|
|
|
|
|
|
|
inside, it is said to spring from a belief that large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause prices to rise. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ICBM address n. (Also missile address) The form used to register a site with the Usenet mapping project includes a blank for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy. This is actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of Usenet links on a plotter; however, it has become traditional to refer to this as one's ICBM address or missile address, and many people include it in their sig block with that name. (A real missile address would include target altitude.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ice n. [coined by Usenetter Tom Maddox, popularized by William Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived acronym for 'Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to immobilize or even literally kill the intruder). Hence, icebreaker: a program designed for cracking security on a system. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Neither term is in serious use yet as of early 1996, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a denotation in the future. In the meantime, the speculative usage could be confused with 'ICE', an acronym for "in-circuit emulator". |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In ironic reference to the speculative usage, however, some hackers and computer scientists formed ICE (International Cryptographic Experiment) in 1994. ICE is a consortium to promote uniform international access to strong cryptography. ICE has a home page at http://www.tis.com/crypto/ice.html. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
idempotent adj. [from mathematical techspeak] Acting as if used only once, even if used multiple times. This term is often used with respect to C header files, which contain common definitions and declarations to be included by several source files. If a header file is ever included twice during the same compilation (perhaps due to nested #include files), compilation errors can result unless the header file has protected itself against multiple inclusion; a header file so protected is said to be idempotent. The term can also be used to describe an initialization subroutine that is arranged to perform some critical action exactly once, even if the routine is called several times. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you want X, you know where to find it. There is a legend that Dennis Ritchie, inventor of C, once responded to demands for features resembling those of what at the time was a much more popular language by observing "If you want PL/I, you know where to find it." Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for fending off requests to alter a new |
|
|
|
|
|