions, which would accept up to 80 characters of text argument
and display the corresponding pattern in {{punched card}} code.
Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have included the programming
language {INTERCAL}, a {JCL}-emulating shell for Unix, the
card-punch-emulating editor named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11
hardware emulators and RT-11 OS emulators written just to keep an
old, sourceless {Zork} binary running.

A tasty selection of retrocomputing programs are made available at
the Retrocomputing Museum, http://www.ccil.org/retro.

:return from the dead: /v./ To regain access to the net after a
long absence. Compare {person of no account}.

:RFC: /R-F-C/ /n./ [Request For Comment] One of a
long-established series of numbered Internet informational
documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and
freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Perhaps the single
most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet 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.

:RFE: /R-F-E/ /n./ 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement
(compare {RFC}). 2. [from `Radio Free Europe', Bellcore and
Sun] Radio Free Ethernet, a system (originated by Peter Langston)
for broadcasting audio among Sun SPARCstations over the ethernet.

:rib site: /n./ [by analogy with {backbone site}] A machine
that has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and
serves as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party
traffic in email and Usenet news. Compare {leaf site},
{backbone site}.

:rice box: /n./ [from ham radio slang] Any Asian-made commodity
computer, esp. an 80x86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible
ISA or EISA-bus standards.

:Right Thing: /n./ That which is *compellingly* the
correct or appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc. Often
capitalized, always emphasized in speech as though capitalized.
Use of this term often implies that in fact reasonable people may
disagree. "What's the right thing for LISP to do when it sees
`(mod a 0)'? Should it return `a', or give a divide-by-0
error?" Oppose {Wrong Thing}.

:RL: // /n./ [MUD community] Real Life. "Firiss laughs in
RL" means that Firiss's player is laughing. Oppose {VR}.

:roach: /vt./ [Bell Labs] To destroy, esp. of a data
structure. Hardware gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets
roached.

:robot: /n./ [IRC, MUD] An {IRC} or {MUD} user who is
actually a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some
useful service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent
random users from adopting {nick}s already claimed by others,
and MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be
delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are
`annoybots', such as KissServ, which perform no useful function
except to send cute messages to other people. Service robots are
less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the `Julia' robot
active in 1990--91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test
experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen
minutes of conversation.

:robust: /adj./ Said of a system that has demonstrated an
ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional
inputs and situations in a given environment. One step below
{bulletproof}. Carries the additional connotation of elegance
in addition to just careful attention to detail. Compare
{smart}, oppose {brittle}.