15 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
15 lines
3.0 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>blivet</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="blitter.html" title="blitter"/><link rel="next" href="bloatware.html" title="bloatware"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">blivet</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="blitter.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bloatware.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="blivet"/><dt xmlns="" id="blivet"><b>blivet</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/bliv'@t/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning “<span class="quote">ten
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pounds of manure in a five-pound bag</span>”]</p></dd><dd><p> 1. An intractable problem. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced if it
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breaks. </p></dd><dd><p> 3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent
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programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of hacks. </p></dd><dd><p> 4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort. </p></dd><dd><p> 5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo. </p></dd><dd><p> 6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a
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denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited resources that have
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no access controls (for example, shared spool space on a multi-user
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system).</p></dd><dd><p>This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
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experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it seems to
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mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of
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<a href="../F/frob.html"><i class="glossterm">frob</i></a>). It has also been used to describe an amusing
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trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to
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depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that the parts fit
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together in an impossible way.</p><div class="mediaobject"><img src="../graphics/blivet.png"/><div class="caption"><p>This is a blivet</p></div></div></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="blitter.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bloatware.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">blitter </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> bloatware</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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