Journal Frater 219's Journal: Words To Grow On 1
anal resentive adj. Of a person, characterized by envy of another's easygoing or flexible nature.
antisoftware n. Software written so as to restrict or harm its user, rather than to empower or assist him or her. The proper function of software is to work for its user: a word processor enables the editing of documents; a database enables the structured storage of facts; a chat or email system enables communication.
Classes of programs which restrict or harm the user -- in other words, to do the opposite of what is expected from software -- include Digital Rights Denial, spyware, Trojan horses, and "license managers". Much antisoftware can be identified by the user being compelled to run it, or held in ignorance of its running -- s/he would not run it by informed willing choice.
contrabland n. Bootleg recordings of "easy listening" music.
crack pipe n. Any network segment used chiefly for the delivery of attacks and/or DDoS packets. Also, the foremost shell tool used in rootkits, as:
immanagerial adj. Of an organizational superior or supervisor, immaterial. An immanagerial person is one who has managerial authority, but does no actual managing either positive (being a Good Boss) or negative (being a PHB).
improperty n. (Of old, synonymous with impropriety.) Property which isn't: that which is legally obtained not by trade or labor, but by enclosure or government monopoly. Examples of improperty include "taxes" on blank CD media collected by music cartels, airspace seized from property owners by factory operators for use in waste disposal, and most if not all forms of thought monopoly (q.v.)
nucular adj. Misunderstood, in the manner of the effects of a weapon or the risk of a power plant. The former tend to be underestimated, the latter overestimated.
obsoloot adj. Not new enough to have counted towards the speaker's current quarterly sales figures. "Buy a new operating system from me! Your old one's obsoloot!" Also obsoloser: one who complains about not having the latest kit.
planguage n. Any of the popular scripting languages, such as Perl, Python, PHP, or Pruby.
scientoloquy n. Any jargon whose terms are extensively and verbosely defined, yet entirely meaningless or nonoperational. "He buttonholed me for half an hour with scientoloquy about 'XML post-relational databases'."
secret source n. The opposite of "open source". To be preferred over "closed source" because it points out that a chief purpose of withholding source code is to withhold ugly secrets from one's customers.
Ugly secrets in the past have included antisoftware elements, design flaws, intentional backdoors, and acts of sabotage against competing products. Analogy to "secret sauce" is intended -- holding the source secret mystifies it, as if it were something besides plain ketchup and mayonnaise.
security by wtf 1z th4t b0x0r? A security tactic which involves running the same possibly-insecure software everyone else has, but on an obscure or less-popular architecture. The ready availability of exploits and rootkits coded for Linux/x86 and Solaris/SPARC does not lead to the availability of similar attack tools for Linux for PowerPC or ARM.
stubculture n. A group or affiliation standing in for a subculture. Like a stub procedure, a stubculture is empty of actual function. It is to be replaced with an actual subculture as soon as one becomes available.
suximetry n. The science implemented by devices such as the Sucks-Rules-O-Meter.
terrorist terrorist n. One who inflicts upon others the fear of terrorists; e.g. Tom Ridge.
thought monopoly n. A government-granted monopoly over the development and use of a set of thoughts. Examples include patents, as well as those aspects of copyright which restrict the development of derivative creative works. (The restriction of plagiarism is not thought monopoly, but rather fraud prevention. Restriction of verbatim duplication is arguably also not thought monopoly, as copying is not creative.) Trademark law creates thought monopolies only insofar as it is used to censor public thinking about the trademarked brand (e.g. parody and criticism), and not insofar as it is used to prevent fraud.
yibe excl. An expression of shockless dismay; contrast yipe.
Zork management n. A maze of twisty little meetings, all alike.
Oh, that hurts.... (Score:2)
Now I have to clean coffee off my keyboard. Thanks for the Sat. morning funny.