Various tidying and modernizing

This commit is contained in:
Bob Mottram 2018-10-15 18:54:20 +01:00
parent be915b7ecb
commit db6b6e5946
17 changed files with 82 additions and 165 deletions

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BOFH
// , n. [common] Acronym, Bastard Operator From Hell. A system administrator
with absolutely no tolerance for luser s. You say you need more filespace?
massive-global-delete Seems to me you have plenty left... Many BOFHs (and
others who would be BOFHs if they could get away with it) hang out in the
newsgroup alt.sysadmin.recovery , although there has also been created a
top-level newsgroup hierarchy ( bofh.* ) of their own. Several people have
written stories about BOFHs. The set usually considered canonical is by
Simon Travaglia and may be found at the Bastard Home Page. BOFHs and BOFH
wannabes hang out on scary devil monastery and wield LART s.
// , n. [common] Acronym, Bastard Operator From Hell. A system
administrator with a bad attitude towards users, who may apply
excessive or unwarranted security policies.

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GIGO
/gi:goh/ 1. Garbage In, Garbage Out usually said in response to lusers who
/gi:goh/ Garbage In, Garbage Out usually said in response to users 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.
in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.

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GWF
n. Common abbreviation for Goober with Firewall. A luser who has equipped
his desktop computer with a hypersensitive software firewall or host
intrusion detection program, and who gives its alerts absolute credence. ISP
n. Common abbreviation for Goober with Firewall. A user who has equipped
their computer with a hypersensitive software firewall or host intrusion
detection program, and who gives its alerts absolute credence. ISP
tech support and abuse desks dread hearing from such persons, who insist
that every packet of abnormal traffic the software detects is a hacker (sic)
and, occasionally, threatening lawsuits or prosecution. GWFs have been known
@ -10,4 +10,3 @@ to assert that they are being attacked from 127.0.0.1, and that their ISP is
criminally negligent for failing to block these attacks. GWF is used
similarly to ID10T error and PEBKAC to flag trouble tickets opened by such
users.

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Jeff K.
The spiritual successor to B1FF and the archetype of script kiddies. is a
sixteen-year-old suburbanite who fancies himself a l33t haX0r , although his
The spiritual successor to B1FF and the archetype of script kiddies is a
sixteen-year-old suburbanite who fancies himself a l33t haX0r, although his
knowledge of computers seems to be limited to the procedure for getting
Quake up and running. His Web page http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/
features a number of hopelessly naive articles, essays, and rants, all
filled with the kind of misspellings, studlycaps , and number-for-letter
substitutions endemic to the script kiddie and warez d00dz communities.
Jeff's offerings, among other things, include hardware advice (such as AMD
VERSIS PENTIUM and HOW TO OVARCLOAK YOUR COMPUTAR ), his own Quake clan
(Clan 40 OUNSCE), and his own comic strip (Wacky Fun Computar Comic Jokes).
Like B1FF, is (fortunately) a hoax. was created by internet game
journalist Richard Lowtax Kyanka, whose web site Something Awful
(http://www.somethingawful.com) highlights unintentionally humorous news
items and Web sites, as a parody of the kind of teenage luser who infests
Quake servers, chat rooms, and other places where computer enthusiasts
congregate. He is well-recognized in the PC game community and his influence
has spread to hacker fora like Slashdot as well.
Quake up and running.

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@ -2,14 +2,10 @@ Murphy's Law
prov. The correct, original Murphy's Law reads: If there are two or more
ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe,
then someone will do it. This is a principle of defensive design, cited here
because it is usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the
challenges of design for luser s. For example, you don't make a two-pin plug
symmetrical and then label it THIS WAY UP ; if it matters which way it is
plugged in, then you make the design asymmetrical (see also the anecdote
under magic smoke ). Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of McDonnell-Douglas's
test engineers on the rocket-sled experiments that were done by the U.S. Air
Force in 1949 to test human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981).
then someone will do it. This is a principle of defensive design.
Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of McDonnell-Douglas's test engineers on
the rocket-sled experiments that were done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949
to test human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981).
One experiment involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different
parts of the subject's body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued
to its mount, and somebody methodically installed all 16 in a replacement
@ -20,5 +16,4 @@ at a news conference a few days later. Within months Murphy's Law had spread
to various technical cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too
many years had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination,
changing as they went. Most of these are variants on Anything that can go
wrong, will ; this is more correctly referred to as Finagle's Law.
wrong, will; this is more correctly referred to as Finagle's Law.

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OS and JEDGAR
This story says a lot about the ITS ethos. On the ITS system there was a
program that allowed you to see what was being printed on someone else's
terminal. It spied on the other guy's output by examining the insides of the
monitor system. The output spy program was called OS. Throughout the rest of
the computer science world (and at IBM too) OS means operating system, but
among old-time ITS hackers it almost always meant output spy. OS could work
because ITS purposely had very little in the way of protection that
prevented one user from trespassing on another's areas. Fair is fair,
however. There was another program that would automatically notify you if
anyone started to spy on your output. It worked in exactly the same way, by
looking at the insides of the operating system to see if anyone else was
looking at the insides that had to do with your output. This counterspy
program was called JEDGAR (a six-letterism pronounced as two syllables:
/jedgr/ ), in honor of the former head of the FBI. But there's more. JEDGAR
would ask the user for license to kill. If the user said yes, then JEDGAR
would actually gun the job of the luser who was spying. Unfortunately,
people found that this made life too violent, especially when tourists
learned about it. One of the systems hackers solved the problem by replacing
JEDGAR with another program that only pretended to do its job. It took a
long time to do this, because every copy of JEDGAR had to be patched. To
this day no one knows how many people never figured out that JEDGAR had been
defanged. Interestingly, there is still a security module named JEDGAR alive
as of late 1999 in the Unisys MCP for large systems. It is unknown to us
whether the name is tribute or independent invention.

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PEBKAC
/pebkak/ [Abbrev., Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair ] Used by
/pebkak/ [Abbrev., Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair] Used by
support people, particularly at call centers and help desks. Not used with
the public. Denotes pilot error as the cause of the crash, especially stupid
errors that even a luser could figure out. Very derogatory. Usage: Did you
ever figure out why that guy couldn't print? Yeah, he kept cancelling the
operation before it could finish. PEBKAC. See also ID10T. Compare pilot
error , UBD.
errors. Very derogatory. Usage: Did you ever figure out why that guy
couldn't print? Yeah, he kept cancelling the operation before it could
finish. PEBKAC. See also ID10T. Compare pilot error, UBD.

5
entries/bling.txt Normal file
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bling
The aesthetic appearance of a system can be described as "bling heavy" if it
contains a lot of fancy animations, slick screen transitions and exquisitely
designed icons and fonts. "You can bling the heck out of this desktop environment".

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bob
n. At Demon Internet , all tech support personnel are called Bob. (Female
support personnel have an option on Bobette ). This has nothing to do with
Bob the divine drilling-equipment salesman of the Church of the SubGenius.
Nor is it acronymized from Brother Of BOFH , though all parties agree it
could have been. Rather, it was triggered by an unusually large draft of new
tech-support people in 1995. It was observed that there would be much
duplication of names. To ease the confusion, it was decided that all support
techs would henceforth be known as Bob , and identity badges were created
labelled Bob 1 and Bob 2. ( No, we never got any further reports a witness).
The reason for Bob rather than anything else is due to a luser calling and
asking to speak to Bob , despite the fact that no Bob was currently working
for Tech Support. Since we all know the customer is always right , it was
decided that there had to be at least one Bob on duty at all times, just in
case. This sillyness snowballed inexorably. Shift leaders and managers began
to refer to their groups of bobs. Whole ranks of support machines were set
up (and still exist in the DNS as of 1999) as bob1 through bobN. Then came
alt.tech-support.recovery , and it was filled with Demon support personnel.
They all referred to themselves, and to others, as bob , and after a while
it caught on. There is now a Bob Code describing the Bob nature.
n. In the 1990s at an early ISP called Demon Internet, all tech support
personnel are called either Bob (masc) or Bobette (fem).
This has nothing to do with Bob the divine drilling-equipment salesman
of the Church of the SubGenius. Nor is it acronymized from Brother Of
BOFH , though all parties agree it could have been. Rather, it was
triggered by an unusually large draft of new tech-support people in
1995. It was observed that there would be much duplication of names.
To ease the confusion, it was decided that all support techs would
henceforth be known as Bob or Bobette, and identity badges were created
labelled Bob 1 and Bob 2. (No, we never got any further reports a witness).
The reason for Bob/Bobette rather than anything else is due to a someone
calling and asking to speak to Bob, despite the fact that no Bob was
currently working for Tech Support. Since we all know the customer is
always right, it was decided that there had to be at least one Bob on
duty at all times, just in case. This sillyness snowballed inexorably.
Shift leaders and managers began to refer to their groups of bobs.
Whole ranks of support machines were set up (and still exist in the
DNS as of 1999) as bob1 through bobN. Then came alt.tech-support.recovery,
and it was filled with Demon support personnel. They all referred to
themselves, and to others, as bob, and after a while it caught on.
There is now a Bob Code describing the Bob nature.

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@ -3,11 +3,11 @@ chainik
/chi:nik/ [Russian, literally teapot ] Almost synonymous with muggle.
Implies both ignorance and a certain amount of willingness to learn, but
does not necessarily imply as little experience or short exposure time as
newbie and is not as derogatory as luser. Both a novice user and someone
using a system for a long time without any understanding of the internals
can be referred to as chainiks. Very widespread term in Russian hackish,
often used in an English context by Russian-speaking hackers esp. in Israel
(e.g. Our new colleague is a complete chainik ). FidoNet discussion groups
newbie. Both a novice user and someone using a system for a long time
without any understanding of the internals can be referred to as
chainiks. Very widespread term in Russian hackish, often used in an
English context by Russian-speaking hackers esp. in Israel (e.g. Our
new colleague is a complete chainik ). FidoNet discussion groups
often had a chainik subsection for newbies and, well, old chainiks (eg.
su.asm.chainik, ru.linux.chainik, ru.html.chainik). Public projects often
have a chainik mailing list to keep the chainiks off the developers' and
@ -16,4 +16,3 @@ mainstream Russian due to the Russian translation of the popular
yellow-black covered foobar for dummies series, which (correctly) uses
chainik for dummy , but its frequent (though not excessive) use is still
characteristic hacker-speak.

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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 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
not always, implies that the operating system or other software was at
fault. 2. v. To fail suddenly. Has the system just ed? Something ed the OS!
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.
what happens when the air gap of a hard disk collapses). 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 not always, implies that the operating system
or other software was at fault. 2. v. To fail suddenly. Has the system
just crashed? Something crashed the OS! See down. Also used transitively
to indicate the cause of the crash (usually a person or a program, or both).
Those idiots playing SPACEWAR crashed the system. 3. vi. Sometimes said
of people hitting the sack after a long hacking run; see gronk out.

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eye candy
/i: kand`ee/ , n. [from mainstream slang ear candy ] A display of some sort
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 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.
/i: kand`ee/ , n. [from mainstream slang ear candy ] A display of some sort.
In mainstream usage among players of graphics-heavy computer games. Can also
be used in the context of desktop operating system appearance, as in:
"KDE Plasma has a lot of eye candy". Also see bling.

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for the rest of us
adj. [from the Mac slogan The computer for the rest of us ] 1. Used to
adj. [from the Mac slogan The computer for the rest of us] 1. Used to
describe a spiffy product whose affordability shames other comparable
products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describe spiffy but very
overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface,
@ -9,10 +9,9 @@ primitives, or any other limitation designed to not confuse a naive user.
This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program
begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used
in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious
capabilities because it is thought that the poor lusers might not be able to
handle them. Becomes the rest of them when used in third-party reference;
capabilities because they are thought to exceed the capabilities of
average users. Becomes the rest of them when used in third-party reference;
thus, Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of
Them means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond
the surface flash. See also WIMP environment , Macintrash , point-and-drool
interface , user-friendly.
the surface flash. See also WIMP environment, Macintrash, point-and-drool
interface, user-friendly.

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@ -5,11 +5,6 @@ language, even if the color is not green and not a card. Less frequently
used now because of the decrease in the use of assembly language. I'll go
get my green card so I can check the addressing mode for that instruction.
The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was
introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to a
scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room at Yorktown in 1978. A
luser overheard one of the programmers ask another Do you have a green card?
The other grunted and passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point
the luser turned a delicate shade of olive and rapidly left the room, never
to return. In fall 2000 it was reported from Electronic Data Systems that
the green card for 370 machines has been a blue-green booklet since 1989.
introduced, and later a yellow booklet. In fall 2000 it was reported from
Electronic Data Systems that the green card for 370 machines has been a
blue-green booklet since 1989.

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@ -2,8 +2,6 @@ hair
n. [back-formation from hairy ] The complications that make something hairy.
Decoding TECO commands requires a certain amount of hair. Often seen in the
phrase infinite hair , which connotes extreme complexity. Also in
hairiferous (tending to promote hair growth): GNUMACS elisp encourages
lusers to write complex editing modes. Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all
right.
phrase infinite hair, which connotes extreme complexity. Also in
hairiferous (tending to promote hair growth): EMACS elisp is pretty
hairiferous all right.

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highly
adv. [scientific computation] The preferred modifier for overstating an
understatement. As in: highly nonoptimal , the worst possible way to do
something; highly nontrivial , either impossible or requiring a major
research project; highly nonlinear , completely erratic and unpredictable;
highly nontechnical , drivel written for luser s, oversimplified to the
point of being misleading or incorrect (compare drool-proof paper ). In
other computing cultures, postfixing of in the extreme might be preferred.
understatement. As in: highly nonoptimal, the worst possible way to do
something; highly nontrivial, either impossible or requiring a major
research project; highly nonlinear, completely erratic and unpredictable.
In other computing cultures, postfixing of in the extreme might be preferred.

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lamer
n. [originally among Amiga fans] 1. Synonym for luser , not used much by
hackers but common among warez d00dz , crackers, and phreaker s. A person
who downloads much, but who never uploads. (Also known as leecher ). Oppose
elite. Has the same connotations of self-conscious elitism that use of luser
does among hackers. 2. Someone who tries to crack a BBS. 3. Someone who
annoys the sysop or other BBS users for instance, by posting lots of silly
messages, uploading virus-ridden software, frequently dropping carrier, etc.
Crackers also use it to refer to cracker wannabees. In phreak culture, a
lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than doing cracks or really
understanding the fundamental concepts. In warez d00dz culture, where the
ability to wave around cracked commercial software within days of (or
before) release to the commercial market is much esteemed, the lamer might
try to upload garbage or shareware or something incredibly old (old in this
context is read as a few years to anything older than 3 days). Lamer is also
much used in the IRC world in a similar sense to the above. This term seems
to have originated in the Commodore-64 scene in the mid 1980s. It was
popularized among Amiga crackers of the mid-1980s by Lamer Exterminator ,
the most famous and feared Amiga virus ever, which gradually corrupted
non-write-protected floppy disks with bad sectors. The bad sectors, when
looked at, were overwritten with repetitions of the string LAMER!.
1. Someone who is not very good at their craft. Perhaps a wannabe.
2. Trying but failing at something. "I tried to install this but failed. Is it broken or am I just too lame?".
3. A system which is designed or operates in a significantly suboptimal manner. "Microsoft Windows is utterly lame".