From Notebook

Hi.

I am the Cerebrate[1]), and this is my Notebook.

By Notebook, of course, I mean giant dumping ground of random stuff which I may have found, or expect to find, or might find useful at some point or other, for some purpose or other, or just want to remember (currently 1,753 in stock). That's fairly general, but so is the content of this wiki.

(This has also replaced all of the pages located under siliconcerebrate.com/documents - if you've just been redirected from there, no need for confusion. You were supposed to be.)

Also, it lets me preserve the content of things I've found useful, the Web being, as ever, an annoyingly transient medium.

Also also, it's something of a playground to see how much things cross-link if I Wikify words freely.

Where sources exist, I'm citing them; if you see something without a source that you know has one, do feel free to let me know.

(The main pages of this Wiki are only editable by a select few - just me, at the moment (and me!) - as this is after all my Notebook; but if you want to drop me a note regarding something you see here, feel free to e-mail me .)

As can easily be seen, the Notebook is running on MediaWiki. (Credit for the Notebook concept belongs to Jon Eveland of http://jwenet.net/).

Finding Your Way About

Probably the easiest way to find pages is through the category list, the index of all pages, or the search box to your left. However, here are some of my most-used categories:

• Code Snippets
• Humour
• Laws
• Quotations
• Technical Notes
• Words

If you find any of the information in my Notebook useful, please feel free to defray our running costs a little... :)

New Recently

• 19:51, 28 August 2008 ‎Swab (hist) ‎[421 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} swab: /swob/ [From the mnemonic for the PDP-11 ‘SWAp Byte’ instruction, as immortalized in the dd(1) option '''conv=swab''' (see dd)] # vt. To solve the...)
• 19:49, 28 August 2008 ‎Big-endian (hist) ‎[1,499 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} big-endian: adj. [common; From Swift's ''Gulliver's Travels'' via the famous paper ''On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace'' by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI [http://k...)
• 19:46, 28 August 2008 ‎Holy wars (hist) ‎[1,170 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} holy wars: n. [from Usenet, but may predate it; common] n. flame wars over religious issues. The paper by Danny Cohen that popularized the terms [[big-end...)
• 19:43, 28 August 2008 ‎Religious issues (hist) ‎[842 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: religious issues: n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off holy wars, such as “What is the best operating system (or editor, language, [[a...)
• 19:42, 28 August 2008 ‎Bigot (hist) ‎[650 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} bigot: n. [common] A person who is religiously attached to a particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see [[religious issues...)
• 19:36, 28 August 2008 ‎Communications Decency Act (hist) ‎[1,053 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{FOLDOC}} (CDA) An amendment to the U.S. 1996 Telecommunications Bill that went into effect on 1996-02-08. The law, originally proposed by Senator James Exon to protect chil...)
• 19:33, 28 August 2008 ‎Big Gray Wall (hist) ‎[618 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} Big Gray Wall: n. ''Deleted: No evidence of live use on the Web, October 2002.'' What faces a VMS user searching for documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a [[p...)
• 19:31, 28 August 2008 ‎AI koans (hist) ‎[379 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: AI koans: /A-I koh'anz/, pl.n. ''Deleted: Duplicates 'koan''' A series of pastiches of Zen teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around vari...)
• 19:30, 28 August 2008 ‎4.2 (hist) ‎[504 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} 4.2: /for' poynt too'/, n. ''Deleted: Over a decade dead.'' [now obs.] Without a prefix, this almost invariably refers to BSD Unix release 4.2. Note that it is ...)
• 19:21, 28 August 2008 ‎Generate a web server certificate with certreq (hist) ‎[1,422 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: Useful for web servers and (especially) ISA 2006 instances now that Windows 2008 has taken away the 'install certificate into local computer store' option: 1. Create an [[...)
• 19:17, 27 August 2008 ‎Silver Book (hist) ‎[280 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} Silver Book: n. Jensen and Wirth's infamous Pascal User Manual and Report, so called because of the silver cover of the widely distributed Springer-Verlag secon...)
• 18:29, 27 August 2008 ‎Short card (hist) ‎[309 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} short card: n. ''Deleted: Goes with 'tall card''' A half-length IBM XT expansion card or adapter that will fit in one of the two short slots loc...)
• 18:14, 27 August 2008 ‎Weird brokenness (hist) ‎[927 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: Don't know why, but for some reason running MediaWiki 1.13 under IIS 7 (PHP5, FastCGI), the function generating the talk page URLs for anonymous users pukes and dies as it never gets an IP...)
• 20:53, 22 August 2008 ‎Stiffy (hist) ‎[514 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} stiffy: n. ''Deleted: Floppies are dead.'' 3.5-inch floppies, so called because their jackets are more rigid than those of the 5.25-inch and the (now to...)
• 17:56, 25 July 2008 ‎The Cerebrate Collective (hist) ‎[326 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: =fce8316b-708e-401f-af0c-e84d15dd12e0= {fce8316b-708e-401f-af0c-e84d15dd12e0} =Alistair Young= =The Cerebrate= '''(a.k.a. the Silicon Cerebrate and the [[Cerebral Silica...)
• 03:56, 25 July 2008 ‎SOS (hist) ‎[906 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} SOS: /S-O-S/ ''Deleted: It's been pushing two decades since anyone used SOS for production.'' # n.,obs. An infamously losing text editor. Once, back in the ...)
• 10:48, 24 July 2008 ‎Tweeter (hist) ‎[298 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} tweeter: n. ''Deleted: Goes with woofer'' [ University of Waterloo ] Syn. perf, chad (sense 1). This term (like woofer) has been in use at Waterloo ...)
• 10:47, 24 July 2008 ‎Slap on the side (hist) ‎[474 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} slap on the side: n. ''Deleted: Dead along with the micros that used it.'' (also called a sidecar, or abbreviated SOTS.) A type of external expansion [[hard...)
• 10:43, 24 July 2008 ‎Yellow Book (hist) ‎[763 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} Yellow Book: n. ''Deleted: Seems to no longer be in any live use.'' The print version of this Jargon File; The New Hacker's Dictionary from MIT Press; T...)
• 00:20, 24 July 2008 ‎Show Look At (hist) ‎[1,228 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{source|http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Showlookat}} To use Show Look At, enable Advanced menu > Character > Show Look At. Thanks to Richard Linden for this info on what the...)
• 17:51, 22 July 2008 ‎Woofer (hist) ‎[559 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} woofer: n. ''Deleted: Pin-feed printers are dead.'' [ University of Waterloo ] Some varieties of wide paper for printers have a perforation 8.5 inch...)
• 17:37, 22 July 2008 ‎W2K bug (hist) ‎[533 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} W2K bug ''Deleted: It was. And nobody noticed.'' [from `Y2K bug' for the Year 2000 problem] The deployment of Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, ...)
• 17:29, 22 July 2008 ‎VAXectomy (hist) ‎[382 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} VAXectomy: /vak-sek't@-mee/, n. ''Deleted: Pretty much everybody is VAXectomized by now.'' [by analogy with ‘vasectomy’] A VAX removal. DEC's [[Microvax...)
• 17:14, 22 July 2008 ‎UUCPNET (hist) ‎[568 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} UUCPNET: n. obs. ''Deleted: UUCP is dead.'' The store-and-forward network consisting of all the world's connected Unix machines (and others running some...)
• 17:06, 22 July 2008 ‎Terpri (hist) ‎[541 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} terpri: /ter'pree/, vi. ''Deleted: archaic as jargon even in CLISP, which still has the function.'' [ from LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP )] To output a [...)
• 16:18, 22 July 2008 ‎Tall card (hist) ‎[503 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} tall card: n. ''Deleted: AT-sized expansion cards are now standard.'' A PC/AT-size expansion card (these can be larger than IBM PC or XT cards becau...)
• 14:59, 22 July 2008 ‎Sidecar (hist) ‎[685 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} sidecar: n. ''Deleted: Obsolete along with the micros it refers to.'' # Syn. slap on the side. Esp.: used of add-ons for the late and unlamented [[IBM PCjr]...)
• 14:42, 22 July 2008 ‎ScumOS (hist) ‎[473 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} ScumOS: /skuhm'os/, /skuhm'O-S/, n. ''Deleted: It's dead.'' Unflattering hackerism for SunOS, the BSD Unix variant supported on Sun Microsystems...)
• 14:33, 22 July 2008 ‎Rib site (hist) ‎[346 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} rib site: n. ''Deleted: Obsolete along with UUCP.'' [by analogy with backbone site] A machine that has an on-demand high-speed link to a [[backbone site...)
• 14:12, 22 July 2008 ‎PETSCII (hist) ‎[653 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} PETSCII: /pet'skee/, n. obs. ''Deleted: Long dead along with the Commodore PET.'' [ abbreviation of PET ASCII ] The variation (many would say perversion...)
• 14:02, 22 July 2008 ‎Square tape (hist) ‎[362 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} square tape: n. ''Deleted: All tape is square (e.g. DLTs) now.'' Mainframe magnetic tape cartridges for use with IBM 3480 or compatible [[ta...)
• 13:43, 22 July 2008 ‎Node (hist) ‎[392 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} node: n. ''Deleted: UUCP and serial-line BBSses are both obsolete.'' # [ Internet, UUCP ] A host machine on the network. # [ MS-DOS BBS...)
• 13:34, 22 July 2008 ‎Helen Keller mode (hist) ‎[915 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} Helen Keller mode: n. ''Deleted: sense 2 is dead, sense 1 is not enough to carry the entry.'' # State of a hardware or software system that is deaf, dumb, a...)
• 12:40, 22 July 2008 ‎PC-ism (hist) ‎[549 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} PC-ism: /P-C-izm/, n. ''Deleted: This doesn't happen any more.'' A piece of code or coding technique that takes advantage of the unprotected [[single-ta...)
• 11:49, 22 July 2008 ‎GFR (hist) ‎[649 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} GFR: /G-F-R/, vt. ''Deleted: ITS slang has been pretty much dead for twelve years.'' [ ITS: from `Grim File Reaper', an ITS and LISP Machine utility ] T...)
• 03:44, 22 July 2008 ‎Minifloppies (hist) ‎[428 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} minifloppies: n.,obs. ''Deleted: They're gone.'' 5.25-inch floppy disks, as opposed to 3.5-inch or microfloppies and the long-obsolescent 8-inch...)
• 03:17, 22 July 2008 ‎Microfloppies (hist) ‎[390 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} microfloppies: n. ''Deleted: 5.25-inch floppies are gone.'' 3.5-inch floppies, as opposed to 5.25-inch vanilla or minifloppies and the now-obsol...)
• 02:57, 22 July 2008 ‎Lasherism (hist) ‎[604 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} lasherism: n. ''Deleted: No evidence of live use.'' [ Harvard ] A program that solves a standard problem (such as the Eight Queens puzzle or impleme...)
• 02:42, 22 July 2008 ‎Lace card (hist) ‎[598 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} lace card: n. obs. ''Deleted: Dead along with punched cards.'' A punched card with all holes punched (also called a whoopee card or ventilator card). [[...)
• 02:34, 22 July 2008 ‎Jolix (hist) ‎[397 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} jolix: /joh'liks/, n.,adj. ''Deleted: No evidence of live use.'' 386BSD, the freeware port of the BSD Net/2 release to the Intel i386 architecture b...)
• 21:30, 21 July 2008 ‎Inc (hist) ‎[325 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} inc: /ink/, v. ''Deleted: Gone along with assembler programming'' Verbal (and only rarely written) shorthand for increment, i.e. ‘increase by one’. ...)
• 21:25, 21 July 2008 ‎IBM discount (hist) ‎[332 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} IBM discount: n. ''Deleted: No evidence of live use.'' A price increase. Outside IBM, this derives from the common perception that IBM products are generally ov...)
• 21:24, 21 July 2008 ‎Humma (hist) ‎[513 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} humma: //, excl. ''Deleted: No evidence of live use.'' A filler word used on various chat and talk programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it...)
• 17:51, 21 July 2008 ‎Blue Book (hist) ‎[976 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}] Blue Book: n. ''Deleted: All three books are obsolete or superseded by more recent versions.'' # Informal name for one of the four standard references on the page-layout...)
• 17:49, 21 July 2008 ‎Gosperism (hist) ‎[340 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{Jargon}} Gosperism: /gos'p@r-izm/, n. ''Deleted: No evidence of live usage.'' A hack, invention, or saying due to elder days arch-hacker [[Bill Gosper|R. William (Bil...)
• 17:27, 21 July 2008 ‎Green Book (hist) ‎[1,325 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} Green Book: n. ''Deleted: These Green Books are obsolete or superseded.'' # One of the four standard PostScript references: ''[[PostScript Language Program Desi...)
• 17:25, 21 July 2008 ‎Gun (hist) ‎[365 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} gun: vt. ''Deleted: A decade obsolete along with the rest of the ITS slang.'' [ITS, now rare: from the ''':GUN''' command] To forcibly terminate a [[program...)
• 17:17, 21 July 2008 ‎Red Book (hist) ‎[1,513 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} Red Book: n. ''Deleted: These Red Books are now too old to be useful examples.'' # Informal name for one of the four standard references on PostScript (''[[Post...)
• 17:14, 21 July 2008 ‎Gripenet (hist) ‎[321 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} gripenet: n. ''Deleted: They've gone Internet, like everybody else.'' [ IBM ] A wry (and thoroughly unofficial) name for IBM's internal VNET system,...)
• 17:00, 21 July 2008 ‎White Book (hist) ‎[368 bytes] ‎Cerebrate (Talk | contribs) (New page: {{JargonChaff}} White Book: n. ''Deleted: Sense 1 merged to K&R'' # Syn. K&R. # Adobe's fourth book in the PostScript series, describing the previously-secret format o...)