Chapter 14

Describes a condition of suspended animation in which something is so wedged or hung that it makes no response. If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed). "There I was in the middle of a winning game of nethack and it went catatonic on me! Aaargh!" Compare buzz.

Node:cathedral, Next:cd tilde, Previous:catatonic, Up:= C =

cathedral n.,adj.

[see bazaar for derivation] The `classical' mode of software engineering long thought to be necessarily implied by Brooks's Law. Features small teams, tight project control, and long release intervals. This term came into use after analysis of the Linux experience suggested there might be something wrong (or at least incomplete) in the classical assumptions.

Node:cd tilde, Next:CDA, Previous:cathedral, Up:= C =

cd tilde /C-D til-d*/ vi.

To go home. From the Unix C-shell and Korn-shell command cd ~, which takes one to one's $HOME (cd with no arguments happens to do the same thing). By extension, may be used with other arguments; thus, over an electronic chat link, cd ~coffee would mean "I'm going to the coffee machine."

Node:CDA, Next:cdr, Previous:cd tilde, Up:= C =

CDA /C-D-A/

The "Communications Decency Act" of 1996, passed on Black Thursday as section 502 of a major telecommunications reform bill. The CDA made it a federal crime in the USA to send a communication which is "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person." It also threatened with imprisonment anyone who "knowingly" makes accessible to minors any message that "describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs".

While the CDA was sold as a measure to protect minors from the putative evils of pornography, the repressive political aims of the bill were laid bare by the Hyde amendment, which intended to outlaw discussion of abortion on the Internet.

To say that this direct attack on First Amendment free-speech rights was not well received on the Internet would be putting it mildly. A firestorm of protest followed, including a February 29th mass demonstration by thousands of netters who turned their home pages black for 48 hours. Several civil-rights groups and computing/telecommunications companies mounted a constitutional challenge. The CDA was demolished by a strongly-worded decision handed down on in 8th-circuit Federal court and subsequently affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court on 26 June 1997 (`White Thursday'). See also Exon.

Node:cdr, Next:chad, Previous:CDA, Up:= C =

cdr /ku'dr/ or /kuh'dr/ vt.

[from LISP] To skip past the first item from a list of things (generalized from the LISP operation on binary tree structures, which returns a list consisting of all but the first element of its argument). In the form `cdr down', to trace down a list of elements: "Shall we cdr down the agenda?" Usage: silly. See also loop through.

Historical note: The instruction format of the IBM 704 that hosted the original LISP implementation featured two 15-bit fields called the `address' and `decrement' parts. The term `cdr' was originally `Contents of Decrement part of Register'. Similarly, `car' stood for `Contents of Address part of Register'.

The cdr and car operations have since become bases for formation of compound metaphors in non-LISP contexts. GLS recalls, for example, a programming project in which strings were represented as linked lists; the get-character and skip-character operations were of course called CHAR and CHDR.

Node:chad, Next:chad box, Previous:cdr, Up:= C =

chad /chad/ n.

1. [common] The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after they have been separated from the printed portion. Also called selvage, perf, and ripoff. 2. obs. The confetti-like paper bits punched out of cards or paper tape; this has also been called `chaff', `computer confetti', and `keypunch droppings'. It's reported that this was very old Army slang, and it may now be mainstream; it has been reported seen (1993) in directions for a card-based voting machine in California.

Historical note: One correspondent believes `chad' (sense 2) derives from the Chadless keypunch (named for its inventor), which cut little u-shaped tabs in the card to make a hole when the tab folded back, rather than punching out a circle/rectangle; it was clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'. There is a legend that the word was originally acronymic, standing for "Card Hole Aggregate Debris", but this has all the earmarks of a backronym.

Node:chad box, Next:chain, Previous:chad, Up:= C =

chad box n.

A metal box about the size of a lunchbox (or in some models a large wastebasket), for collecting the chad (sense 2) that accumulated in Iron Age card punches. You had to open the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the chad box. The bit bucket was notionally the equivalent device in the CPU enclosure, which was typically across the room in another great gray-and-blue box.

Node:chain, Next:channel, Previous:chad box, Up:= C =

chain

1. vi. [orig. from BASIC's CHAIN statement] To hand off execution to a child or successor without going through the OS command interpreter that invoked it. The state of the parent program is lost and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most Unix programmers will think of this as an exec. Oppose the more modern `subshell'. 2. n. A series of linked data areas within an operating system or application. `Chain rattling' is the process of repeatedly running through the linked data areas searching for one which is of interest to the executing program. The implication is that there is a very large number of links on the chain.

Node:channel, Next:channel hopping, Previous:chain, Up:= C =

channel n.

[IRC] The basic unit of discussion on IRC. Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel. Channels are named with strings that begin with a `#' sign and can have topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion). Some notable channels are #initgame, #hottub, callahans, and #report. At times of international crisis, #report has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to various news services and typing in summaries of the news, or in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).

Node:channel hopping, Next:channel op, Previous:channel, Up:= C =

channel hopping n.

[common; IRC, GEnie] To rapidly switch channels on IRC, or a GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly might hop from one group to another at a party. This term may derive from the TV watcher's idiom, `channel surfing'.

Node:channel op, Next:chanop, Previous:channel hopping, Up:= C =

channel op /chan'l op/ n.

[IRC] Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular IRC channel; commonly abbreviated `chanop' or `CHOP' or just `op' (as of 2000 these short forms have almost crowded out the parent usage). These privileges include the right to kick users, to change various status bits, and to make others into CHOPs.

Node:chanop, Next:char, Previous:channel op, Up:= C =

chanop /chan'-op/ n.

[IRC] See channel op.

Node:char, Next:charityware, Previous:chanop, Up:= C =

char /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ n.

Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data.

Node:charityware, Next:chase pointers, Previous:char, Up:= C =

charityware /cha'rit-ee-weir`/ n.

Syn. careware.

Node:chase pointers, Next:chawmp, Previous:charityware, Up:= C =

chase pointers

1. vi. To go through multiple levels of indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure. Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very common data type. This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when used of human networks. "I'm chasing pointers. Bob said you could tell me who to talk to about...." See dangling pointer and snap. 2. [Cambridge] `pointer chase' or `pointer hunt': The process of going through a core dump (sense 1), interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hex runes, following dynamic data-structures. Used only in a debugging context.

Node:chawmp, Next:check, Previous:chase pointers, Up:= C =

chawmp n.

[University of Florida] 16 or 18 bits (half of a machine word). This term was used by FORTH hackers during the late 1970s/early 1980s; it is said to have been archaic then, and may now be obsolete. It was coined in revolt against the promiscuous use of `word' for anything between 16 and 32 bits; `word' has an additional special meaning for FORTH hacks that made the overloading intolerable. For similar reasons, /gaw'bl/ (spelled `gawble' or possibly `gawbul') was in use as a term for 32 or 48 bits (presumably a full machine word, but our sources are unclear on this). These terms are more easily understood if one thinks of them as faithful phonetic spellings of `chomp' and `gobble' pronounced in a Florida or other Southern U.S. dialect. For general discussion of similar terms, see nybble.

Node:check, Next:cheerfully, Previous:chawmp, Up:= C =

check n.

A hardware-detected error condition, most commonly used to refer to actual hardware failures rather than software-induced traps. E.g., a `parity check' is the result of a hardware-detected parity error. Recorded here because the word often humorously extended to non-technical problems. For example, the term `child check' has been used to refer to the problems caused by a small child who is curious to know what happens when s/he presses all the cute buttons on a computer's console (of course, this particular problem could have been prevented with molly-guards).

Node:cheerfully, Next:chemist, Previous:check, Up:= C =

cheerfully adv.

See happily.

Node:chemist, Next:Chernobyl chicken, Previous:cheerfully, Up:= C =

chemist n.

[Cambridge] Someone who wastes computer time on number-crunching when you'd far rather the machine were doing something more productive, such as working out anagrams of your name or printing Snoopy calendars or running life patterns. May or may not refer to someone who actually studies chemistry.

Node:Chernobyl chicken, Next:Chernobyl packet, Previous:chemist, Up:= C =

Chernobyl chicken n.

See laser chicken.

Node:Chernobyl packet, Next:chicken head, Previous:Chernobyl chicken, Up:= C =

Chernobyl packet /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ n.

A network packet that induces a broadcast storm and/or network meltdown, in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The typical scenario involves an IP Ethernet datagram that passes through a gateway with both source and destination Ether and IP address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the subnetworks being gated between. Compare Christmas tree packet.

Node:chicken head, Next:chiclet keyboard, Previous:Chernobyl packet, Up:= C =

chicken head n.

[Commodore] The Commodore Business Machines logo, which strongly resembles a poultry part (within Commodore itself the logo was always called `chicken lips'). Rendered in ASCII as `C='. With the arguable exception of the Amiga (see amoeba), Commodore's machines were notoriously crocky little bitty boxes (see also PETSCII), albeit people have written multitasking Unix-like operating systems with TCP/IP networking for them. Thus, this usage may owe something to Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (the basis for the movie "Blade Runner"; the novel is now sold under that title), in which a `chickenhead' is a mutant with below-average intelligence.

Node:chiclet keyboard, Next:Chinese Army technique, Previous:chicken head, Up:= C =

chiclet keyboard n.

A keyboard with a small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of chewing gum. (Chiclets is the brand name of a variety of chewing gum that does in fact resemble the keys of chiclet keyboards.) Used esp. to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard. Vendors unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early portable and laptop products got launched using them. Customers rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.

Node:Chinese Army technique, Next:choad, Previous:chiclet keyboard, Up:= C =

Chinese Army technique n.

Syn. Mongolian Hordes technique.

Node:choad, Next:choke, Previous:Chinese Army technique, Up:= C =

choad /chohd/ n.

Synonym for `penis' used in _alt.tasteless_ and popularized by the denizens thereof. They say: "We think maybe it's from Middle English but we're all too damned lazy to check the OED." [I'm not. It isn't. --ESR] This term is alleged to have been inherited through 1960s underground comics, and to have been recently sighted in the Beavis and Butthead cartoons. Speakers of the Hindi, Bengali and Gujarati languages have confirmed that `choad' is in fact an Indian vernacular word equivalent to `fuck'; it is therefore likely to have entered English slang via the British Raj.

Node:choke, Next:chomp, Previous:choad, Up:= C =

choke v.

1. [common] To reject input, often ungracefully. "NULs make System V's lpr(1) choke." "I tried building an EMACS binary to use X, but cpp(1) choked on all those #defines." See barf, gag, vi. 2. [MIT] More generally, to fail at any endeavor, but with some flair or bravado; the popular definition is "to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Node:chomp, Next:chomper, Previous:choke, Up:= C =

chomp vi.

1. To lose; specifically, to chew on something of which more was bitten off than one can. Probably related to gnashing of teeth. 2. To bite the bag; See bagbiter.

A hand gesture commonly accompanies this. To perform it, hold the four fingers together and place the thumb against their tips. Now open and close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems to predate that). The gesture alone means `chomp chomp' (see "Verb Doubling" in the "Jargon Construction" section of the Prependices). The hand may be pointed at the object of complaint, and for real emphasis you can use both hands at once. Doing this to a person is equivalent to saying "You chomper!" If you point the gesture at yourself, it is a humble but humorous admission of some failure. You might do this if someone told you that a program you had written had failed in some surprising way and you felt dumb for not having anticipated it.

Node:chomper, Next:CHOP, Previous:chomp, Up:= C =

chomper n.

Someone or something that is chomping; a loser. See loser, bagbiter, chomp.

Node:CHOP, Next:Christmas tree, Previous:chomper, Up:= C =

CHOP /chop/ n.

[IRC] See channel op.

Node:Christmas tree, Next:Christmas tree packet, Previous:CHOP, Up:= C =

Christmas tree n.

A kind of RS-232 line tester or breakout box featuring rows of blinking red and green LEDs suggestive of Christmas lights.

Node:Christmas tree packet, Next:chrome, Previous:Christmas tree, Up:= C =

Christmas tree packet n.

A packet with every single option set for whatever protocol is in use. See kamikaze packet, Chernobyl packet. (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful image of each little option bit being represented by a different-colored light bulb, all turned on.) Compare Godzillagram.

Node:chrome, Next:chug, Previous:Christmas tree packet, Up:= C =

chrome n.

[from automotive slang via wargaming] Showy features added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome, but they certainly are pretty chrome!" Distinguished from bells and whistles by the fact that the latter are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. Often used as a term of contempt.

Node:chug, Next:Church of the SubGenius, Previous:chrome, Up:= C =

chug vi.

To run slowly; to grind or grovel. "The disk is chugging like crazy."

Node:Church of the SubGenius, Next:Cinderella Book, Previous:chug, Up:= C =

Church of the SubGenius n.

A mutant offshoot of Discordianism launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist with a gift for promotion. Popular among hackers as a rich source of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the Stark Fist of Removal. Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of slack. There is a home page at http://www.subgenius.com/.

Node:Cinderella Book, Next:CI$, Previous:Church of the SubGenius, Up:= C =

Cinderella Book [CMU] n.

"Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation", by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman, (Addison-Wesley, 1979). So called because the cover depicts a girl (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device and holding a rope coming out of it. On the back cover, the device is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled on the rope. See also book titles.

Node:CI$, Next:Classic C, Previous:Cinderella Book, Up:= C =

CI$ // n.

Hackerism for `CIS', CompuServe Information Service. The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line charges. Often used in sig blocks just before a CompuServe address. Syn. Compu$erve.

Node:Classic C, Next:clean, Previous:CI$, Up:= C =

Classic C /klas'ik C/ n.

[a play on `Coke Classic'] The C programming language as defined in the first edition of K&R, with some small additions. It is also known as `K&R C'. The name came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee. Also `C Classic'.

An analogous construction is sometimes applied elsewhere: thus, `X Classic', where X = Star Trek (referring to the original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines as opposed to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially used of product series in which the newer versions are considered serious losers relative to the older ones.

Node:clean, Next:CLM, Previous:Classic C, Up:= C =

clean 1. adj.

Used of hardware or software designs, implies `elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the outside. The antonym is `grungy' or crufty. 2. v. To remove unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter: "I'm cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now have 100 Meg free on that partition."

Node:CLM, Next:clobber, Previous:clean, Up:= C =

CLM /C-L-M/

[Sun: `Career Limiting Move'] 1. n. An action endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and raises, and possibly one's job: "His Halloween costume was a parody of his manager. He won the prize for `best CLM'." 2. adj. Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a customer and obviously missed earlier because of poor testing: "That's a CLM bug!"

Node:clobber, Next:clock, Previous:CLM, Up:= C =

clobber vt.

To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I walked off the end of the array and clobbered the stack." Compare mung, scribble, trash, and smash the stack.

Node:clock, Next:clocks, Previous:clobber, Up:= C =

clock

1. n 1. [techspeak] The master oscillator that steps a CPU or other digital circuit through its paces. This has nothing to do with the time of day, although the software counter that keeps track of the latter may be derived from the former. 2. vt. To run a CPU or other digital circuit at a particular rate. "If you clock it at 100MHz, it gets warm.". See overclock. 3. vt. To force a digital circuit from one state to the next by applying a single clock pulse. "The data must be stable 10ns before you clock the latch."

Node:clocks, Next:clone, Previous:clock, Up:= C =

clocks n.

Processor logic cycles, so called because each generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing. The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are usually discussed in clocks rather than absolute fractions of a second; one good reason for this is that clock speeds for various models of the machine may increase as technology improves, and it is usually the relative times one is interested in when discussing the instruction set. Compare cycle, jiffy.

Node:clone, Next:clone-and-hack coding, Previous:clocks, Up:= C =

clone n.

1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of their product." Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower price. 2. A shoddy, spurious copy: "Their product is a clone of our product." 3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: "Your product is a clone of my product." This use implies legal action is pending. 4. `PC clone:' a PC-BUS/ISA or EISA-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes spelled `klone' or `PClone'). These invariably have much more bang for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble. 5. In the construction `Unix clone': An OS designed to deliver a Unix-lookalike environment without Unix license fees, or with additional `mission-critical' features such as support for real-time programming. 6. v. To make an exact copy of something. "Let me clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I can make a photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before you mung it".

Node:clone-and-hack coding, Next:clover key, Previous:clone, Up:= C =

clone-and-hack coding n.

[DEC] Syn. case and paste.

Node:clover key, Next:clue-by-four, Previous:clone-and-hack coding, Up:= C =

clover key n.

[Mac users] See feature key.

Node:clue-by-four, Next:clustergeeking, Previous:clover key, Up:= C =

clue-by-four

[Usenet: portmanteau, clue + two-by-four] The notional stick with which one whacks an aggressively clueless person. This term derives from a western American folk saying about training a mule "First, you got to hit him with a two-by-four. That's to get his attention." The clue-by-four is a close relative of the LART. Syn. `clue stick'. This metaphor is commonly elaborated; your editor once heard a hacker say "I strike you with the great sword Clue-Bringer!"

Node:clustergeeking, Next:co-lo, Previous:clue-by-four, Up:= C =

clustergeeking /kluh'st*r-gee`king/ n.

[CMU] Spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend breathing.

Node:co-lo, Next:coaster, Previous:clustergeeking, Up:= C =

co-lo /koh'loh`/ n.

[very common; first heard c.1995] Short for `co-location', used of a machine you own that is physically sited on the premises of an ISP in order to take advantage of the ISP's direct access to lots of network bandwidthm. Often in the phrases `co-lo box' or `co-lo machines'. Co-lo boxes are typically web and FTP servers remote-administered by their owners, who may seldom or never visit the actual site.

Node:coaster, Next:COBOL, Previous:co-lo, Up:= C =

coaster n.

1. Unuseable CD produced during failed attempt at writing to writeable or re-writeable CD media. Certainly related to the coaster-like shape of a CD, and the relative value of these failures. "I made a lot of coasters before I got a good CD." 2. Useless CDs received in the mail from the likes of AOL, MSN, CI$, Prodigy, ad nauseam.

In the U.K., `beermat' is often used in these senses.

Node:COBOL, Next:COBOL fingers, Previous:coaster, Up:= C =

COBOL /koh'bol/ n.