earned media

Publicitiy for political campaigns gained through newspaper articles, TV news stories, web news, letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, and "fast polls" on TV and the Web.

— Wiktionary

signal

(of a radio, TV, telephone, internet, etc) An electrical or electromagnetic action, normally a voltage that is a function of time that conveys the information of the radio or TV program or of communication with another party.

— Wiktionary

TBS

(US TV)

— Wiktionary

orthicon

TV camera tube.

— Wiktionary

dorama

Japanese TV drama

— Wiktionary

tv

Alternate form of TV

— Wiktionary

pilot

A sample episode of a proposed TV series

— Wiktionary

tooner

An animated film or TV show.

— Wiktionary

Browncoat

A fan of the TV series Firefly.

— Wiktionary

blackout

a suspension of radio or tv broadcasting

— Princeton's WordNet

Tidal Volume

The volume of air inspired or expired during each normal, quiet respiratory cycle. Common abbreviations are TV or V with subscript T.

— U.S. National Library of Medicine

aspect ratio

the ratio of the width to the height of a tv picture

— Princeton's WordNet

receiver, receiving system

set that receives radio or tv signals

— Princeton's WordNet

Rediffusion

a system for distributing radio or tv programs

— Princeton's WordNet

prime time

the hours between 7 and 11 p.m. when the largest tv audience is available

— Princeton's WordNet

transmitter, sender

set used to broadcast radio or tv signals

— Princeton's WordNet

huckster

a person who writes radio or tv advertisements

— Princeton's WordNet

receiver, receiving system

set that receives radio or tv signals

— Princeton's WordNet

broadcasting

taking part in a radio or tv program

— Princeton's WordNet

broadcast area

the area over which a radio or tv transmission can be received

— Princeton's WordNet

broadcasting company

a company that manages tv or radio stations

— Princeton's WordNet

transmitter, sender

set used to broadcast radio or tv signals

— Princeton's WordNet

scenographer

A person who designs sets for film or TV

— Wiktionary

trailer

A preview of a film, video game or TV show.

— Wiktionary

gaffer

an electrician responsible for lighting on a movie or tv set

— Princeton's WordNet

running time

the length of time that a movie or tv show runs

— Princeton's WordNet

Trekker

A fan of the TV science fiction series Star Trek.

— Wiktionary

high definition

Enhanced picture quality on a TV or any other display.

— Wiktionary

Trekkie

A fan of the TV science fiction series Star Trek.

— Wiktionary

set

any electronic equipment that receives or transmits radio or tv signals

— Princeton's WordNet

shooting script

the final detailed script for making a movie or TV program

— Princeton's WordNet

press conference, news conference

a conference at which press and tv reporters ask questions of a politician or other celebrity

— Princeton's WordNet

press conference, news conference

a conference at which press and tv reporters ask questions of a politician or other celebrity

— Princeton's WordNet

rabbit ears

an indoor TV antenna; consists of two extendible rods that form a V

— Princeton's WordNet

documentary, docudrama, documentary film, infotainment

a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event

— Princeton's WordNet

documentary, docudrama, documentary film, infotainment

a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event

— Princeton's WordNet

documentary, docudrama, documentary film, infotainment

a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event

— Princeton's WordNet

documentary, docudrama, documentary film, infotainment

a film or TV program presenting the facts about a person or event

— Princeton's WordNet

rebroadcaster

A radio or TV station that relays the programs of another

— Wiktionary

cable box

A descrambler used to descramble scrambled television channels on cable TV

— Wiktionary

signature, signature tune, theme song

a melody used to identify a performer or a dance band or radio/tv program

— Princeton's WordNet

spot

a short section or illustration (as between radio or tv programs or in a magazine) that is often used for advertising

— Princeton's WordNet

signature, signature tune, theme song

a melody used to identify a performer or a dance band or radio/tv program

— Princeton's WordNet

signature, signature tune, theme song

a melody used to identify a performer or a dance band or radio/tv program

— Princeton's WordNet

videocassette recorder, VCR

a magnetic tape recorder for recording (and playing back) TV programs

— Princeton's WordNet

videocassette recorder, VCR

a magnetic tape recorder for recording (and playing back) TV programs

— Princeton's WordNet

question master, quizmaster

the host or chairman of a radio or tv quiz show or panel game

— Princeton's WordNet

question master, quizmaster

the host or chairman of a radio or tv quiz show or panel game

— Princeton's WordNet

boom, microphone boom

a pole carrying an overhead microphone projected over a film or tv set

— Princeton's WordNet

boom, microphone boom

a pole carrying an overhead microphone projected over a film or tv set

— Princeton's WordNet

talking head

A pundit who discusses issues of the day, especially one on TV.

— Wiktionary

guest star

A guest on a TV programme who stars in one, or a few, episodes.

— Wiktionary

previewer

A person who has been invited to preview a film or TV program.

— Wiktionary

subtitle, caption

translation of foreign dialogue of a movie or TV program; usually displayed at the bottom of the screen

— Princeton's WordNet

subtitle, caption

translation of foreign dialogue of a movie or TV program; usually displayed at the bottom of the screen

— Princeton's WordNet

field-sequential color television, field-sequential color TV, field-sequential color television system, field-sequential color TV system

an early form of color TV in which successive fields are scanned in three primary colors

— Princeton's WordNet

field-sequential color television, field-sequential color TV, field-sequential color television system, field-sequential color TV system

an early form of color TV in which successive fields are scanned in three primary colors

— Princeton's WordNet

field-sequential color television, field-sequential color TV, field-sequential color television system, field-sequential color TV system

an early form of color TV in which successive fields are scanned in three primary colors

— Princeton's WordNet

field-sequential color television, field-sequential color TV, field-sequential color television system, field-sequential color TV system

an early form of color TV in which successive fields are scanned in three primary colors

— Princeton's WordNet

canned laughter

Previously-recorded laughter that is edited into the soundtrack of a TV programme

— Wiktionary

foley session

A session in which sound effects are added to a film or TV scene

— Wiktionary

potentiometer, pot

a resistor with three terminals, the third being an adjustable center terminal; used to adjust voltages in radios and TV sets

— Princeton's WordNet

potentiometer, pot

a resistor with three terminals, the third being an adjustable center terminal; used to adjust voltages in radios and TV sets

— Princeton's WordNet

HSYNC

The horizontal synchronization signal incorporated in a video transmission, such as for a TV broadcast.

— Wiktionary

title

(usually plural) written material introduced into a movie or TV show to give credits or represent dialogue or explain an action

— Princeton's WordNet

teravolt

One million million ( 10 ) volts, abbreviated as TV.

— Wiktionary

tera-volt

One million million ( 10 ) volts, abbreviated as TV.

— Wiktionary

opening credits

The credits shown at the beginning of a film or TV program.

— Wiktionary

episode

An installment of a drama told in parts, as in a TV series.

— Wiktionary

Plinko

A pricing game played on the TV show The Price Is Right

— Wiktionary

voice-over

A TV broadcast etc., in which pictures are accompanied by the voice of an unseen actor or reporter.

— Wiktionary

telly tennis

The game of Pong, or any TV game closely based on it.

— Wiktionary

filler

A short piece of music or an announcement between radio or TV programmes.

— Wiktionary

foley artist

A person who creates sound effects and adds them to film and TV images

— Wiktionary

foley

, The creation of sound effects, and their addition to film and TV images

— Wiktionary

home shopping

the purchase of goods from home, either via cable TV or the Internet

— Wiktionary

charidee

Conspicuous charity, especially as part of a TV promotion, or of an otherwise pointless exercise.

— Wiktionary

satellite

Satellite TV; reception of television broadcasts via services that utilize man-made satellite technology.

— Wiktionary

soundman

a technician in charge of amplifying sound or producing sound effects (as for a TV or radio broadcast)

— Princeton's WordNet

telethon

An event that brings in people to donate money through the phone via the television (TV).

— Wiktionary

chyron

Graphics or words at the bottom of a TV screen usually unrelated to the current viewing content.

— Wiktionary

semidocumentary

a drama (film, book or TV) that presents a fictional story incorporating many factual details or actual events

— Wiktionary

producer

One who produces an artistic production like a CD, a theater production, a film, a TV program and so on.

— Wiktionary

very high frequency

The frequency area from 30 MHz through 300 MHz, commonly used for radio and TV broadcasting.

— Wiktionary

third umpire

A match official who uses TV replays to assist the two umpires in the case of close decisions.

— Wiktionary

primetime

(TV, Radio) Showing at the time when most people watch television, usually between 18:00 and 22:00.

— Wiktionary

documentary

A film, TV program, publication etc. which presents a social, political, scientific or historical subject in a factual or informative manner.

— Wiktionary

Goldmark, Peter Goldmark, Peter Carl Goldmark

United States inventor (born in Hungary) who made the first TV broadcast in 1940 and invented the long-playing record in 1948 and pioneered videocassette recording (1906-1977)

— Princeton's WordNet

Goldmark, Peter Goldmark, Peter Carl Goldmark

United States inventor (born in Hungary) who made the first TV broadcast in 1940 and invented the long-playing record in 1948 and pioneered videocassette recording (1906-1977)

— Princeton's WordNet

Goldmark, Peter Goldmark, Peter Carl Goldmark

United States inventor (born in Hungary) who made the first TV broadcast in 1940 and invented the long-playing record in 1948 and pioneered videocassette recording (1906-1977)

— Princeton's WordNet

commercial buster

A device the temporarily changes the channel during a live TV broadcast until the commercial break is over.

— Wiktionary

man cave

A part of a home specifically reserved for adult male activities, such as drinking beer, playing games and watching TV; often a garage or den.

— Wiktionary

tapeless workflow

Tapeless Workflow is a concept adopted and used at audiovisual companies and specifically at broadcasting TV stations where the operating process of production does not use any magnetic recoding media. Tapes are avoided at the full process and from camera recording, passing through editing, postproducing until transmission audiovisual information is absolutely managed as a pc file. Unfortunately, not all TV stations worlwide have tapeless workflows instead are using hibrid and mixed schemes due to multiformat technology. Nevertheless industry is pushing forward adopting this new working concept as technology providers are developing products toward this standard.

— Wiktionary

go upstairs

To request a decision by the third umpire (traditionally by making a sign of a TV set with the hands)

— Wiktionary

PALplus

An enhanced version of the PAL TV system capable of transmitting pictures in the 16:9 widescreen format.

— Wiktionary

Spock

Mr. Spock, a main character from the original Star Trek TV series, whose heritage is part alien, that of the logical Vulcan race.

— Wiktionary

headend

a cable TV control centre, at which terrestrial and satellite signals are received, monitored and injected into the cable network

— Wiktionary

very special episode

An episode, of a TV series that typically focuses on entertainment, that differs from other episodes by focusing on serious subjects instead.

— Wiktionary

commercial model

(in many parts of Asia) a person (usually a female actress or singer) who stars in a product advertisement (posters, TV advertisement spots etc.).

— Wiktionary

run

The length of a showing of a play, film, tv series or season or themes/genres of such.

— Wiktionary

yagi

A directional radio or TV antenna consisting of two or more dipoles in the same plane with all dipoles parallel to each other.

— Wiktionary

movieverse

The fictional universe of a work as presented in its movie version, as opposed to, e.g. the TV series or the novel.

— Wiktionary

comicverse

The fictional universe of a work as presented in its comics version, as opposed to, e.g. the TV series or the movie.

— Wiktionary

program guide

A periodical, usually a weekly, which guides the audience trough the programs being broadcast on radio and/or TV; however often supplemented with celebrity gossip, various entertainment etc.

— Wiktionary

chromakey

The use of a particular colour (usually either blue or green) as a key in a TV studio in order to allow one image to be partially superimposed upon another, seamlessly

— Wiktionary

coaxial cable

A transmission line, consisting of a conducting wire surrounded by an insulated spacer, surrounded by a cylindrical conducting sheath; used to carry high frequency signals such as TV.

— Wiktionary

skell

(informal police jargon) A male suspicious person or crime suspect, especially a street person such as a drug dealer, pimp or panhandler. (Compare scumbag.) Popularized on the American TV police drama NYPD Blue.

— Wiktionary

trail

To show a trailer of (a film, TV show etc.); to release or publish a preview of (a report etc.) in advance of the full publication.

— Wiktionary

transmitter

an electronic device that generates and amplifies a carrier wave, modulates it with a meaningful signal derived from speech, music, TV or other sources, and broadcasts the resulting signal from an antenna.

— Wiktionary

detector van

A vehicle, equipped with electronic instrumentation that can detect the oscillator of a domestic television; used by the licensing authority to check that a household with no TV licence does not have a television receiver

— Wiktionary

side

a TV channel

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

channel

a TV station

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

technical tap

A tap or a slap on a device in a way to either make it work correctly again, or break it completely. For example, hitting a TV to get its reception back, or hitting a jukebox back to life.

— Wiktionary

broadcast

a TV or radio program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

show

a TV or radio program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

presenter

a TV or radio host

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

programme

a show on TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

documentary

a factual movie or TV program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

newscast

a TV or radio news program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

viewer

sb who watches a particular TV show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

commercial

an advertisement on TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

rerun

a repeat of a movie or TV show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

camera

being filmed for TV or video

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

sound

the volume of a TV, radio, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

graphics

pictures used on a computer, TV, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

on-screen

happening in a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

set

a device that receives TV or radio signals

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

cast

actors in a movie, TV show, or play

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

antenna

a metal receiver for radio and TV signals

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

static

unwanted noise on the TV, radio, phone, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

newscaster

sb who presents a TV or radio news program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

soundtrack

the music used in a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

sound effects

recorded sounds used in TV shows, movies, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

produce

to organize the making of a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

sitcom

a funny series of TV shows involving the same characters

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

production

the making of a movie, TV show, theater play, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

direct

to guide actors in a movie, play, or TV show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

sportscaster

sb who reports sports news on TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

episode

one program in a series of TV or radio shows

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

director

sb who guides actors in a movie, play, or TV show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

commercial

(of radio and TV stations) operating using money from advertising

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

producer

sb who organizes the making of a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

video game

a game that involves controlling images on a computer or TV screen

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

weather

a TV, radio, etc. report about what the weather will be like

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

theme

a piece of music or song that represents a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

television

a piece of equipment used to watch programs that are broadcast; = TV

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

location

a place not in a studio where a movie, TV show, etc. is filmed

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

telecommunications

the equipment and methods involved in communication through telephone, radio, TV, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

interference

***noise or electrical signals that stop a TV, radio, etc. from working properly

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

resolution

the level of detail in an image from a camera, on TV, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

series

a set of TV or radio shows with characters and a story that connect them

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

co-star

an actor with one of the main parts in a movie, TV show, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

game show

a TV program in which people take part in a competition

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

network

a large TV company broadcasting to a very large area

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

DVD

a disk for watching or recording movies or TV

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

turn over

to change from one TV channel to another

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

coverage

reports in newspapers, magazines, and on the TV and Internet

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

soap opera

a TV series about the lives of a group of imaginary characters

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

present

to introduce programs or guests on a TV or radio program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

camerawoman

a man or woman who operates a camera for making films or TV

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

call in

to phone a TV or radio station to speak on the air

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

screen

the part of a TV, computer, etc. on which the picture appears

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

repeat

a TV show, radio show, etc. that has been broadcast before; = rerun

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

special effects

the noises, images, etc. created artificially for use in movies, TV, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

commentator

an expert who is paid to give an opinion on TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

rating

a measurement of how many people watch or listen to a TV or radio show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

screen

to show a movie or TV show

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

broadcast

***to transmit to TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

pilot

the first show of a TV series shown to decide if the audience likes it

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

live

(of a TV or radio show) being broadcast and seen or heard at the same time

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

podcast

a TV show, radio show, etc. saved on the Internet so that people can download it

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

prime time

the time when the highest number of people watch TV, listen to the radio, etc.

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

surf

to look at different websites on the Internet or different channels on TV

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

talk show

a TV or radio show with a host who discusses things with famous or expert guests

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

reception

the quality of the pictures or sound on a TV or radio

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

transmission

the process of broadcasting TV or radio signals, or these signals

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

tune in

to watch or listen to a particular TV or radio station or program

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

tube

1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Looney Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, Babylon 5, and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckler movie.

2. [IBM] To send a copy of something to someone else's terminal. “Tube me that note?”

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

television

the system used to broadcast television programs, or the programs broadcast; = TV

— Kernerman English Learner's Dictionary

glass tty

[obs.] A terminal that has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both: like a printing terminal, it can't do fancy display hacks, and like a display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy. An example is the early ‘dumb’ version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor control). See tube, tty; compare dumb terminal. See TV Typewriters (Appendix A) for an interesting true story about a glass tty.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

visionary

1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to ‘see’ things using TV cameras. (There isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of the camera information? See SMOP, AI-complete.)

2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

B5

[common] Abbreviation for “Babylon 5”, a science-fiction TV series as revered among hackers as was the original Star Trek.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

surf

[from the ‘surf’ idiom for rapidly flipping TV channels] To traverse the Internet in search of interesting stuff, used esp. if one is doing so with a World Wide Web browser. It is also common to speak of surfing in to a particular resource.

Hackers adopted this term early, but many have stopped using it since it went completely mainstream around 1995. The passive, couch-potato connotations that go with TV channel surfing were never pleasant, and hearing non-hackers wax enthusiastic about “surfing the net” tends to make hackers feel a bit as though their home is being overrun by ignorami.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

gonkulator

[common; from the 1960s Hogan's Heroes TV series] A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no useful purpose. Usually used to describe one's least favorite piece of computer hardware. See gonk.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

channel hopping

[common; IRC, GEnie] To rapidly switch channels on IRC, or a GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly might hop from one group to another at a party. This term may derive from the TV watcher's idiom, channel surfing.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

sagan

[from Carl Sagan's TV series Cosmos; think “billions and billions”] A large quantity of anything. “There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS.” “The U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare — hard to say which is more destructive.”

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

bozotic

[from the name of a TV clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] Resembling or having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously wrong, unintentionally humorous. Compare wonky, demented. Note that the noun ‘bozo’ occurs in slang, but the mainstream adjectival form would be ‘bozo-like’ or (in New England) ‘bozoish’.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

Bzzzt Wrong

[common; Usenet/Internet; punctuation varies] From a Robin Williams routine in the movie Dead Poets Society spoofing radio or TV quiz programs, such as Truth or Consequences, where an incorrect answer earns one a blast from the buzzer and condolences from the interlocutor. A way of expressing mock-rude disagreement, usually immediately following an included quote from another poster. The less abbreviated “*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thank you for playing” is also common; capitalization and emphasis of the buzzer sound varies.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

bucky bits

1. [obs.] The bits produced by the CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and 400 respectively), resulting in a 9-bit keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards extended this with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and META keys, resulting in a 12-bit character set; later, LISP Machines added such keys as SUPER, HYPER, and GREEK (see space-cadet keyboard).

2. By extension, bits associated with ‘extra’ shift keys on any keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and option keys on a Macintosh.

It has long been rumored that bucky bits were named for Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at Stanford. Actually, bucky bits were invented by Niklaus Wirth when he was at Stanford in 1964--65; he first suggested the idea of an EDIT key to set the 8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit ASCII character). It seems that, unknown to Wirth, certain Stanford hackers had privately nicknamed him ‘Bucky’ after a prominent portion of his dental anatomy, and this nickname transferred to the bit. Bucky-bit commands were used in a number of editors written at Stanford, including most notably TV-EDIT and NLS.

The term spread to MIT and CMU early and is now in general use. Ironically, Wirth himself remained unaware of its derivation for nearly 30 years, until GLS dug up this history in early 1993! See double bucky, quadruple bucky.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

Classic C

[a play on ‘Coke Classic’] The C programming language as defined in the first edition of K&R, with some small additions. It is also known as ‘K&R C’. The name came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11 committee. Also ‘C Classic’.

An analogous construction is sometimes applied elsewhere: thus, ‘X Classic’, where X = Star Trek (referring to the original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines as opposed to the PS/2 series). This construction is especially used of product series in which the newer versions are considered serious losers relative to the older ones.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

prime time

[from TV programming] Normal high-usage hours on a system or network. Back in the days of big timesharing machines ‘prime time’ was when lots of people were competing for limited cycles, usually the day shift. Avoidance of prime time was traditionally given as a major reason for night mode hacking. The term fell into disuse during the early PC era, but has been revived to refer to times of day or evening at which the Internet tends to be heavily loaded, making Web access slow. The hackish tendency to late-night hacking runs has changed not a bit.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

speedometer

A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient mainframes). The pattern is shifted left every N times the operating system goes through its main loop. A swiftly moving pattern indicates that the system is mostly idle; the speedometer slows down as the system becomes overloaded. The speedometer on Sun Microsystems hardware bounces back and forth like the eyes on one of the Cylons from the wretched Battlestar Galactica TV series.

Historical note: One computer, the GE 600 (later Honeywell 6000) actually had an analog speedometer on the front panel, calibrated in instructions executed per second.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

boink

1. [Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV series Cheers, Moonlighting, and Soap]v. To have sex with; compare bounce, sense 2. (This is mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant ‘bonk’ is more common.

2. n. After the original Peter Korn ‘Boinkon’ Usenet parties, used for almost any net social gathering, e.g., Miniboink, a small boink held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Compare @-party.

3. Var of bonk; see bonk/oif.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

lurker

One of the ‘silent majority’ in an electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: “Oh, I'm just lurking.” Often used in the lurkers, the hypothetical audience for the group's flamage-emitting regulars. When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called delurking.

The creator of the popular science-fiction TV series Babylon 5 has ties to SF fandom and the hacker culture. In that series, the use of the term ‘lurker’ for a homeless or displaced person is a conscious reference to the jargon term.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

cookie bear

Original term, pre-Sesame-Street, for what is now universally called a cookie monster. A correspondent observes “In those days, hackers were actually getting their yucks from...sit down now...Andy Williams. Yes, that Andy Williams. Seems he had a rather hip (by the standards of the day) TV variety show. One of the best parts of the show was the recurring ‘cookie bear’ sketch. In these sketches, a guy in a bear suit tried all sorts of tricks to get a cookie out of Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking (and I don't mean figuratively), ‘No cookies! Not now, not ever...NEVER!!!’ And the bear would fall down. Great stuff.”

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

cookie monster

[from the children's TV program Sesame Street] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on TOPS-10, ITS, Multics, and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a timesharing machine) or the console (on a batch mainframe), repeatedly demanding “I WANT A COOKIE”. The required responses ranged in complexity from “COOKIE” through “HAVE A COOKIE” and upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see FOAF) has described these programs as urban legends (implying they probably never existed) but they existed, all right, in several different versions. See also wabbit. Interestingly, the term cookie monster appears to be a retcon; the original term was cookie bear.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

Vulcan nerve pinch

[from the old Star Trek TV series via Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On Amigas this is <Ctrl>-<Left-Amiga>-<Right-Amiga>; on PC clones this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch> or <Cmd>-<Ctrl>-<Power>! On IRIX, <Left-Ctrl><Left-Shift><F12><Keypad-Slash>, which kills and restarts the X server, is sometimes called a vulcan nerve pinch. Also called three-finger salute and Vulcan death grip. At shops with a lot of Microsoft Windows machines, this is often called the Microsoft Maneuver because of the distressing frequency with which Microsoft's unreliable software requires it. Compare quadruple bucky.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

connector conspiracy

[probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the PDP-10), none of whose connectors matched anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices.

(A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different intent, is the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. A good 1990s example is the use of Torx screws for cable-TV set-top boxes. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a long Torx screwdriver but a specialized case-cracking tool to open the box.)

In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that “Standards are great! There are so many of them to choose from!” Compare backward combatability.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

film at 11

[MIT: in parody of TV newscasters]

1. Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering. “ITS crashes; film at 11.” “Bug found in scheduler; film at 11.”

2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional information will be available at some future time, without the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the referenced event. For example, “The mail file server died this morning; we found garbage all over the root directory. Film at 11.” would indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the people working on it have no additional information about it as yet; use of the phrase in this way suggests gently that the problem is liable to be fixed more quickly if the people doing the fixing can spend time doing the fixing rather than responding to questions, the answers to which will appear on the normal “11:00 news”, if people will just be patient.

The variant “MPEGs at 11” has recently been cited (MPEG is a digital-video format.)

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

geek code

(also “Code of the Geeks”). A set of codes commonly used in sig blocks to broadcast the interests, skills, and aspirations of the poster. Features a G at the left margin followed by numerous letter codes, often suffixed with plusses or minuses. Because many net users are involved in computer science, the most common prefix is ‘GCS’. To see a copy of the current code, browse http://www.geekcode.com/. Here is a sample geek code (that of Robert Hayden, the code's inventor) from that page:

The geek code originated in 1993; it was inspired (according to the inventor) by previous “bear”, “smurf” and “twink” style-and-sexual-preference codes from lesbian and gay newsgroups. It has in turn spawned imitators; there is now even a “Saturn geek code” for owners of the Saturn car. See also geek.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

Dr Fred Mbogo

[Stanford] The archetypal man you don't want to see about a problem, esp. an incompetent professional; a shyster. “Do you know a good eye doctor?” “Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry Cleaning.” The name comes from synergy between bogus and the original Dr. Mbogo, a witch doctor who was Gomez Addams' physician on the old Addams Family TV show. Interestingly enough, it turns out that under the rules for Swahili noun classes, ‘m-’ is the characteristic prefix of “nouns referring to human beings”. As such, “mbogo” is quite plausible as a Swahili coinage for a person having the nature of a bogon. Actually, “mbogo” is indeed a Ki-Swahili word referring to the African Cape Buffalo, syncerus caffer. It is one of the “big five” dangerous African game animals, and many people with bush experience believe it to be the most dangerous of them. Compare Bloggs Family and J. Random Hacker; see also Fred Foobar and fred.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

quantum bogodynamics

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).

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

cyberspace

1. Notional ‘information-space’ loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called cyberspace decks; a characteristic prop of cyberpunk SF. Serious efforts to construct virtual reality interfaces modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of the network (see the network).

2. The Internet or Matrix (sense #2) as a whole, considered as a crude cyberspace (sense 1). Although this usage became widely popular in the mainstream press during 1994 when the Internet exploded into public awareness, it is strongly deprecated among hackers because the Internet does not meet the high, SF-inspired standards they have for true cyberspace technology. Thus, this use of the term usually tags a wannabee or outsider. Oppose meatspace.

3. Occasionally, the metaphoric location of the mind of a person in hack mode. Some hackers report experiencing strong synesthetic imagery when in hack mode; interestingly, independent reports from multiple sources suggest that there are common features to the experience. In particular, the dominant colors of this subjective cyberspace are often gray and silver, and the imagery often involves constellations of marching dots, elaborate shifting patterns of lines and angles, or moire patterns.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

cyberpunk

[orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel Neuromancer (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's True Names (see the Bibliography in Appendix C) to John Brunner's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider). Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative Max Headroom TV series. See cyberspace, ice, jack in, go flatline.

Since 1990 or so, popular culture has included a movement or fashion trend that calls itself ‘cyberpunk’, associated especially with the rave/techno subculture. Hackers have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, self-described cyberpunks too often seem to be shallow trendoids in black leather who have substituted enthusiastic blathering about technology for actually learning and doing it. Attitude is no substitute for competence. On the other hand, at least cyberpunks are excited about the right things and properly respectful of hacking talent in those who have it. The general consensus is to tolerate them politely in hopes that they'll attract people who grow into being true hackers.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary

VAX

1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11. Between its release in 1978 and its eclipse by killer micros after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all, esp. after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD Unix (see BSD). Especially noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set — an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution.

It is worth noting that the standard plural of VAX was ‘vaxen’ and that VAX system operators were sometimes referred to as ‘vaxherds’

2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain. Cited here because its sales pitch, “Nothing sucks like a VAX!” became a sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans. It is even sometimes claimed that DEC actually entered a cross-licensing deal with the vacuum-Vax people that allowed them to market VAX computers in the U.K. in return for not challenging the vacuum cleaner trademark in the U.S.

A rival brand actually pioneered the slogan: its original form was “Nothing sucks like Electrolux”. It has apparently become a classic example (used in advertising textbooks) of the perils of not knowing the local idiom. But in 1996, the press manager of Electrolux AB, while confirming that the company used this slogan in the late 1960s, also tells us that their marketing people were fully aware of the possible double entendre and intended it to gain attention.

And gain attention it did — the VAX-vacuum-cleaner people thought the slogan a sufficiently good idea to copy it. Several British hackers report that VAX's promotions used it in 1986--1987, and we have one report from a New Zealander that the infamous slogan surfaced there in TV ads for the product in 1992.

— The New Hacker's Dictionary