Part 52

(also commonly lowercased as `telnet') To communicate with another Internet host using the TELNET (RFC 854) protocol (usually using a program of the same name). TOPS-10 people used the word IMPCOM, since that was the program name for them. Sometimes abbreviated to TN /T-N/. "I usually TN over to SAIL just to read the AP News."

Node:ten-finger interface, Next:tense, Previous:TELNET, Up:= T =

ten-finger interface n.

The interface between two networks that cannot be directly connected for security reasons; refers to the practice of placing two terminals side by side and having an operator read from one and type into the other.

Node:tense, Next:tentacle, Previous:ten-finger interface, Up:= T =

tense adj.

Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A tense programmer is one who produces tense code.

Node:tentacle, Next:tenured graduate student, Previous:tense, Up:= T =

tentacle n.

A covert pseudo, sense 1. An artificial identity created in cyberspace for nefarious and deceptive purposes. The implication is that a single person may have multiple tentacles. This term was originally floated in some paranoid ravings on the cypherpunks list (see cypherpunk), and adopted in a spirit of irony by other, saner members. It has since shown up, used seriously, in the documentation for some remailer software, and is now (1994) widely recognized on the net.

Node:tenured graduate student, Next:tera-, Previous:tentacle, Up:= T =

tenured graduate student n.

One who has been in graduate school for 10 years (the usual maximum is 5 or 6): a `ten-yeared' student (get it?). Actually, this term may be used of any grad student beginning in his seventh year. Students don't really get tenure, of course, the way professors do, but a tenth-year graduate student has probably been around the university longer than any untenured professor.

Node:tera-, Next:teraflop club, Previous:tenured graduate student, Up:= T =

tera- /te'r*/ pref.

[SI] See quantifiers.

Node:teraflop club, Next:terminak, Previous:tera-, Up:= T =

teraflop club /te'r*-flop kluhb/ n.

[FLOP = Floating Point Operation] A mythical association of people who consume outrageous amounts of computer time in order to produce a few simple pictures of glass balls with intricate ray-tracing techniques. Caltech professor James Kajiya is said to have been the founder. Compare Knights of the Lambda Calculus.

Node:terminak, Next:terminal brain death, Previous:teraflop club, Up:= T =

terminak /ter'mi-nak`/ n.

[Caltech, ca. 1979] Any malfunctioning computer terminal. A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM 3a terminals caused the `L' key to produce the `K' code instead; complaints about this tended to look like "Terminak #3 has a bad keyboard. Pkease fix." Compare dread high-bit disease, frogging; see also AIDX, Nominal Semidestructor, ScumOS, sun-stools, Telerat, HP-SUX, Slowlaris.

Node:terminal brain death, Next:terminal illness, Previous:terminak, Up:= T =

terminal brain death n.

The extreme form of terminal illness (sense 1). What someone who has obviously been hacking continuously for far too long is said to be suffering from.

Node:terminal illness, Next:terminal junkie, Previous:terminal brain death, Up:= T =

terminal illness n.

1. Syn. raster burn. 2. The `burn-in' condition your CRT tends to get if you don't have a screen saver.

Node:terminal junkie, Next:terpri, Previous:terminal illness, Up:= T =

terminal junkie n.

[UK] A wannabee or early larval stage hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering the directory tree and writing noddy programs just to get a fix of computer time. Variants include `terminal jockey', `console junkie', and console jockey. The term `console jockey' seems to imply more expertise than the other three (possibly because of the exalted status of the console relative to an ordinary terminal). See also twink, read-only user. Appropriately, this term was used in the works of William S. Burroughs to describe a heroin addict with an unlimited supply.

Node:terpri, Next:test, Previous:terminal junkie, Up:= T =

terpri /ter'pree/ vi.

[from LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP)] To output a newline. Now rare as jargon, though still used as techspeak in Common LISP. It is a contraction of `TERminate PRInt line', named for the fact that, on some early OSes and hardware, no characters would be printed until a complete line was formed, so this operation terminated the line and emitted the output.

Node:test, Next:TeX, Previous:terpri, Up:= T =

test n.

1. Real users bashing on a prototype long enough to get thoroughly acquainted with it, with careful monitoring and followup of the results. 2. Some bored random user trying a couple of the simpler features with a developer looking over his or her shoulder, ready to pounce on mistakes. Judging by the quality of most software, the second definition is far more prevalent. See also demo.

Node:TeX, Next:text, Previous:test, Up:= T =

TeX /tekh/ n.

An extremely powerful macro-based text formatter written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the computer-science community (it is good enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster (competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also CrApTeX.

Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer Programming" (see Knuth, also bible). In a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The Art of Computer Programming" is not expected to appear until 2002. The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this very much. Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of toolsmithing on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was simply on a grander scale than most.

TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary awards to anyone who found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as the years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is so large (and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to have unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been compiled with.

Node:text, Next:thanks in advance, Previous:TeX, Up:= T =

text n.

1. [techspeak] Executable code, esp. a `pure code' portion shared between multiple instances of a program running in a multitasking OS. Compare English. 2. Textual material in the mainstream sense; data in ordinary ASCII or EBCDIC representation (see flat-ASCII). "Those are text files; you can review them using the editor." These two contradictory senses confuse hackers, too.

Node:thanks in advance, Next:That's not a bug that's a feature!, Previous:text, Up:= T =

thanks in advance

[Usenet] Conventional net.politeness ending a posted request for information or assistance. Sometimes written `advTHANKSance' or `aTdHvAaNnKcSe' or abbreviated `TIA'. See net.-, netiquette.

Node:That's not a bug that's a feature!, Next:the literature, Previous:thanks in advance, Up:= T =

That's not a bug, that's a feature!

The canonical first parry in a debate about a purported bug. The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a misfeature. See also feature.

Node:the literature, Next:the network, Previous:That's not a bug that's a feature!, Up:= T =

the literature n.

Computer-science journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the speaker believes is trivial. Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose Knuth, which has no connotation of triviality.

Node:the network, Next:the X that can be Y is not the true X, Previous:the literature, Up:= T =

the network n.

1. Historicaslly, the union of all the major noncommercial, academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the pre-1990 ARPANET, NSFnet, BITNET, and the virtual UUCP and Usenet `networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial time-sharing services (such as CompuServe, GEnie and AOL) that gateway to them. A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP (bang-path) addresses. See Internet, bang path, Internet address, network address. 2. Following the mass-culture discovery of the Internet in 1994 and subsequent proliferation of cheap TCP/IP connections, "the network" is increasingly synonymous with the Internet itself (as it was before the second wave of wide-area computer networking began around 1980). 3. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Schrödinger's Cat", to which many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example of ha ha only serious).

In sense 1, `the network' is often abbreviated to `the net'. "Are you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.

Node:the X that can be Y is not the true X, Next:theology, Previous:the network, Up:= T =

the X that can be Y is not the true X

Yet another instance of hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical references -- a common humorous way of making exclusive statements about a class of things. The template is from the "Tao te Ching": "The Tao which can be spoken of is not the true Tao." The implication is often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the enlightened. See the trampoline entry for an example, and compare has the X nature.

Node:theology, Next:theory, Previous:the X that can be Y is not the true X, Up:= T =

theology n.

1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to religious issues. 2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical interest but is relatively marginal with respect to actual use of a design or system. Used esp. around software issues with a heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs. smart-programs dispute in AI.

Node:theory, Next:thinko, Previous:theology, Up:= T =

theory n.

The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that is currently being used to inform a behavior. This usage is a generalization and (deliberate) abuse of the technical meaning. "What's the theory on fixing this TECO loss?" "What's the theory on dinner tonight?" ("Chinatown, I guess.") "What's the current theory on letting lusers on during the day?" "The theory behind this change is to fix the following well-known screw...."

Node:thinko, Next:This can't happen, Previous:theory, Up:= T =

thinko /thing'koh/ n.

[by analogy with `typo'] A momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of consciousness. Syn. braino; see also brain fart. Compare mouso.

Node:This can't happen, Next:This time for sure!, Previous:thinko, Up:= T =

This can't happen

Less clipped variant of can't happen.

Node:This time for sure!, Next:thrash, Previous:This can't happen, Up:= T =

This time, for sure! excl.

Ritual affirmation frequently uttered during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection). For the proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitation of Bullwinkle J. Moose. Also heard: "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!" The canonical response is, of course, "But that trick never works!" See hacker humor.

Node:thrash, Next:thread, Previous:This time for sure!, Up:= T =

thrash vi.

To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather than performing useful computation) and are therefore said to thrash. Someone who keeps changing his mind (esp. about what to work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on any single task) may also be described as thrashing. Compare multitask.

Node:thread, Next:three-finger salute, Previous:thrash, Up:= T =

thread n.

[Usenet, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of `topic thread', a more or less continuous chain of postings on a single topic. To `follow a thread' is to read a series of Usenet postings sharing a common subject or (more correctly) which are connected by Reference headers. The better newsreaders can present news in thread order automatically. Not to be confused with the techspeak sense of `thread', e.g. a lightweight process.

Interestingly, this is far from a neologism. The OED says: "That which connects the successive points in anything, esp. a narrative, train of thought, or the like; the sequence of events or ideas continuing throughout the whole course of anything;" Citations are given going back to 1642!

Node:three-finger salute, Next:throwaway account, Previous:thread, Up:= T =

three-finger salute n.

Syn. Vulcan nerve pinch.

Node:throwaway account, Next:thud, Previous:three-finger salute, Up:= T =

throwaway account n.

1. An inexpensive Internet account purchased on a legitimate ISP for the the sole purpose of spewing spam. 2. An inexpensive Internet account obtained for the sole purpose of doing something which requires a valid email address but being able to ignore spam since the user will not look at the account again.

Node:thud, Next:thumb, Previous:throwaway account, Up:= T =

thud n.

1. Yet another metasyntactic variable (see foo). It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of these was `foo', `bar', `thud', `blat'. 2. Rare term for the hash character, `#' (ASCII 0100011). See ASCII for other synonyms.

Node:thumb, Next:thundering herd problem, Previous:thud, Up:= T =

thumb n.

The slider on a window-system scrollbar. So called because moving it allows you to browse through the contents of a text window in a way analogous to thumbing through a book.

Node:thundering herd problem, Next:thunk, Previous:thumb, Up:= T =

thundering herd problem

Scheduler thrashing. This can happen under Unix when you have a number of processes that are waiting on a single event. When that event (a connection to the web server, say) happens, every process which could possibly handle the event is awakened. In the end, only one of those processes will actually be able to do the work, but, in the meantime, all the others wake up and contend for CPU time before being put back to sleep. Thus the system thrashes briefly while a herd of processes thunders through. If this starts to happen many times per second, the performance impact can be significant.

Node:thunk, Next:tick, Previous:thundering herd problem, Up:= T =

thunk /thuhnk/ n.

1. [obs.]"A piece of coding which provides an address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If a procedure is called with an expression in the place of a formal parameter, the compiler generates a thunk which computes the expression and leaves the address of the result in some standard location. 2. Later generalized into: an expression, frozen together with its environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar to what in techspeak is called a `closure'). The process of unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing'. 3. A stubroutine, in an overlay programming environment, that loads and jumps to the correct overlay. Compare trampoline. 4. People and

## activities scheduled in a thunklike manner. "It occurred to me

the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by a thunk -- I frequently need to be forced to completion." -- paraphrased from a plan file.

Historical note: There are a couple of onomatopoeic myths circulating about the origin of this term. The most common is that it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator. Yet another suggests that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at argument-evaluation time. In fact, according to the inventors, it was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought, simplifying the evaluation machinery. In other words, it had `already been thought of'; thus it was christened a `thunk', which is "the past tense of `think' at two in the morning".

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tick n.

1. A jiffy (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick' simulation, especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long, independent chains of causes is handwaved. 3. In the FORTH language, a single quote character.

Node:tick-list features, Next:tickle a bug, Previous:tick, Up:= T =

tick-list features n.

[Acorn Computers] Features in software or hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in desktop TSRs and that sort of thing). The American equivalent would be `checklist features', but this jargon sense of the phrase has not been reported.

Node:tickle a bug, Next:tiger team, Previous:tick-list features, Up:= T =

tickle a bug vt.

To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest itself through some known series of inputs or operations. "You can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by trying to set bright yellow reverse video."

Node:tiger team, Next:time bomb, Previous:tickle a bug, Up:= T =

tiger team n.

[U.S. military jargon] 1. Originally, a team (of sneakers) whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus test security measures. These people are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have been stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc. After a successful penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next morning for a `security review' and finds the sign, note, etc., and all hell breaks loose. Serious successes of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement for base commanders and security officers (see the patch entry for an example). 2. Recently, and more generally, any official inspection team or special firefighting group called in to look at a problem.

A subset of tiger teams are professional crackers, testing the security of military computer installations by attempting remote attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels. Some of their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the greatest hacks of all times. The term has been adopted in commercial computer-security circles in this more specific sense.

Node:time bomb, Next:time sink, Previous:tiger team, Up:= T =

time bomb n.

A subspecies of logic bomb that is triggered by reaching some preset time, either once or periodically. There are numerous legends about time bombs set up by programmers in their employers' machines, to go off if the programmer is fired or laid off and is not present to perform the appropriate suppressing action periodically.

Interestingly, the only such incident for which we have been pointed to documentary evidence took place in the Soviet Union in 1986! A disgruntled programmer at the Volga Automobile Plant (where the Fiat clones called Ladas were manufactured) planted a time bomb which, a week after he'd left on vacation, stopped the entire main assembly line for a day. The case attracted lots of attention in the Soviet Union because it was the first cracking case to make it to court there. The perpetrator got a suspended sentence of 3 years in jail and was barred from future work as a programmer.

Node:time sink, Next:time T, Previous:time bomb, Up:= T =

time sink n.

[poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or `current sink'] A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.

Node:time T, Next:times-or-divided-by, Previous:time sink, Up:= T =

time T /ti:m T/ n.

1. An unspecified but usually well-understood time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1. "We'll meet on campus at time T or at Louie's at time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner: "We can meet on campus and go to Louie's, or we can meet at Louie's itself a bit later." (Louie's was a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto that was a favorite with hackers.) Had the number 30 been used instead of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from campus to Louie's is 30 minutes; whatever time T is (and that hasn't been decided on yet), you can meet half an hour later at Louie's than you could on campus and end up eating at the same time. See also since time T equals minus infinity.

Node:times-or-divided-by, Next:TINC, Previous:time T, Up:= T =

times-or-divided-by quant.

[by analogy with `plus-or-minus'] Term occasionally used when describing the uncertainty associated with a scheduling estimate, for either humorous or brutally honest effect. For a software project, the scheduling uncertainty factor is usually at least 2.

Node:TINC, Next:Tinkerbell program, Previous:times-or-divided-by, Up:= T =

TINC //

[Usenet] Abbreviation: "There Is No Cabal". See backbone cabal and NANA, but note that this abbreviation did not enter use until long after the dispersal of the backbone cabal.

Node:Tinkerbell program, Next:TINLC, Previous:TINC, Up:= T =

Tinkerbell program n.

[Great Britain] A monitoring program used to scan incoming network calls and generate alerts when calls are received from

## particular sites, or when logins are attempted using certain IDs.

Named after `Project Tinkerbell', an experimental phone-tapping program developed by British Telecom in the early 1980s.

Node:TINLC, Next:tip of the ice-cube, Previous:Tinkerbell program, Up:= T =

TINLC //

Abbreviation: "There Is No Lumber Cartel". See Lumber Cartel. TINLC is a takeoff on TINC.

Node:tip of the ice-cube, Next:tired iron, Previous:TINLC, Up:= T =

tip of the ice-cube n. //

[IBM] The visible part of something small and insignificant. Used as an ironic comment in situations where `tip of the iceberg' might be appropriate if the subject were at all important.

Node:tired iron, Next:tits on a keyboard, Previous:tip of the ice-cube, Up:= T =

tired iron n.

[IBM] Hardware that is perfectly functional but far enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a dinosaur.

Node:tits on a keyboard, Next:TLA, Previous:tired iron, Up:= T =

tits on a keyboard n.

Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep touch-typists registered. Usually on the 5 of a numeric keypad, and on the F and J of a QWERTY keyboard; but older Macs, perverse as usual, had them on the D and K keys (this changed in 1999).

Node:TLA, Next:(TM), Previous:tits on a keyboard, Up:= T =

TLA /T-L-A/ n.

[Three-Letter Acronym] 1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species with which computing terminology is infested. 2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four letters. One also hears of `ETLA' (Extended Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to describe four-letter acronyms. The term `SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym) has also been reported. See also YABA.