Related:

• TANSTAAFL /tan'stah-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
  ] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly heavyweight technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of software, or at the signal-to-noise ratio of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups....
• ignal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n.
  Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning....
• ignal-to-noise ratio [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers in a generalization of its technical meaning.
  `Signal' refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and `noise' to anything else on that medium....
• etwork address: n. (also `net address') As used by hackers, means an address on `the' network (see {network, the}
  his is almost always a {bang path} or {{Internet address}})....
• ewsgroup: [USENET] n. One of {USENET}'s huge collection of topic groups or {fora}.
  Usenet groups can be `unmoderated' (anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the results)....
• GNU: /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym: `GNU's Not UNIX!
  ', see {{recursive acronym}}] A UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman &l...
• In ecology, as in economics, TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) is intended to warn that every gain is won at some cost.
  Failure to recognize the no free lunch law causes the buffalo-hunter mentality syndrome -- the unthinking assumption that there will always be plenty because there always has been plenty....
• front end: n. 1. An intermediary computer that does set-up and filtering for another (usually more powerful but less friendly) machine (a `back end').
  2. What you're talking to when you have a conversation with someone who is making replies without paying attention....
• flamage: /flay'm*j/ n. Flaming verbiage, esp. high-noise, low-signal postings to {USENET} or other electronic {fora}.
  Often in the phrase `the usual flamage'. `Flaming' is the act itself...