2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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cycle
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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1. n. The basic unit of computation. What every hacker wants more of (noted
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hacker Bill Gosper described himself as a junkie ). One can describe an
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instruction as taking so many clock s. Often the computer can access its
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memory once on every clock , and so one speaks also of memory s. These are
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technical meanings of . The jargon meaning comes from the observation that
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there are only so many s per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
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s get divided up among the users. The more s the computer spends working on
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your program rather than someone else's, the faster your program will run.
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That's why every hacker wants more s: so he can spend less time waiting for
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the computer to respond. 2. By extension, a notional unit of human thought
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power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical hacker's
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think time. I refused to get involved with the Rubik's Cube back when it was
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big. Knew I'd burn too many s on it if I let myself. 3. vt. Syn. bounce
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(sense 4), from the phrase power. Cycle the machine again, that serial
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port's still hung.
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