Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/bashrc/TheJargonFile

entries/Amiga Persecution Complex.txt

@@ -5,10 +5,9 @@ those who believe that the marginality of their preferred machine is the
 result of some kind of industry-wide conspiracy (for without a conspiracy of
 some kind, the eminent superiority of their beloved shining jewel of a
 platform would obviously win over all, market pressures be damned!) Those
-afflicted are prone to engaging in flame war s and calling for boycotts and
+afflicted are prone to engaging in flame wars and calling for boycotts and
 mailbombings. Amiga Persecution Complex is by no means limited to Amiga
 users; NeXT, NeWS , OS/2 , Macintosh, LISP , and GNU users are also common
 victims. Linux users used to display symptoms very frequently before Linux
 started winning; some still do. See also newbie , troll , holy wars , weenie
 , Get a life!.
-

entries/CDA.txt

@@ -14,9 +14,8 @@ which intended to outlaw discussion of abortion on the Internet. To say that
 this direct attack on First Amendment free-speech rights was not well
 received on the Internet would be putting it mildly. A firestorm of protest
 followed, including a February 29th 1996 mass demonstration by thousands of
-netters who turned their home page s black for 48 hours. Several
+netters who turned their home pages black for 48 hours. Several
 civil-rights groups and computing/telecommunications companies mounted a
 constitutional challenge. The CDA was demolished by a strongly-worded
 decision handed down in 8th-circuit Federal court and subsequently affirmed
 by the U.S. Supreme Court on 26 June 1997 ( White Thursday ). See also Exon.
-

entries/COBOL.txt

@@ -1,13 +1,12 @@
 COBOL
 
 /kohbol/ , n. [COmmon Business-Oriented Language] (Synonymous with evil. ) A
-weak, verbose, and flabby language used by code grinder s to do boring
+weak, verbose, and flabby language used by code grinders to do boring
 mindless things on dinosaur mainframes. Hackers believe that all COBOL
-programmers are suit s or code grinder s, and no self-respecting hacker will
+programmers are suits or code grinder s, and no self-respecting hacker will
 ever admit to having learned the language. Its very name is seldom uttered
 without ritual expressions of disgust or horror. One popular one is Edsger
 W. Dijkstra's famous observation that The use of COBOL cripples the mind;
 its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense. (from
 Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective ) See also fear and
 loathing , software rot.
-

entries/DDT.txt

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ known pesticide, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane C 14 H 9 Cl 5 should be
 minimal since each attacks a different, and apparently mutually exclusive,
 class of bugs. (The tape referred to was, incidentally, not magnetic but
 paper.) Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the
-handbook after the suit s took over and DEC became much more businesslike.
+handbook after the suits took over and DEC became much more businesslike.
 The history above is known to many old-time hackers. But there's more: Peter
 Samson, compiler of the original TMRC lexicon, reports that he named DDT
 after a similar tool on the TX-0 computer, the direct ancestor of the PDP-1
@@ -30,4 +30,3 @@ built at MIT's Lincoln Lab in 1957. The debugger on that ground-breaking
 machine (the first transistorized computer) rejoiced in the name FLIT
 (FLexowriter Interrogation Tape). Flit was for many years the trade-name of
 a popular insecticide.
-

entries/DEADBEEF.txt

@@ -3,8 +3,7 @@ DEADBEEF
 /dedbeef/ , n. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for freshly allocated
 memory under a number of IBM environments, including the RS/6000. Some
 modern debugging tools deliberately fill freed memory with this value as a
-way of converting heisenbug s into Bohr bug s. As in Your program is
+way of converting heisenbugs into Bohr bug s. As in Your program is
 DEADBEEF (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory); if you start from an
 odd half-word boundary, of course, you have BEEFDEAD. See also the anecdote
 under fool and dead beef attack.
-

entries/DED.txt

@@ -2,6 +2,5 @@ DED
 
 /DED/ , n. Dark-Emitting Diode (that is, a burned-out LED). Compare SED ,
 LER , write-only memory. In the early 1970s both Signetics and Texas
-instruments released DED spec sheets as AFJ s (suggested uses included as a
+instruments released DED spec sheets as AFJs (suggested uses included as a
 power-off indicator ).
-

entries/Datamation.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Datamation
 
-/day`t@maysh@n/ , n. A magazine that many hackers assume all suit s read.
+/day`t@maysh@n/ , n. A magazine that many hackers assume all suits read.
 Used to question an unbelieved quote, as in Did you read that in
 Datamation?. It used to publish something hackishly funny every once in a
 while, like the original paper on COME FROM in 1973, and Ed Post's Real
@@ -9,4 +9,3 @@ it was much more exclusively suit -oriented and boring. Following a change
 of editorship in 1994, Datamation briefly tried for more the technical
 content and irreverent humor that marked its early days, but this did not
 last.
-

entries/Doom, X of.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 Doom, X of
 
 A construction similar to Death, X of , but derived rather from the Cracks
-of Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The connotations are
+of Doom in J.R.R. Tolkiens Lord of the Rings trilogy. The connotations are
 slightly different; a Foo of Death is mainly being held up to ridicule, but
 one would have to take a Foo of Doom a bit more seriously.
-

entries/EMACS.txt

@@ -20,6 +20,5 @@ 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 (from when that was a lot of
-core ), Eventually malloc () s All Computer Storage , and EMACS Makes A
+core ), Eventually malloc()s All Computer Storage , and EMACS Makes A
 Computer Slow (see recursive acronym ). See also vi.
-

entries/Exploder.txt

@@ -3,6 +3,5 @@ Exploder
 n. Used within Microsoft to refer to the Windows Explorer, the web-interface
 component of Windows 95 and WinNT 4. Our spies report that most of the heavy
 guns at MS came from a Unix background and use command line utilities; even
-they are scornful of the over-gingerbreaded WIMP environment s that they
+they are scornful of the over-gingerbreaded WIMP environments that they
 have been called upon to create.
-

entries/FOD.txt

@@ -2,11 +2,10 @@ FOD
 
 /fod/ , v. [Abbreviation for Finger of Death , originally a spell-name from
 fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for
-other people. From MUD s where the wizard command FOD player results in the
+other people. From MUDs where the wizard command FOD player results in the
 immediate and total death of player , usually as punishment for obnoxious
 behavior. This usage migrated to other circumstances, such as I'm going to
 fod the process that is burning all the cycles. In aviation, FOD means
 Foreign Object Damage, e.g., what happens when a jet engine sucks up a rock
 on the runway or a bird in flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt
 description of what this generally does to the engine.
-

entries/GIGO.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 GIGO
 
-/gi:goh/ 1. Garbage In, Garbage Out usually said in response to luser s who
+/gi:goh/ 1. Garbage In, Garbage Out usually said in response to lusers who
 complain that a program didn't do the right thing when given imperfect input
 or otherwise mistreated in some way. Also commonly used to describe failures
 in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data. 2.
-

entries/GNU.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 GNU
 
-/gnoo/ , not , /noo/ 1. [acronym: GNU s Not Unix!', see recursive acronym ]
+/gnoo/ , not , /noo/ 1. [acronym: GNUs Not Unix!', see recursive acronym ]
 A Unix-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed
 by Richard Stallman. GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools designed
 for this project, have become very popular in hackerdom and elsewhere. The
@@ -15,4 +15,3 @@ Foundation's imprimatur. The GNU project has a web page at
 http://www.gnu.org/. See EMACS , copyleft , General Public Virus , Linux. 2.
 Noted Unix hacker John Gilmore gnu@toad.com }, founder of Usenet's anarchic
 alt.* hierarchy.
-

entries/General Public Virus.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 General Public Virus
 
 n. Pejorative name for some versions of the GNU project copyleft or General
-Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or app s incorporating
+Public License (GPL), which requires that any tools or apps incorporating
 copylefted code must be source-distributed on the same anti-proprietary
 terms as GNU stuff. Thus it is alleged that the copyleft infects software
 generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software that
@@ -13,4 +13,3 @@ Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the copyleft language is
 boobytrapped has caused many developers to avoid using GNU tools and the
 GPL. Changes in the language of the version 2.0 GPL did not eliminate this
 problem.
-

entries/Internet.txt

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ communication between humans and linked up in steadily increasing numbers,
 connecting together a quirky mix of academics, techies, hippies, SF fans,
 hackers, and anarchists. The roots of this lexicon lie in those early years.
 Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many ways. The typical
-machine/OS combination moved from DEC PDP-10 s and PDP-20 s, running TOPS-10
+machine/OS combination moved from DEC PDP-10s and PDP-20 s, running TOPS-10
 and TOPS-20 , to PDP-11s and VAX en and Suns running Unix , and in the 1990s
 to Unix on Intel microcomputers. The Internet's protocols grew more capable,
 most notably in the move from NCP/IP to TCP/IP in 1982 and the
@@ -43,4 +43,3 @@ networking after 1980. By 1996 it had become a commonplace even in
 mainstream media to predict that a globally-extended Internet would become
 the key unifying communications technology of the next century. See also the
 network.
-

entries/Iron Age.txt

@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 Iron Age
 
 n. In the history of computing, 1961-1971 the formative era of commercial
-mainframe technology, when ferrite-core dinosaur s ruled the earth. The Iron
+mainframe technology, when ferrite-core dinosaurs ruled the earth. The Iron
 Age began, ironically enough, with the delivery of the first minicomputer
 (the PDP-1) and ended with the introduction of the first commercial
 microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971. See also Stone Age ; compare elder
 days.
-

entries/LART.txt

@@ -10,6 +10,5 @@ knobkerries, automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and tactical nukes all have
 their partisans. Compare clue-by-four. 2. v. To use a LART. Some would add
 in malice , but some sysadmins do prefer to gently lart their users as a
 first (and sometimes final) warning. 3. interj. Calling for one's LART, much
-as a surgeon might call Scalpel!. 4. interj. [rare] Used in flame s as a
+as a surgeon might call Scalpel!. 4. interj. [rare] Used in flames as a
 rebuke.
-

entries/MIPS.txt

@@ -6,11 +6,10 @@ rendered by hackers as Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed or in other
 unflattering ways, such as Meaningless Information Provided by Salesmen.
 This joke expresses an attitude nearly universal among hackers about the
 value of most benchmark claims, said attitude being one of the great
-cultural divides between hackers and marketroid s (see also BogoMIPS ). The
+cultural divides between hackers and marketroids (see also BogoMIPS ). The
 singular is sometimes 1 MIP even though this is clearly etymologically
 wrong. See also KIPS and GIPS. 2. Computers, especially large computers,
 considered abstractly as sources of computron s. This is just a workstation;
 the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement. 3. The corporate name of a
 particular RISC-chip company,  later acquired by SGI. 4. Acronym for
 Meaningless Information per Second (a joke, prob.: from sense 1).
-

entries/OS-2.txt

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it right the second time,
 either. Often called Half-an-OS. Mentioning it is usually good for a cheap
 laugh among hackers the design was so baroque , and the implementation of
 1.x so bad, that three years after introduction you could still count the
-major app s shipping for it on the fingers of two hands in unary. The 2.x
+major apps shipping for it on the fingers of two hands in unary. The 2.x
 versions were said to have improved somewhat, and informed hackers rated
 them superior to Microsoft Windows (an endorsement which, however, could
 easily be construed as damning with faint praise). In the mid-1990s IBM put
@@ -13,4 +13,3 @@ OS/2 on life support, refraining from killing it outright purely for
 internal political reasons; by 1999 the success of Linux had effectively
 ended any possibility of a renaissance. See monstrosity , cretinous ,
 second-system effect.
-

entries/PDP-11.txt

@@ -2,10 +2,9 @@ PDP-11
 
 Possibly the single most successful minicomputer design in history, a
 favorite of hackers for many years, and the first major Unix machine, The
-first s (the 11/15 and 11/20) shipped in 1970 from DEC ; the last (11/93 and
+firsts (the 11/15 and 11/20) shipped in 1970 from DEC ; the last (11/93 and
 11/94) in 1990. Along the way, the 11 gave birth to the VAX , strongly
 influenced the design of microprocessors such as the Motorola 6800 and Intel
 386, and left a permanent imprint on the C language (which has an odd
 preference for octal embedded in its syntax because of the way  machine
 instructions were formatted). There is a history site.
-

entries/RTFM.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 RTFM
 
 /RTFM/ , imp. [Unix] Abbreviation for Read The Fucking Manual. 1. Used by
-guru s to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. Compare
+gurus to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. Compare
 Don't do that then!. 2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you
 aren't just asking out of randomness. No, I can't figure out how to
 interface Unix to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM. Unlike sense 1, this use
 is considered polite. See also FM , RTFAQ , RTFB , RTFS , STFW , RTM , all
 of which mutated from RTFM, and compare UTSL.
-

entries/SNAFU principle.txt

@@ -1,31 +1,33 @@
 SNAFU principle
 
-/snafoo prinsipl/ , n. [from a 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: Inthebeginningwastheplan, andthenthespecification;
-Andtheplanwaswithoutform, andthespecificationwasvoid. Anddarkness
-wasonthefacesoftheimplementorsthereof; Andtheyspakeuntotheirleader, saying:
-Itisacrockofshit, andsmellsasofasewer. Andtheleadertookpityonthem,
-andspoketotheprojectleader: Itisacrockofexcrement,
-andnonemayabidetheodorthereof. Andtheprojectleader
-spakeuntohissectionhead,saying: Itisacontainerofexcrement,
-anditisverystrong,suchthatnonemayabideit.
-Thesectionheadthenhurriedtohisdepartmentmanager, andinformedhimthus:
-Itisavesseloffertilizer, andnonemayabideitsstrength.
-Thedepartmentmanagercarriedthesewords tohisgeneralmanager, andspokeuntohim
-saying: Itcontaineththatwhichaideththegrowthofplants, anditisverystrong.
-Andsoitwasthatthegeneralmanagerrejoiced
-anddeliveredthegoodnewsuntotheVicePresident. Itpromotethgrowth,
-anditisverypowerful. TheVicePresidentrushedtothePresident'sside,
-andjoyouslyexclaimed: Thispowerfulnewsoftwareproduct
-willpromotethegrowthofthecompany! AndthePresidentlookedupontheproduct,
-andsawthatitwasverygood. After the subsequent and inevitable disaster, the
-suit s protect themselves by saying I was misinformed! , and the
-implementors are demoted or fired. Compare Conway's Law.
+/snafoo prinsipl/ , n. [from a 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 verily: 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 and inevitable disaster, the suits protect
+themselves by saying I was misinformed!, and the implementors are
+demoted or fired. Compare Conway's Law.

entries/Stupids.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 Stupids
 
-n. Term used by samurai for the suit s who employ them; succinctly expresses
+n. Term used by samurai for the suits who employ them; succinctly expresses
 an attitude at least as common, though usually better disguised, among other
 subcultures of hackers. There may be intended reference here to an SF story
 originally published in 1952 but much anthologized since, Mark Clifton's
 Star, Bright. In it, a super-genius child classifies humans into a very few
 Brights like herself, a huge majority of Stupids , and a minority of Tweens
 , the merely ordinary geniuses.
-

entries/UTSL.txt

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Kenobi's Use the Force, Luke! in Star Wars ) analogous to RTFS (sense 1),
 but more polite. This is a common way of suggesting that someone would be
 better off reading the source code that supports whatever feature is causing
 confusion, rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals,
-or broadcasting questions on Usenet that haven't attracted wizard s to
+or broadcasting questions on Usenet that haven't attracted wizards to
 answer them. Once upon a time in elder days , everyone running Unix had
 source. After 1978, AT T's policy tightened up, so this objurgation was in
 theory appropriately directed only at associates of some outfit with a Unix
@@ -16,4 +16,3 @@ become widely enough distributed that anyone can read source legally. The
 most widely distributed is certainly Linux, with variants of the NET/2 and
 4.4BSD distributions running second. Cheap commercial Unixes with source
 such as BSD/OS are accelerating this trend.
-

entries/Usenet.txt

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ implemented in 1979--1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and
 Steve Daniel at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, it has
 swiftly grown to become international in scope and is now probably the
 largest decentralized information utility in existence. As of late 2002, it
-hosts over 100,000 newsgroup s and an unguessably huge volume of new
+hosts over 100,000 newsgroups and an unguessably huge volume of new
 technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and flamage every day (and
 that leaves out the graphics...). By the year the Internet hit the
 mainstream (1994) the original UUCP transport for Usenet was fading out of
@@ -15,4 +15,3 @@ use almost all Usenet connections were over Internet links. A lot of newbies
 and journalists began to refer to Internet newsgroups as though Usenet was
 and always had been just another Internet service. This ignorance greatly
 annoys experienced Usenetters.
-

entries/VAX.txt

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ VAX
 /vaks/ , n. 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most successful
 minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate
 ancestor, the PDP-11. Between its release in 1978 and its eclipse by killer
-micro s after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favorite machine
+micros after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favorite machine
 of them all, esp. after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD Unix (see BSD ).
 Especially noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction
 set an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution. It is worth
@@ -25,4 +25,3 @@ the slogan a sufficiently good idea to copy it. Several British hackers
 report that VAX's promotions used it in 1986--1987, and we have one report
 from a New Zealander that the infamous slogan surfaced there in TV ads for
 the product in 1992.
-

entries/Wizard Book.txt

@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ Wizard Book
 n. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (Hal Abelson, Jerry
 Sussman and Julie Sussman; MIT Press, 1984, 1996; ISBN 0-262-01153-0), an
 excellent computer science text used in introductory courses at MIT. So
-called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the bible s of the
+called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the bibles of the
 LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the Purple Book. Now
 available on the http://mitpress.mit.
-

entries/XEROX PARC.txt

@@ -9,8 +9,7 @@ machines anticipated the powerful personal computers of the 1980s by a
 decade. Sadly, the prophets at PARC were without honor in their own company,
 so much so that it became a standard joke to describe PARC as a place that
 specialized in developing brilliant ideas for everyone else. The stunning
-shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level suit s has been well
+shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level suits has been well
 anatomized in Fumbling The Future: How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, the
 First Personal Computer by Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William
 Morrow Co., 1988, ISBN 0-688-09511-9).
-

entries/abbreviation.txt

@@ -9,10 +9,10 @@ Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) Usenet See the Usenet
 entry WPI Worcester Polytechnic Institute, site of a very active community
 of PDP-10 hackers during the 1970s WWW The World-Wide-Web. XEROX PARC
 XEROX's Palo Alto Research Center, site of much pioneering research in user
-interface design and networking Yale Yale University Other etymology s such
+interface design and networking Yale Yale University Other etymologys such
 as Unix and PDP-10 refer to technical cultures surrounding specific
 operating systems, processors, or other environments. The fact that a term
-is labelled with any one of these s does not necessarily mean its use is
+is labelled with any one of theses does not necessarily mean its use is
 confined to that culture. In particular, many terms labelled MIT and
 Stanford are in quite general use. We have tried to give some indication of
 the distribution of speakers in the usage notes; however, a number of
@@ -22,4 +22,3 @@ entries are marked [proposed]. These are usually generalizations suggested
 by editors or Usenet respondents in the process of commenting on previous
 definitions of those entries. These are not represented as established
 jargon. Prev  Up  Next Chapter10.Pronunciation Guide Home Chapter12.
-

entries/app store.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+App Store
+
+n. An App Store, sometimes also known as a Software Center or Software
+Manager, is a graphical user interface which allows the user to
+conveniently download and install new applications onto their computer
+or mobile device. App Stores can be very convenient but are often
+proprietary and may enable a particular company to control and censor
+what types of application non-technical users may run on their systems
+- typically in accordance with an American west coast morality. App
+stores have sometimes been described as a type of MITM attack on
+software distribution, allowing companies to insert themselves as
+rent-seeking trolls on a virtual toll bridge between the users and
+producers of software.

entries/barfmail.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 barfmail
 
-n. Multiple bounce message s accumulating to the level of serious annoyance,
+n. Multiple bounce messages accumulating to the level of serious annoyance,
 or worse. The sort of thing that happens when an inter-network mail gateway
 goes down or wonky.
-

entries/bixie.txt

@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 bixie
 
-/biksee/ , n. Variant emoticon s used BIX (the BIX Information eXchange);
+/biksee/ , n. Variant emoticons used BIX (the BIX Information eXchange);
 the term survived the demise of BIX itself. The most common ( smiley ) bixie
 is @_@ , representing two cartoon eyes and a mouth. These were originally
 invented in an SF fanzine called APA-L and imported to BIX by one of the
 earliest users.
-

entries/blue goo.txt

@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 blue goo
 
-n. Term for police nanobot s intended to prevent gray goo , denature
+n. Term for police nanobots intended to prevent gray goo , denature
 hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put ozone back into the stratosphere,
 prevent halitosis, and promote truth, justice, and the American way, etc.
 The term Blue Goo can be found in Dr. Seuss's Fox In Socks to refer to a
 substance much like bubblegum. Would you like to chew blue goo, sir?. See
 nanotechnology.
-

entries/bomb.txt

@@ -3,9 +3,8 @@ bomb
 1. v. General synonym for crash (sense 1) except that it is not used as a
 noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. Don't run Empire with less than
 32K stack, it'll.  2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a Unix
-panic or Amiga guru meditation , in which icons of little black-powder s or
+panic or Amiga guru meditation , in which icons of little black-powders or
 mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died. On the
 Mac, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal)
 number indicating what went wrong, similar to the Amiga guru meditation
 number. MS-DOS machines tend to get locked up in this situation.
-

entries/bot.txt

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ bot
 n [common on IRC, MUD and among gamers; from robot ] 1. 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
+adopting nicks 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 bots are less common
@@ -18,4 +18,3 @@ for a web spider. The file for controlling spider behavior on your site is
 officially the Robots Exclusion File and its URL is http:// somehost
 /robots.txt ) Note that bots in all senses were robots when the terms first
 appeared in the early 1990s, but the shortened form is now habitual.
-

entries/buffer overflow.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 buffer overflow
 
 n. What happens when you try to stuff more data into a buffer (holding area)
-than it can handle. This problem is commonly exploited by cracker s to get
+than it can handle. This problem is commonly exploited by crackers to get
 arbitrary commands executed by a program running with root permissions. This
 may be due to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and
 consuming processes (see overrun and firehose syndrome ), or because the
@@ -14,4 +14,3 @@ accepting data when the buffer is full up. The term is used of and by humans
 in a metaphorical sense. What time did I agree to meet you? My buffer must
 have overflowed. Or If I answer that phone my buffer is going to overflow.
 See also spam , overrun screw.
-

entries/bug-compatible.txt

@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 bug-compatible
 
 adj. [common] Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised
-by a requirement to be compatible with fossil s or misfeature s in other
+by a requirement to be compatible with fossils or misfeatures in other
 programs or (esp.) previous releases of itself. MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path
 separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option
 character in 1.0.
-

entries/bug-of-the-month club.txt

@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ n. [from book-of-the-month club , a time-honored mail-order-marketing
 technique in the U.S.] A mythical club which users of sendmail (8) (the Unix
 mail daemon) belong to; this was coined on the Usenet newsgroup
 comp.security.unix at a time when sendmail security holes, which allowed
-outside cracker s access to the system, were being uncovered at an alarming
+outside crackers access to the system, were being uncovered at an alarming
 rate, forcing sysadmins to update very often. Also, more completely, fatal
 security bug-of-the-month club. See also kernel-of-the-week club.
-

entries/code.txt

@@ -5,11 +5,10 @@ translation by a compiler or assembler. Often used in opposition to data ,
 which is the stuff that  operates on. Among hackers this is a mass noun, as
 in How much  does it take to do a bubble sort ? , or The  is loaded at the
 high end of RAM. Among scientific programmers it is sometimes a count noun
-equilvalent to program ; thus they may speak of s in the plural. Anyone
-referring to software as the software s is probably a newbie or a suit. 2.
+equilvalent to program ; thus they may speak of codes in the plural. Anyone
+referring to software as the softwares is probably a newbie or a suit. 2.
 v. To write. In this sense, always refers to source  rather than compiled. I
 d an Emacs clone in two hours! This verb is a bit of a cultural marker
 associated with the Unix and minicomputer traditions (and lately Linux);
 people within that culture prefer v.  to v. program whereas outside it the
 reverse is normally true.
-

entries/compact.txt

@@ -6,6 +6,5 @@ from the design can be used with greater facility and fewer errors than an
 equivalent tool that is not compact. Compactness does not imply triviality
 or lack of power; for example, C is compact and FORTRAN is not, but C is
 more powerful than FORTRAN. Designs become non-compact through accreting
-feature s and cruft that don't merge cleanly into the overall design scheme
+features and cruft that don't merge cleanly into the overall design scheme
 (thus, some fans of Classic C maintain that ANSI C is no longer compact).
-

entries/cookie file.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 cookie file
 
-n. A collection of fortune cookie s in a format that facilitates retrieval
+n. A collection of fortune cookies in a format that facilitates retrieval
 by a fortune program. There are several different cookie files in public
 distribution, and site admins often assemble their own from various sources
 including this lexicon.
-

entries/crash.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ crash
 
 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the system
 (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk drives (the term originally described
-what happens when the air gap of a hard disk collapses). Three luser s lost
+what happens when the air gap of a hard disk collapses). Three lusers lost
 their files in last night's disk . A disk  that involves the read/write
 heads dropping onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may
 also be referred to as a head  , whereas the term system  usually, though
@@ -12,4 +12,3 @@ See down. Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the  (usually a
 person or a program, or both). Those idiots playing SPACEWAR ed the system.
 3. vi. Sometimes said of people hitting the sack after a long hacking run ;
 see gronk out.
-

entries/creeping featurism.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 creeping featurism
 
 /kreeping feechrizm/ , n. [common] 1. Describes a systematic tendency to
-load more chrome and feature s onto systems at the expense of whatever
+load more chrome and features onto systems at the expense of whatever
 elegance they may have possessed when originally designed. See also feeping
 creaturism. You know, the main problem with BSD Unix has always been
 creeping featurism. 2. More generally, the tendency for anything complicated
@@ -18,4 +18,3 @@ describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the federal
 government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar phenomenon sometimes
 afflicts conscious redesigns; see second-system effect. See also creeping
 elegance.
-

entries/crufty.txt

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ crufty
 ] 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The canonical example is This is
 standard old crufty DEC software. In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin
 of crufty holds that was originally a mutation of crusty applied to DEC
-software so old that the s characters were tall and skinny, looking more
+software so old that thes characters were tall and skinny, looking more
 like f characters. 2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch, often with
 encrusted junk. Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut butter and catsup.
 3. Generally unpleasant. 4. (sometimes spelled cruftie ) n. A small crufty
@@ -17,4 +17,3 @@ it's said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII. To
 this day (early 1993) the windows appear to be full of random techno-junk.
 MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the term as a knock on the
 competition.
-

entries/cycle.txt

@@ -5,14 +5,13 @@ hacker Bill Gosper described himself as a  junkie ). One can describe an
 instruction as taking so many clock  s. Often the computer can access its
 memory once on every clock , and so one speaks also of memory  s. These are
 technical meanings of . The jargon meaning comes from the observation that
-there are only so many s per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
-s get divided up among the users. The more  s the computer spends working on
+there are only so manys per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
+s get divided up among the users. The more cycles the computer spends working on
 your program rather than someone else's, the faster your program will run.
 That's why every hacker wants more s: so he can spend less time waiting for
 the computer to respond. 2. By extension, a notional unit of human thought
 power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical hacker's
 think time. I refused to get involved with the Rubik's Cube back when it was
-big. Knew I'd burn too many s on it if I let myself. 3. vt. Syn. bounce
+big. Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if I let myself. 3. vt. Syn. bounce
 (sense 4), from the phrase  power. Cycle the machine again, that serial
 port's still hung.
-

entries/demo mode.txt

@@ -3,8 +3,7 @@ demo mode
 n. 1. [Sun] The state of being heads down in order to finish code in time
 for a demo , usually due yesterday. 2. A mode in which video games sit by
 themselves running through a portion of the game, also known as attract
-mode. Some serious app s have a demo mode they use as a screen saver, or may
+mode. Some serious apps have a demo mode they use as a screen saver, or may
 go through a demo mode on startup (for example, the Microsoft Windows
 opening screen which lets you impress your neighbors without actually having
 to put up with Microsloth Windows ).
-

entries/demo.txt

@@ -10,9 +10,8 @@ demonstration purposes as long as the operator uses exactly the right
 commands and skirts its numerous bugs, deficiencies, and unimplemented
 portions, or to a special version of a program (frequently with some
 features crippled) which is distributed at little or no cost to the user for
-enticement purposes. 4. [ demoscene ] A sequence of demoeffect s (usually)
+enticement purposes. 4. [ demoscene ] A sequence of demoeffects (usually)
 combined with self-composed music and hand-drawn ( pixelated ) graphics.
 These days (1997) usually built to attend a compo. Often called eurodemos
 outside Europe, as most of the demoscene activity seems to have gathered in
 northern Europe and especially Scandinavia. See also intro , dentro.
-

entries/demoscene.txt

@@ -4,15 +4,15 @@ demoscene
 primarily in Scandinavia and northern Europe. Demoscene folklore recounts
 that when old-time warez d00dz cracked some piece of software they often
 added an advertisement in the beginning, usually containing colorful display
-hack s with greetings to other cracking groups. The demoscene was born among
+hacks with greetings to other cracking groups. The demoscene was born among
 people who decided building these display hacks is more interesting than
 hacking or anyway safer. Around 1990 there began to be very serious police
 pressure on cracking groups, including raids with SWAT teams crashing into
 bedrooms to confiscate computers. Whether in response to this or for
 esthetic reasons, crackers of that period began to build self-contained
 display hacks of considerable elaboration and beauty (within the culture
-such a hack is called a demo ). As more of these demogroup s emerged, they
-started to have compo s at copying parties (see copyparty ), which later
+such a hack is called a demo ). As more of these demogroups emerged, they
+started to have compos at copying parties (see copyparty ), which later
 evolved to standalone events (see demoparty ). The demoscene has retained
 some traits from the warez d00dz , including their style of handles and
 group names and some of their jargon. Traditionally demos were written in
@@ -28,4 +28,3 @@ bigger demoparties. Older demosceners frown at this, but the majority think
 it's a good direction. Many demosceners end up working in the computer game
 industry. Demoscene resource pages are available at
 http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained/ and http://www.scene.org/.
-

entries/elephantine.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 elephantine
 
-adj. Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous hog s (owing
+adj. Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous hogs (owing
 perhaps to poor design founded on brute force and ignorance ) and
 exceedingly hairy in source form. An elephantine program may be functional
 and even friendly, but (as in the old joke about being in bed with an
@@ -10,4 +10,3 @@ trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the mention of
 the offending program. Usage: semi-humorous. Compare has the elephant nature
 and the somewhat more pejorative monstrosity. See also second-system effect
 and baroque.
-

entries/epoch.txt

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp values.
 Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970; under
 VMS, it's 00:00:00 of November 17, 1858 (base date of the U.S. Naval
 Observatory's ephemerides); on a Macintosh, it's the midnight beginning
-January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds or tick s past the epoch.
+January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds or ticks past the epoch.
 Weird problems may ensue when the clock wraps around (see wrap around ),
 which is not necessarily a rare event; on systems counting 10 ticks per
 second, a signed 32-bit count of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The
@@ -15,4 +15,3 @@ word lengths don't increase by then. See also wall time. Microsoft Windows,
 on the other hand, has an epoch problem every 49.7 days but this is seldom
 noticed as Windows is almost incapable of staying up continuously for that
 long.
-

entries/eye candy.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 eye candy
 
 /i: kand`ee/ , n. [from mainstream slang ear candy ] A display of some sort
-that's presented to luser s to keep them distracted while the program
+that's presented to lusers to keep them distracted while the program
 performs necessary background tasks. Give 'em some eye candy while the
-back-end slurp s that BLOB into core. Reported as mainstream usage among
+back-end slurps that BLOB into core. Reported as mainstream usage among
 players of graphics-heavy computer games. We're also told this term is
 mainstream slang for soft pornography, but that sense does not appear to be
 live among hackers.
-

entries/fan.txt

@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 fan
 
 n. Without qualification, indicates a fan of science fiction, especially one
-who goes to con s and tends to hang out with other fans. Many hackers are
+who goes to cons and tends to hang out with other fans. Many hackers are
 fans, so this term has been imported from fannish slang; however, unlike
 much fannish slang it is recognized by most non-fannish hackers. Among SF
 fans the plural is correctly fen , but this usage is not automatic to
 hackers. Laura reads the stuff occasionally but isn't really a fan.
-

entries/foo.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ foo
 
 /foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very generally as a
 sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files (esp. scratch
-files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variable s used in
+files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in
 syntax examples. See also bar , baz , qux , quux , garply , waldo , fred ,
 plugh , xyzzy , thud. When foo is used in connection with bar it has
 generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR ( Fucked Up Beyond
@@ -76,4 +76,3 @@ would find it difficult to resist elaborating a joke like that, and it is
 not likely 1959's were any less susceptible. Almost the entire staff of what
 later became the MIT AI Lab was involved with TMRC, and the word spread from
 there.
-

entries/fool file.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 fool file
 
 n. [Usenet] A notional repository of all the most dramatically and abysmally
-stupid utterances ever. An entire subgenre of sig block s consists of the
+stupid utterances ever. An entire subgenre of sig blocks consists of the
 header From the fool file: followed by some quote the poster wishes to
 represent as an immortal gem of dimwittery; for this usage to be really
 effective, the quote has to be so obviously wrong as to be laughable. More
 than one Usenetter has achieved an unwanted notoriety by being quoted in
 this way.
-

entries/fork.txt

@@ -11,5 +11,4 @@ that largely assembles pieces than can and will be used in other
 distributions without conflict. Forking is uncommon; in fact, it is so
 uncommon that individual instances loom large in hacker folklore. Notable in
 this class were the Emacs/XEmacs , the GCC/EGCS  (later healed by a merger)
-and the  s among the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating systems.
-
+and the forks among the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating systems.

entries/forum.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ forum
 
 n. [Usenet, GEnie, CI$; pl. fora or forums ] Any discussion group accessible
 through a dial-in BBS , a mailing list , or a newsgroup (see the network ).
-A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit posting s for all
+A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit postings for all
 to read and discussion ensues. Contrast real-time chat via talk mode or
 point-to-point personal email.
-

entries/four-color glossies.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 four-color glossies
 
-n. 1. Literature created by marketroid s that allegedly contains technical
+n. 1. Literature created by marketroids that allegedly contains technical
 specs but which is in fact as superficial as possible without being totally
 content-free. Forget the four-color glossies, give me the tech ref manuals.
 Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the material is
@@ -8,4 +8,3 @@ printed on ordinary paper in black and white. Four-color-glossy manuals are
 never useful for solving a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual
 pages that don't contain enough information to diagnose why the program
 doesn't produce the expected or desired output.
-

entries/fum.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 fum
 
 n. [XEROX PARC] At PARC, often the third of the standard metasyntactic
-variable s (after foo and bar ). Competes with baz , which is more common
+variables (after foo and bar ). Competes with baz , which is more common
 outside PARC.
-

entries/furrfu.txt

@@ -4,5 +4,4 @@ excl. [Usenet; written, only rarely spoken] Written-only equivalent of
 Sheesh! ; it is, in fact, sheesh modified by rot13. Evolved in mid-1992 as a
 response to notably silly postings repeating urban myths on the Usenet
 newsgroup alt.folklore.urban , after some posters complained that Sheesh! as
-a response to newbie s was being overused. See also FOAF.
-
+a response to newbies was being overused. See also FOAF.

entries/geek code.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 geek code
 
-n. (also Code of the Geeks ). A set of codes commonly used in sig block s to
+n. (also Code of the Geeks ). A set of codes commonly used in sig blocks to
 broadcast the interests, skills, and aspirations of the poster. Features a G
 at the left margin followed by numerous letter codes, often suffixed with
 plusses or minuses. Because many net users are involved in computer science,
@@ -14,4 +14,3 @@ geek code originated in 1993; it was inspired (according to the inventor) by
 previous bear , smurf and twink style-and-sexual-preference codes from
 lesbian and gay newsgroup s. It has in turn spawned imitators; there is now
 even a Saturn geek code for owners of the Saturn car. See also geek.
-

entries/gray goo.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 gray goo
 
-n. A hypothetical substance composed of sagan s of sub-micron-sized
+n. A hypothetical substance composed of sagans of sub-micron-sized
 self-replicating robots programmed to make copies of themselves out of
 whatever is available. The image that goes with the term is one of the
 entire biosphere of Earth being eventually converted to robot goo. This is
 the simplest of the nanotechnology disaster scenarios, easily refuted by
 arguments from energy requirements and elemental abundances. Compare blue
 goo.
-

entries/hand-hacking.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 hand-hacking
 
-n. 1. [rare] The practice of translating hot spot s from an HLL into
+n. 1. [rare] The practice of translating hot spots from an HLL into
 hand-tuned assembler, as opposed to trying to coerce the compiler into
 generating better code. Both the term and the practice are becoming
 uncommon. See tune , by hand ; syn. with v. cruft. 2. [common] More
 generally, manual construction or patching of data sets that would normally
 be generated by a translation utility and interpreted by another program,
 and aren't really designed to be read or modified by humans.
-

entries/holy wars.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 holy wars
 
-n. [from Usenet , but may predate it; common] n. flame war s over religious
+n. [from Usenet , but may predate it; common] n. flame wars over religious
 issues. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularized the terms big-endian and
 little-endian in connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was
 entitled On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace. Great holy wars of the past have
@@ -14,4 +14,3 @@ participants spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and
 cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. This happens
 precisely because in a true holy war, the actual substantive differences
 between the sides are relatively minor. See also theology.
-

entries/honey pot.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 honey pot
 
-n. 1. A box designed to attract cracker s so that they can be observed in
+n. 1. A box designed to attract crackers so that they can be observed in
 action. It is usually well isolated from the rest of the network, but has
 extensive logging (usually network layer, on a different machine). Different
 from an iron box in that its purpose is to attract, not merely observe.
@@ -10,4 +10,3 @@ concept was presented in Cheswick Bellovin's book Firewalls and Internet
 Security. 2. A mail server that acts as an open relay when a single message
 is attempted to send through it, but discards or diverts for examination
 messages that are detected to be part of a spam run.
-

entries/include war.txt

@@ -2,5 +2,4 @@ include war
 
 n. Excessive multi-leveled inclusion 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 flame s and the urge to start a kill file.
-
+as Usenet, this can lead to flames and the urge to start a kill file.

entries/include.txt

@@ -4,5 +4,4 @@ vt. [Usenet] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of another's message
 (typically with attribution to the source) in a reply or followup, for
 clarifying the context of one's response. See the discussion of inclusion
 styles under Hacker Writing Style. 2. [from C ] #include disclaimer.h has
-appeared in sig block s to refer to a notional standard disclaimer file.
-
+appeared in sig blocks to refer to a notional standard disclaimer file.

entries/indoctritainment.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+indoctritainment
+
+What would in the 20th century have simply been known as "propaganda".
+The combination of political indoctrination and popular entertainment
+common within mainstream broadcast media, such as television or
+tabloid newspapers. The indirect manner in which the typical person
+forms their political views.

entries/infinite loop.txt

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 infinite loop
 
-n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine spin s or buzz es forever
+n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine spins or buzz es forever
 and goes catatonic ).
-

entries/json.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+JSON
+
+Acronym. JavaScript Object Notation. A human readable data format
+origially created by Douglas Crockford which is typically used to
+transmit information between a browser and a web based server system.

entries/kernel-of-the-week club.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 kernel-of-the-week club
 
-The fictional society that BSD bigot s claim Linux users belong to, alluding
+The fictional society that BSD bigots claim Linux users belong to, alluding
 to the release-early-release-often style preferred by the kernel
 maintainers. See bazaar. This was almost certainly inspired by the earlier
 bug-of-the-month club.
-

entries/kibozo.txt

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 kibozo
 
-/ki:bohzoh/ , n. [Usenet] One who kiboze s but is not Kibo (see KIBO , sense
+/ki:bohzoh/ , n. [Usenet] One who kibozes but is not Kibo (see KIBO , sense
 2).
-

entries/kluge.txt

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ and verges on being a crock. 3. n. Something that works for the wrong
 reason. 4. vt. To insert a kluge into a program. I've kluged this routine to
 get around that weird bug, but there's probably a better way. 5. [WPI] n. A
 feature that is implemented in a rude manner. Nowadays this term is often
-encountered in the variant spelling kludge. Reports from old fart s are
+encountered in the variant spelling kludge. Reports from old farts are
 consistent that kluge was the original spelling, reported around computers
 as far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of hardware
 kluges. In 1947, the New York Folklore Quarterly reported a classic
@@ -62,4 +62,3 @@ orally, use it in a restricted negative sense and are at least consistent.
 European hackers have mostly learned the word from written American sources
 and tend to pronounce it /kluhj/ but use the wider American meaning! Some
 observers consider this mess appropriate in view of the word's meaning.
-

entries/languages of choice.txt

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ development. This list has changed over time, but slowly. Java bumped C++
 off of it, and Python appears to be recruiting people who would otherwise
 gravitate to LISP (which used to be much more important than it is now).
 Smalltalk and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities.
-The Real Programmer s who loved FORTRAN and assembler have pretty much all
+The Real Programmers who loved FORTRAN and assembler have pretty much all
 retired or died since 1990. Assembler is generally no longer considered
 interesting or appropriate for anything but HLL implementation, glue , and a
 few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems programs. FORTRAN
@@ -14,4 +14,3 @@ frown on languages like Pascal and Ada, which don't give them the near-total
 freedom considered necessary for hacking (see bondage-and-discipline
 language ), and to regard everything even remotely connected with COBOL or
 other traditional DP languages as a total and unmitigated loss.
-

entries/letterbomb.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ letterbomb
 
 1. n. A piece of email containing live data intended to do nefarious things
 to the recipient's machine or terminal. It used to be possible, for example,
-to send s that would lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are
+to sends that would lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are
 viewed, so thoroughly that the user must cycle power (see cycle , sense 3)
 to unwedge them. Under Unix, a  can also try to get part of its contents
 interpreted as a shell command to the mailer. The results of this could
@@ -11,4 +11,3 @@ the standard Unix/Internet mail software was vulnerable to such an attack
 (though, as the Melissa virus attack demonstrated in early 1999, Microsoft
 systems can have serious problems). See also Trojan horse ; compare
 nastygram. 2. Loosely, a mailbomb.
-

entries/live data.txt

@@ -9,6 +9,5 @@ security-breaking virus that is triggered the next time a hapless user
 strikes that key. For another, there are some well-known bugs in vi that
 allow certain texts to send arbitrary commands back to the machine when they
 are simply viewed. 2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function
-hook s (executable code). 3. An object, such as a trampoline , that is
+hooks (executable code). 3. An object, such as a trampoline , that is
 constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed as code.
-

entries/loose bytes.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 loose bytes
 
-n. Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes or shim s many compilers
+n. Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes or shims many compilers
 insert between members of a record or structure to cope with alignment
 requirements imposed by the machine architecture.
-

entries/mainframe.txt

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the connotation of a machine
 designed for batch rather than interactive use, though possibly with an
 interactive timesharing operating system retrofitted onto it; it is
 especially used of machines built by IBM, Unisys, and the other great
-dinosaur s surviving from computing's Stone Age. It has been common wisdom
+dinosaurs surviving from computing's Stone Age. It has been common wisdom
 among hackers since the late 1980s that the mainframe architectural
 tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for
 number-crunching supercomputers having been swamped by the recent huge
@@ -22,4 +22,3 @@ assisted by IBM produced a resurgence of interest in mainframe computing as
 a way of providing huge quantities of easily maintainable, reliable virtual
 Linux servers, saving IBM's mainframe division from almost certain
 extinction.
-

entries/mitm attack.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+Man In The Middle (MITM) attack
+
+This is a type of malicious communications interception in which an
+interloper inserts themselves between two communicating parties. The
+motivation for conducting such an attack is typically in order to
+obtain personal, financial or political gain. They may merely collect
+data, or insert their own packets into the conversation.

entries/newsgroup.txt

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ newsgroup
 n. [Usenet] 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 list s for Internet
+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
@@ -13,4 +13,3 @@ C-language forum), comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.unix.wizards
 (for Unix wizards), rec.arts.sf.written and siblings (for science-fiction
 fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political discussions and
 flamage ).
-

entries/old fart.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ old fart
 
 n. Tribal elder. A title self-assumed with remarkable frequency by (esp.)
 Usenetters who have been programming for more than about 25 years; often
-appears in sig block s attached to Jargon File contributions of great
+appears in sig blocks attached to Jargon File contributions of great
 archeological significance. This is a term of insult in the second or third
 person but one of pride in first person.
-

entries/one-banana problem.txt

@@ -9,10 +9,9 @@ problem is simple; hence, It's only a one-banana job at the most; what's
 taking them so long? At IBM, folklore divides the world into one-, two-, and
 three-banana problems. Other cultures have different hierarchies and may
 divide them more finely; at ICL, for example, five grapes (a bunch) equals a
-banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysape s is said to be two
+banana. Their upper limit for the in-house sysapes is said to be two
 bananas and three grapes (another source claims it's three bananas and one
 grape, but observes However, this is subject to local variations, cosmic
 rays and ISO ). At a complication level any higher than that, one asks the
 manufacturers to send someone around to check things. See also
 Infinite-Monkey Theorem.
-

entries/overrun screw.txt

@@ -4,11 +4,10 @@ n. [C programming] A variety of fandango on core produced by scribbling past
 the end of an array (C implementations typically have no checks for this
 error). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array is static;
 if it is auto, the result may be to smash the stack often resulting in
-heisenbug s of the most diabolical subtlety. The term overrun screw is used
+heisenbugs of the most diabolical subtlety. The term overrun screw is used
 esp. of scribbles beyond the end of arrays allocated with malloc (3) ; this
 typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the arena ,
 producing massive lossage within malloc and often a core dump on the next
 operation to use stdio (3) or malloc (3) itself. See spam , overrun ; see
 also memory leak , memory smash , aliasing bug , precedence lossage ,
 fandango on core , secondary damage.
-

entries/padded cell.txt

@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 padded cell
 
-n. Where you put luser s so they can't hurt anything. A program that limits
+n. Where you put lusers so they can't hurt anything. A program that limits
 a luser to a carefully restricted subset of the capabilities of the host
 system (for example, the rsh (1) utility on USG Unix). Note that this is
 different from an iron box because it is overt and not aimed at enforcing
 security so much as protecting others (and the luser) from the consequences
 of the luser's boundless naivete (see naive ). Also padded cell environment.
-

entries/paper-net.txt

@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 paper-net
 
 n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service, analogizing it to a very
-slow, low-reliability network. Usenet sig block s sometimes include a
+slow, low-reliability network. Usenet sig blocks sometimes include a
 Paper-Net: header just before the sender's postal address; common variants
 of this are Papernet and P-Net. Note that the standard netiquette guidelines
 discourage this practice as a waste of bandwidth, since netters are quite
 unlikely to casually use postal addresses. Compare voice-net , snail-mail.
-

entries/peek.txt

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ corresponding constructs in any HLL (peek reads memory, poke modifies it).
 Much hacking on small, non-MMU micros used to consist of peek ing around
 memory, more or less at random, to find the location where the system keeps
 interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate) lists of such addresses for
-various computers circulated. The results of poke s at these addresses may
+various computers circulated. The results of pokes at these addresses may
 be highly useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or (most likely) total
 lossage (see killer poke ). Since a real operating system provides useful,
 higher-level services for the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes
@@ -15,4 +15,3 @@ groveling, a question like How do I do a peek in C? is diagnostic of the
 newbie. (Of course, OS kernels often have to do exactly this; a real kernel
 hacker would unhesitatingly, if unportably, assign an absolute address to a
 pointer variable and indirect through it.
-

entries/pointy-haired.txt

@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 pointy-haired
 
 adj. [after the character in the Dilbert comic strip] Describes the extreme
-form of the property that separates suit s and marketroid s from hackers.
+form of the property that separates suits and marketroids from hackers.
 Compare brain-dead ; demented ; see PHB. Always applied to people, never to
 ideas. The plural form is often used as a noun. The pointy-haireds ordered
 me to use Windows NT, but I set up a Linux server with Samba instead.
-

entries/prime time.txt

@@ -7,5 +7,4 @@ of prime time was traditionally given as a major reason for night mode
 hacking. The term fell into disuse during the early PC era, but has been
 revived to refer to times of day or evening at which the Internet tends to
 be heavily loaded, making Web access slow. The hackish tendency to
-late-night hacking run s has changed not a bit.
-
+late-night hacking runs has changed not a bit.

entries/profile.txt

@@ -5,8 +5,7 @@ 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
+spots 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.
-

entries/quantum bogodynamics.txt

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ quantum bogodynamics
 
 /kwontm boh`gohdi:namiks/ , 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
+evangelists, and suits 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
@@ -19,4 +19,3 @@ a bogon beam is deflected only with great difficulty. When the bogon
 encounters its antiparticle, the cluon, they mutually annihilate each other,
 releasing magic smoke. Furthermore 1 Lenat = 1 mole (6.022E23) of bogons
 (see microLenat ).
-

entries/scratch monkey.txt

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC troubleshooter
 called up the field circus manager responsible and asked him sweetly, Can
 you swim? Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
 the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of certain
-clueless droid s at the local humane society. The moral is clear: When in
+clueless droids at the local humane society. The moral is clear: When in
 doubt, always mount a scratch monkey. [The actual incident occured in 1979
 or 1980. There is a version of this story, complete with reported dialogue
 between one of the project people and DEC field service, that has been
@@ -26,4 +26,3 @@ some facts wrong. For example, it reports the machine as a PDP-11 and
 alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when DEC PM ed the machine. Earlier
 versions of this entry were based on that story; this one has been corrected
 from an interview with the hapless sysop.
-

entries/script kiddies.txt

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 script kiddies
 
 pl.n. 1. [very common] The lowest form of cracker ; script kiddies do
-mischief with scripts and rootkit s written by others, often without
+mischief with scripts and rootkits written by others, often without
 understanding the exploit they are using. Used of people with limited
 technical expertise using easy-to-operate, pre-configured, and/or automated
 tools to conduct disruptive activities against networked systems. Since most
@@ -9,4 +9,3 @@ of these tools are fairly well-known by the security community, the adverse
 impact of such actions is usually minimal. 2. People who cannot program, but
 who create tacky HTML pages by copying JavaScript routines from other tacky
 HTML pages.
-

entries/segmentation fault.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 segmentation fault
 
 n. [Unix] 1. [techspeak] An error in which a running program attempts to
-access memory not allocated to it and core dump s with a segmentation
+access memory not allocated to it and core dumps with a segmentation
 violation error. This is often caused by improper usage of pointers in the
 source code, dereferencing a null pointer, or (in C) inadvertently using a
 non-pointer variable as a pointer. The classic example is: inti; scanf( %d
 ,i);/*shouldhaveused i*/ 2. To lose a train of thought or a line of
 reasoning. Also uttered as an exclamation at the point of befuddlement.
-

entries/shell.txt

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ to a special resource or server for convenience, efficiency, or security
 reasons; for this meaning, the usage is usually a shell around whatever.
 This sort of program is also called a wrapper. 3. A skeleton program,
 created by hand or by another program (like, say, a parser generator), which
-provides the necessary incantation s to set up some task and the control
+provides the necessary incantations to set up some task and the control
 flow to drive it (the term driver is sometimes used synonymously). The user
 is meant to fill in whatever code is needed to get real work done. This
 usage is common in the AI and Microsoft Windows worlds, and confuses Unix
@@ -18,4 +18,3 @@ starting up separate processes, but by dynamically linking the programs into
 its own code, calling them as subroutines, and then dynamically de-linking
 them on return. The VMS command interpreter still does something very like
 this.
-

entries/sigint.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+SIGINT
+
+Abbrev. Signals Intelligence. Data obtained via espionage or from
+public sources which is used by the secret police of a nation state.
+Hardware or software systems which contain back doors to facilitate
+covert data collection are described as being "SIGINT enabled".
+Also see back door.

entries/snarf.txt

@@ -9,9 +9,8 @@ snarfing phase of hacking FTPing megs of stuff a day. 3. To acquire, with
 little concern for legal forms or politesse (but not quite by stealing).
 They were giving away samples, so I snarfed a bunch of them. 4. Syn. for
 slurp. This program starts by snarfing the entire database into core,
-then.... 5. [GEnie] To spray food or programming fluid s due to laughing at
+then.... 5. [GEnie] To spray food or programming fluids due to laughing at
 the wrong moment. I was drinking coffee, and when I read your post I snarfed
 all over my desk. If I keep reading this topic, I think I'll have to
 snarf-proof my computer with a keyboard condom. [This sense appears to be
 widespread among mundane teenagers ESR] The sound of snarfing is splork!.
-

entries/social engineering.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 social engineering
 
-n. Term used among cracker s and samurai for cracking techniques that rely
+n. Term used among crackers and samurai for cracking techniques that rely
 on weaknesses in wetware rather than software; the aim is to trick people
 into revealing passwords or other information that compromises a target
 system's security. Classic scams include phoning up a mark who has the
 required information and posing as a field service tech or a fellow employee
 with an urgent access problem. See also the tiger team story in the patch
 entry, and rubber-hose cryptanalysis.
-

entries/spam.txt

@@ -27,8 +27,7 @@ are now primary. All three behaviors are considered abuse of the net, and
 are almost universally grounds for termination of the originator's email
 account or network connection. In these senses the term spam has gone
 mainstream, though without its original sense or folkloric freight there is
-apparently a widespread myth among luser s that spamming is what happens
+apparently a widespread myth among lusers that spamming is what happens
 when you dump cans of Spam into a revolving fan. Hormel, the makers of Spam,
 have published a surprisingly enlightened position statement on the Internet
 usage.
-

entries/spamhaus.txt

@@ -9,6 +9,5 @@ Usenet as Spam Freedom Day, but lesser imitators of the Spamford still
 infest various murky corners of the net. Since prosecution of spammers
 became routine under the junk-fax laws and statues specifically targeting
 spam, spamhausen have declined in relative importance; today, hit-and-run
-attacks by spammers using relay rape and throwaway account s on reputable
+attacks by spammers using relay rape and throwaway accounts on reputable
 ISPs seem to account for most of the flow.
-

entries/special-case.txt

@@ -4,6 +4,5 @@ vt. To write unique code to handle input to or situations arising in a
 program that are somehow distinguished from normal processing. This would be
 used for processing of mode switches or interrupt characters in an
 interactive interface (as opposed, say, to text entry or normal commands),
-or for processing of hidden flag s in the input of a batch program or
+or for processing of hidden flags in the input of a batch program or
 filter.
-

entries/spod.txt

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 spod
 
-n. [UK] 1. A lower form of life found on talker system s and MUD s. The spod
+n. [UK] 1. A lower form of life found on talker systems and MUD s. The spod
 has few friends in RL and uses talkers instead, finding communication easier
 and preferable over the net. He has all the negative traits of the computer
 geek without having any interest in computers per se. Lacking any knowledge
@@ -26,4 +26,3 @@ computers and the internet in general. 3. [Glasgow University] An otherwise
 competent hacker who spends way too much time on talker systems. 4. [obs.]
 An ordinary person; a random. This is the meaning with which the term was
 coined, but the inventor informs us he has himself accepted sense 1.
-