The Jargon File by Eric S. Raymond (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes. When

he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the way

over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco Bay.

Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue". I

mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Avenue;

RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled up

in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.

Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy,

and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me

in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice

that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after

all.

JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't

caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night,

and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.) He

said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It

looked like a barn! But this place looks just like the one back in

Palo Alto!"

RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one I always come to when I'm in

Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember, they're

a chain."

JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant

-- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,

not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there

is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.

JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at

the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,

evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too

many people like it.

JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy

behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first. "Some

people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look, I love

ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I already went

through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I know I like

that flavor!"

At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a

very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his eye

and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped what was

going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor laughing and

clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched into his spiel

("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the forty-third time.

At this point, RPG clued me in fully.

RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our

chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream

with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream

shops and generally having a good old time.

At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL said,

"Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord publishes

all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make his ice

cream at home. So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he and JONL

pored over it for a while. But the g.b.t.c. could contain his

curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like that stuff,

huh?" JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it constantly back in Palo

Alto for the past two days. In fact, I think this batch is about as

good as the cones I got back in Palo Alto!"

G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're in Palo

Alto!"

JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a

fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed,

"I've been hacked!"

[My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative

of the raspberry found out there called an `ollalieberry' --ESR]

[Ironic footnote: the [11739]meme about ginger vs. rotting meat is an

urban legend. It's not borne out by an examination of medieval recipes

or period purchase records for spices, and appears full-blown in the

works of Samuel Pegge, a gourmand and notorious flake case who

originated numerous food myths. The truth seems to be that ginger was

used to cover not rot but the extreme salt taste of meat packed in

brine, which was the best method available before refrigeration.

--ESR]

Node:sagan, Next:[11740]SAIL, Previous:[11741]saga, Up:[11742]= S =

sagan /say'gn/ n.

[from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos"; think "billions and billions"]

A large quantity of anything. "There's a sagan different ways to tweak

EMACS." "The U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --

hard to say which is more destructive."

Node:SAIL, Next:[11743]salescritter, Previous:[11744]sagan,

Up:[11745]= S =

SAIL /sayl/, not /S-A-I-L/ n.

The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. An important site in the

early development of LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, XEROX PARC,

and the Unix community, one of the major wellsprings of technical

innovation and hacker-culture traditions (see the [11746]WAITS entry

for details). The SAIL machines were shut down in late May 1990, scant

weeks after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially

decommissioned. 2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used

at SAIL (sense 1). It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining

facility and some new data types intended for building search trees

and association lists.

Node:salescritter, Next:[11747]salt, Previous:[11748]SAIL, Up:[11749]=

S =

salescritter /sayls'kri`tr/ n.

Pejorative hackerism for a computer salesperson. Hackers tell the

following joke:

Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a

computer salesman?

A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying. [Some versions add:

...and probably knows how to drive.]

This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are

self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the

inclination to use them, they'd be in programming). The terms

salesthing' andsalesdroid' are also common. Compare

[11750]marketroid, [11751]suit, [11752]droid.

Node:salt, Next:[11753]salt mines, Previous:[11754]salescritter,

Up:[11755]= S =

salt n.

A tiny bit of near-random data inserted where too much regularity

would be undesirable; a data [11756]frob (sense 1). For example, the

Unix crypt(3) man page mentions that "the salt string is used to

perturb the DES algorithm in one of 4096 different ways."

Node:salt mines, Next:[11757]salt substrate, Previous:[11758]salt,

Up:[11759]= S =

salt mines n.

Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers working long hours

on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the end of the tunnel in

N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine. Compare [11760]playpen,

[11761]sandbox.

Node:salt substrate, Next:[11762]same-day service,

Previous:[11763]salt mines, Up:[11764]= S =

salt substrate n.

[MIT] Collective noun used to refer to potato chips, pretzels,

saltines, or any other form of snack food designed primarily as a

carrier for sodium chloride. Also `sodium substrate'. From the

technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the

top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.

Node:same-day service, Next:[11765]samizdat, Previous:[11766]salt

substrate, Up:[11767]= S =

same-day service n.

Ironic term used to describe long response time, particularly with

respect to [11768]MS-DOS system calls (which ought to require only a

tiny fraction of a second to execute). Such response time is a major

incentive for programmers to write programs that are not

[11769]well-behaved. See also [11770]PC-ism.

Node:samizdat, Next:[11771]samurai, Previous:[11772]same-day service,

Up:[11773]= S =

samizdat /sahm-iz-daht/ n.

[Russian, literally "self publishing"] The process of disseminating

documentation via underground channels. Originally referred to

underground duplication and distribution of banned books in the Soviet

Union; now refers by obvious extension to any less-than-official

promulgation of textual material, esp. rare, obsolete, or

never-formally-published computer documentation. Samizdat is obviously

much easier when one has access to high-bandwidth networks and

high-quality laser printers. Note that samizdat is properly used only

with respect to documents which contain needed information (see also

[11774]hacker ethic) but which are for some reason otherwise

unavailable, but not in the context of documents which are available

through normal channels, for which unauthorized duplication would be

unethical copyright violation. See [11775]Lions Book for a historical

example.

Node:samurai, Next:[11776]sandbender, Previous:[11777]samizdat,

Up:[11778]= S =

samurai n.

A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs, snooping for factions

in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and

First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to

need an electronic locksmith. In 1991, mainstream media reported the

existence of a loose-knit culture of samurai that meets electronically

on BBS systems, mostly bright teenagers with personal micros; they

have modeled themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan

and on the "net cowboys" of William Gibson's [11779]cyberpunk novels.

Those interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their

employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by criminal

crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic; some quote

Miyamoto Musashi's "Book of Five Rings", a classic of historical

samurai doctrine, in support of these principles. See also

[11780]sneaker, [11781]Stupids, [11782]social engineering,

[11783]cracker, [11784]hacker ethic, and [11785]dark-side hacker.

Node:sandbender, Next:[11786]sandbox, Previous:[11787]samurai,

Up:[11788]= S =

sandbender n.

[IBM] A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical

design of chips. Compare [11789]ironmonger, [11790]polygon pusher.

Node:sandbox, Next:[11791]sanity check, Previous:[11792]sandbender,

Up:[11793]= S =

sandbox n.

(also `sandbox, the') Common term for the R&D department at many

software and computer companies (where hackers in commercial

environments are likely to be found). Half-derisive, but reflects the

truth that research is a form of creative play. Compare

[11794]playpen. 2. Syn. [11795]link farm. 3. A controlled environment

within which potentially dangerous programs are run. Used esp. in

reference to Java implementations.

Node:sanity check, Next:[11796]Saturday-night special,

Previous:[11797]sandbox, Up:[11798]= S =

sanity check n.

[very common] 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or anything

else, e.g., a Usenet posting) for completely stupid mistakes. Implies

that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it was

written; e.g., if a piece of scientific software relied on a

particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might first

look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the formula, as a

`sanity check', before looking at the more complex I/O or data

structure manipulation routines, much less the algorithm itself.

Compare [11799]reality check. 2. A run-time test, either validating

input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed up internally

(producing an inconsistent value or state).

Node:Saturday-night special, Next:[11800]say, Previous:[11801]sanity

check, Up:[11802]= S =

Saturday-night special n.

[from police slang for a cheap handgun] A [11803]quick-and-dirty

program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a deadline,

and in response to pressure from a [11804]salescritter. Such hacks are

dangerously unreliable, but all too often sneak into a production

release after insufficient review.

Node:say, Next:[11805]scag, Previous:[11806]Saturday-night special,

Up:[11807]= S =

say vt.

To type to a terminal. "To list a directory verbosely, you have to

say ls -l." Tends to imply a [11808]newline-terminated command (a

sentence'). 2. A computer may also be said tosay' things to you,

even if it doesn't have a speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a

terminal in response to your commands. Hackers find it odd that this

usage confuses [11809]mundanes.

Node:scag, Next:[11810]scanno, Previous:[11811]say, Up:[11812]= S =

scag vt.

To destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the filesystem or

by causing media damage. "That last power hit scagged the system

disk." Compare [11813]scrog, [11814]roach.

Node:scanno, Next:[11815]scary devil monastery, Previous:[11816]scag,

Up:[11817]= S =

scanno /skan'oh/ n.

An error in a document caused by a scanner glitch, analogous to a typo

or [11818]thinko.

Node:scary devil monastery, Next:[11819]schroedinbug,

Previous:[11820]scanno, Up:[11821]= S =

scary devil monastery n.

Anagram frequently used to refer to the newsgroup

alt.sysadmin.recovery, which is populated with characters that rather

justify the reference.

Node:schroedinbug, Next:[11822]science-fiction fandom,

Previous:[11823]scary devil monastery, Up:[11824]= S =

schroedinbug /shroh'din-buhg/ n.

[MIT: from the Schroedinger's Cat thought-experiment in quantum

physics] A design or implementation bug in a program that doesn't

manifest until someone reading source or using the