Jargon File

Jargon File

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You are not expected to understand this [Unix] cav.
The canonical comment describing something magic or too complicated to bother explaining properly....
You know you've been hacking too long when The set-up line for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves.
These include the following: not only do you check your email mo...
Your mileage may vary cav. [from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1.
A ritual warning often found in Unix freeware distributions. Tra...
Yow! /yow/ interj. [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] A favored hacker expression of humorous surprise or emphasis.
Yow! Check out what happens when you twiddle the foo option on this di...
yoyo mode n. The state in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down.
Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many ha...
Yu-Shiang Whole Fish /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ n. obs.
The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page....
zap 1. n. Spiciness. 2. vt. To make food spicy.
3. vt. To make someone `suffer' by making his food spicy....
zapped adj. Spicy. This term is used to distinguish between food that is hot (in temperature) and food that is spicy-hot.
For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon Chicken is a kind of...
zen vt. To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash of enlightenment.
Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally applied to problems of life in general....
zero vt. 1. To set to 0. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words (esp.
in the construction `zero out'). 2. To erase; to discard all data from....

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