The Hacker's Dictionary, - [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

[Acronym for `Press Lots Of Keys To Abort']

v. To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from the system. One might plokta when the abort procedure for a program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the system is just sluggish or really hung. Plokta can also be used while trying to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation.

Someone going into `plokta mode' usually places both hands flat on the keyboard and presses down, hoping for some useful response.

A slightly more diected form of plokta can often be seen in mail messages or USENET articles from new users -- the text might end with

q quit :q ^C end x exit ZZ ^D ? help

as the user vainly tries to find the right exit sequence, with the incorrect tries piling up at the end of the message....

:plonk: [USENET: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for cheap booze] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the bottom of a {kill file}. Used almost exclusively in the {newsgroup}

talk.bizarre, this term (usually written "plonk") is a form of public ridicule.

:plugh: /ploogh/ [from the {ADVENT} game] v. See {xyzzy}.

:plumbing: [UNIX] n. Term used for {shell} code, so called because of the prevalence of pipelines' that feed the output of one program to the input of another. Under UNIX, user utilities can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable collection of pipelines and temp-file grinding encapsulated in a shell script; this is much less effort than writing C every time, and the capability is considered one of UNIX's major winning features. A few other OSs such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar facilities. Esp. used in the constructionhairy plumbing'

(see {hairy}). "You can kluge together a basic spell-checker out of sort(1)',comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with a little plumbing." See also {tee}.

:PM: /P-M/ 1. v. (from preventive maintenance') To bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes; see {scratch monkey}. 2. n. Abbrev. forPresentation Manager', an {elephantine} OS/2 graphical user interface. See also {provocative maintenance}.

:pnambic: /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film version of `The Wizard of Oz' in which the true nature of the wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."] 1. A stage of development of a process or function that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some or all of the actions, inputs, or outputs of the process or function. 2. Of or pertaining to a process or function whose apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified.

Requiring {prestidigitization}.

The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See {magic}, sense 1, for illumination of this point.

:pod: [allegedly from abbreviation POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer). From the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to it.

See also {P.O.D.}

:point-and-drool interface: n. Parody of the techspeak term point-and-shoot interface', describing a windows, icons, and mice-based interface such as is found on the Macintosh. The implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable for idiots. See {for the rest of us}, {WIMP environment}, {Macintrash}, {drool-proof paper}. Alsopoint-and-grunt interface'.

:poke: n.,vt. See {peek}.

:poll: v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular external event has been registered. 2. To repeatedly call or check with someone: "I keep polling him, but he's not answering his phone; he must be swapped out." 3. To ask. "Lunch? I poll for a takeout order daily."

:polygon pusher: n. A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing lots of multi-colored polygons). Also `rectangle slinger'.

:POM: /P-O-M/ n. Common abbreviation for {phase of the moon}. Usage: usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means {flaky}.

:pop: [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] (also capitalized `POP' /pop/) 1. vt. To remove something from a {stack} or {pdl}. If a person says he/she has popped something from his stack, that means he/she has finally finished working on it and can now remove it from the list of things hanging overhead. 2. When a discussion gets to too deep a level of detail so that the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone will shout "Pop!", meaning "Get back up to a higher level!"

The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a finger pointing to the ceiling.

:POPJ: /pop'J/ [from a {PDP-10} return-from-subroutine instruction] n.,v. To return from a digression. By verb doubling, "Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see, where were we?"

See {RTI}.

:posing: n. On a {MUD}, the use of :' or an equivalent command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain physical action that has no effect on the game (it may, however, serve as a social signal or propaganda device that induces other people to take game actions). For example, if one's character name is Firechild, one might type: looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on the nearest terminal' to broadcast a message that says "Firechild looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on the nearest terminal". See {RL}.

:post: v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}.

Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for example: "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known users?"

:postcardware: n. {Shareware} that borders on {freeware}, in that the author requests only that satisfied users send a postcard of their home town or something. (This practice, silly as it might seem, serves to remind users that they are otherwise getting something for nothing, and may also be psychologically related to real estate "sales" in which $1 changes hands just to keep the transaction from being a gift.)

:posting: n. Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that {post} can be nouned). Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary {email} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than point-to-point. It is not clear whether messages sent to a small mailing list are postings or email; perhaps the best dividing line is that if you don't know the names of all the potential recipients, it is a posting.

:postmaster: n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the same as the {admin}. The Internet standard for electronic mail ({RFC}822) requires each machine to have a `postmaster' address; usually it is aliased to this person.

:PostScript: n. A groundbreaking Page Description Language ({PDL}), based on work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in 1976, evolving through JaM' (John and Martin', Martin Newell) at {XEROX PARC}, and finally implemented in its current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1982. PostScript gets its leverage by using a full programming language, rather than a series of low-level escape sequences, to describe an image to be printed on a laser printer or other output device (in this it parallels {EMACS}, which exploited a similar insight about editing tasks).

It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly rasterization, from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality fonts at low (e.g.

300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed that hand-tuned bitmap fonts were required for this task). Hackers consider PostScript to be among the most elegant hacks of all time, and the combination of technical merits and widespread availability has made PostScript the language of choice for graphical output.

:pound on: vt. Syn. {bang on}.

:power cycle: vt. (also, cycle power' or justcycle') To power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.

Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}. Compare {Vulcan nerve pinch}, {bounce}, and {boot}, and see the AI Koan in "{A Selection of AI Koans}" (in {appendix A}) about Tom Knight and the novice.

:power hit: n. A spike or drop-out in the electricity supplying your machine; a power {glitch}. These can cause crashes and even permanent damage to your machine(s).

:PPN: /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL, BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere. Old-time hackers from the PDP-10

era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on other systems as well.

:precedence lossage: /pre's-dens los'j/ [C programmers] n.

Coding error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or logical operators by the compiler. Used esp. of certain common coding errors in C due to the nonintuitively low precedence