[plug] Newbys guide

[Shayne O'Neill]

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/

Your new best friend! ESR's (Eric S Raymond) jargon file.

Browse thru it, some of its verry funny. Keep in mind that ESR is a
contraversial figure in linux circles. Most either love him , despise his
pomposity or (like me) find him a brilliant coder prone to saying some
stoopid things. but the jargon file is great. Its also got a lot of
actually usefull words too :)

Sample entry;-

quantum bogodynamics: /kwon´tm boh`goh·di:·nam´iks/, n.
=======================================================
    A theory that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources
(such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and suits in
general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and bogosity
potential fields. Bogon absorption, of course, causes human beings to
behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may also cause both to emit
secondary bogons); however, the precise mechanics of the bogon-computron
interaction are not yet understood and remain to be elucidated. Quantum
bogodynamics is most often invoked to explain the sharp increase in
hardware and software failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit
bogons, which the former absorb. See bogon, computron, suit, psyton.

    Here is a representative QBD theory: The bogon is a boson (integral
spin, +1 or -1), and has zero rest mass. In this respect it is very much
like a photon. However, it has a much greater momentum, thus explaining
its destructive effect on computer electronics and human nervous systems.
The corollary to this is that bogons also have tremendous inertia, and
therefore a bogon beam is deflected only with great difficulty. When the
bogon encounters its antiparticle, the cluon, they mutually annihilate
each other, releasing magic smoke. Furthermore 1 Lenat = 1 mole (6.022E23)
of bogons (see microLenat).


--
"Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do
it, that's trustworthiness."
-- George Bush on CNN online chat, Aug.30, 2000
RIAA Copyright notice trap: http://guild.murdoch.edu.au/~shayne/

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> I'm not sure whether I'm really helping here or using my time wisely
> writing replies like this; but hopefully it'll be of some help...
>
> Kev wrote:
>
> > >IIRC HPFS is in the kernel. I'll check later.
> >
> > Don't you see you've gone and done the PLUG thing.  You're talking right
> > out of my league.  Under different circumstances I'd simply give up and
> > go away.  THIS IS THE PLUG THING!!!  What the hell is IIRC????
>
> Stands for "If I recall correctly", which could be found with some
> cursory googling.  A lot of these terms and acronyms can be looked up
> in FOLDOC http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/
>
> > What are source trees?????  I'm NOT a programmer!!!!
>
> A source tree refers to the directory structure (or "tree") containing
> the source code for a programme; in this case, the Linux kernel.
>
> > What's a kernel module????
>
> A piece of code that can be loaded into the kernel giving it new
> functionality.  Like, say, accessing HPFS partitions.  Or a wireless
> network card.  Or firewalling ability.  Or whatever.  You'll find that
> in a modern Linux system, there are a lot of modules which are loaded
> automatically depending on how you have it configured, what software
> you run and what hardware is detected in your system when it boots.
>
> This link has a very detailed explanation of what they are, what they
> do, and why they exist, although some of it is quite heavy in
> technical jargon (including some which I don't understand):
>         http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/x58.html
>
> (FWIW: I found that link by searching for "linux kernel module"; often
> it's worth punching unfamiliar terms into Google and seeing what it
> comes up with, though I do realise that often it's hard to find the
> good, up-to-date descriptions amongst the chaff on web.)
>
> Cameron.
>
> _______________________________________________
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>