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N /N/ quant. 1. A large and indeterminate number of objects: "There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in its original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N bugs, as N goes to infinity." (The true number of bugs is always at least N + 1; see Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology.) 2. A variable whose value is inherited from the current context. For example, when a meal is being ordered at a restaurant, N may be understood to mean however many people there are at the table. From the remark "We'd like to order N wonton soups and a family dinner for N - 1" you can deduce that one person at the table wants to eat only soup, even though you don't know how many people there are (see great-wall). 3. Nth: adj. The ordinal counterpart of N, senses 1 and 2. "Now for the Nth and last time '' In the specific context "Nth-year grad student", N is generally assumed to be at least 4, and is usually 5 or more (see tenured graduate student). See also random numbers, two-to-the-N. |
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nadger /nad'jr/ v. [UK] Of software or hardware (not people), to twiddle some object in a hidden manner, generally so that it conforms better to some format. For instance, string printing routines on 8-bit processors often take the string text from the instruction stream, thus a print call looks like jsr print: "Hello world". The print routine has to nadger the saved instruction pointer so that the processor doesn't try to execute the text as instructions when the subroutine returns. |
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Apparently this word originated on a now-legendary 1950s radio comedy program called "The Goon Show". The Goon Show usage of "nadger" was definitely in the sense of "jinxed" "clobbered" "fouled up". The American mutation adger seems to have preserved more of the original flavor. |
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nagware /nag'weir/ n. [Usenet] The variety of shareware that displays a large screen at the beginning or end reminding you to register, typically requiring some sort of keystroke to continue so that you can't use the software in batch mode. Compare crippleware. |
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nailed to the wall adj. [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort. |
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nailing jelly vi. See like nailing jelly to a tree. |
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naive adj. Untutored in the perversities of some particular program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive way, rather than the right |
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