2014-04-26 14:52:28 +00:00
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go flatline
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2014-04-26 15:54:15 +00:00
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v. [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon brain-death]
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(also adjectival flatlined ). 1. To die , terminate, or fail, esp.
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irreversibly. In hacker parlance, this is used of machines only, human death
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being considered somewhat too serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about.
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2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled
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shutdown. You can suffer file damage if you shut down Unix but power off
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before the system has gone flatline. 3. Of a video tube, to fail by losing
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vertical scan, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line bisecting the
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screen.
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