2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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fool
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually
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reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be
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persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is not generally used in its other
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senses, i.e., to describe a person with a native incapacity to reason
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correctly, or a clown. Indeed, in hackish experience many fools are capable
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of reasoning all too effectively in executing their errors. See also cretin
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, loser , fool file. The Algol 68-R compiler used to initialize its storage
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to the character string F00LF00LF00LF00L... because as a pointer or as a
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floating point number it caused a crash, and as an integer or a character
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string it was very recognizable in a dump. Sadly, one day a very senior
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professor at Nottingham University wrote a program that called him a fool.
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He proceeded to demonstrate the correctness of this assertion by lobbying
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the university (not quite successfully) to forbid the use of Algol on its
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computers. See also DEADBEEF.
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