JargonFile/entries/bit bucket.txt
2014-04-26 16:54:15 +01:00

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bit bucket
n. [very common] 1. The universal data sink (originally, the mythical
receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end of a register
during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or destroyed data is said to
have gone to the bit bucket. On Unix , often used for /dev/null. Sometimes
amplified as the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky. 2. The place where all lost
mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed according
to Finagle's Law ; important mail is much more likely to end up in the bit
bucket than junk mail, which has an almost 100% probability of getting
delivered. Routing to the bit bucket is automatically performed by
mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower layers of the network. 3.
The ideal location for all unwanted mail responses: Flames about this
article to the bit bucket. Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's
mailbox with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. I mailed
you those figures last week; they must have landed in the bit bucket.
Compare black hole. This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the
fanciful notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only
misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term bit box ,
about which the same legend was current; old-time hackers also report that
trainees used to be told that when the CPU stored bits into memory it was
actually pulling them out of the bit box. See also chad box. Another variant
of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the parity preservation law
, the number of 1 bits that go to the bit bucket must equal the number of 0
bits. Any imbalance results in bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified
computer technician can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled
maintenance. The source for all these meanings, is, historically, the fact
that the chad box on a paper-tape punch was sometimes called a bit bucket. A
literal bit bucket. (The next cartoon in the Crunchly saga is 76-02-14. The
previous one is 75-10-04.