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