1. n. The offset of one's waking-sleeping schedule
with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle; a useful concept among
people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed
schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6
hours per day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've
been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to wrap around to the d
12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'.
(The term `day mode' is also (but less frequently) used, meaning
you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).) The act of
altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase
shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech.
2. `change phase the hard way': To stay awake for a very long
time in order to get into a different phase. 3. `change phase
the easy way': To stay asleep, etc. However, some claim that
either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it
is shortening your day or night that is really hard (see
wrap around). The `jet lag' that afflicts travelers who
cross many time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct
causes: the strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing
phase. Hackers who suddenly find that they must change phase
drastically in a short period of time, particularly the hard way,
experience something very like jet lag without traveling.
wrap around: vi. (also n. `wraparound' and v. shorthand
`wrap') 1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over
at zero or at `minus infinity' (see {infinity}) after its
maximum value has been reached, and continues incrementing, either
because it is programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as
when a car's odometer starts over at 0)....
wrap around vi.
(also n. `wraparound' and v. shorthand
`wrap') 1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over
at zero or at `minus infinity' (see infinity) after its
maximum value has been reached, and continues incrementing, either
because it is programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as
when a car's odometer starts over at 0)....
