Browse the Dictionary...

All

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Navigation Hacker Dictionary Search the Dictionary Most Viewed Useful Links Privacy Policy Random Term non-optimal solution n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is... VIEW ENTIRE DEFINITION

(TM) -oid -ware /dev/null 0 120 reset 1TBS 2 @-party @Begin abbrev ABEND accumulator ACK ad-hockery Ada adger admin ADVENT AFJ AI koans AI-complete AIDS AIDX airplane rule aliasing bug all-elbows alpha particles alt alt bit altmode Aluminum Book amoeba amp off amper angle brackets angry fruit salad annoybot AOS app arc arc wars archive arena arg armor-plated asbestos asbestos cork award asbestos longjohns ASCII ASCII art attoparsec autobogotiphobia automagically avatar awk back door backbone cabal backbone site backgammon background backspace and overstrike backward combatability BAD Bad Thing bag on the side bagbiter bamf banana label banana problem bandwidth bang bang on bang path banner bar bare metal barf barfmail barfulation barfulous barney baroque BartleMUD BASIC batch bathtub curve baud baud barf baz bboard BBS beam beanie key beep beige toaster bells and whistles bells, whistles, and gongs benchmark Berkeley Quality Software berklix berserking Berzerkeley beta BFI bible BiCapitalization BIFF biff Big Gray Wall big iron Big Red Switch Big Room, the big win big-endian bignum bigot bit bit bang bit bashing bit bucket bit decay bit rot bit twiddling bit-paired keyboard bitblt BITNET bits bitty box bixie black art black hole black magic blargh blast blat bletch bletcherous blinkenlights blit blitter blivet BLOB block block transfer computations blow an EPROM blow away blow out blow past blow up BLT Blue Book Blue Glue blue goo blue wire blurgle BNF boa board boat anchor BOF bogo-sort bogometer bogon bogon filter bogon flux bogosity bogotify bogue out bogus Bohr bug boink bomb bondage-and-discipline language bonk/oif book titles boot bottom feeder bottom-up implementation bounce bounce message boustrophedon box boxed comments boxen boxology bozotic BQS brain dump brain fart brain-damaged brain-dead braino branch to Fishkill brand brand brand bread crumbs break break-even point breath-of-life packet breedle bring X to its knees brittle broadcast storm broken broken arrow broket Brooks's Law BRS brute force brute force and ignorance BSD BUAF BUAG bubble sort bucky bits buffer overflow bug bug-compatible bug-for-bug compatible buglix bulletproof bum bump burble buried treasure burn-in period burst page busy-wait buzz BWQ by hand byte bytesexual bzzzt, wrong C C Programmer's Disease calculator can can't happen candygrammar canonical card card walloper careware cargo cult programming cascade case and paste casters-up mode casting the runes cat catatonic cd tilde cdr chad chad box chain channel channel op char charityware chase pointers check chemist Chernobyl chicken Chernobyl packet chicken head chiclet keyboard chine nual Chinese Army technique choke chomp chomper CHOP Christmas tree Christmas tree packet chrome chug Church of the SubGenius CI$ Cinderella Book Classic C clean CLM clobber clocks clone clover key clustergeeking COBOL COBOL fingers code grinder code police codewalker coefficient of X cokebottle cold boot COME FROM comm mode command key comment out Commonwealth Hackish compact compiler jock compress Compu$erve computer confetti computer geek computron condition out condom confuser connector conspiracy cons considered harmful console console jockey content-free control-C control-O control-Q control-S Conway's Law cookbook cooked mode cookie cookie bear cookie file cookie monster copious free time copper copy protection copybroke copyleft copywronged core core cancer core dump core leak Core Wars corge cosmic rays cough and die cowboy CP/M CPU Wars crack root cracker cracking crank crash crash and burn crawling horror cray cray instability crayola crayon creationism creep creeping elegance creeping featurism creeping featuritis cretin cretinous crippleware critical mass crlf crock cross-post crudware cruft cruft together cruftsmanship crufty crumb crunch cruncha cruncha cruncha cryppie CTSS CTY cube cubing cursor dipped in X cuspy cut a tape cybercrud cyberpunk cyberspace cycle cycle crunch cycle drought cycle of reincarnation cycle server D. C. Power Lab daemon dangling pointer dark-side hacker Datamation day mode dd DDT de-rezz dead dead code DEADBEEF deadlock deadly embrace death code Death Star DEC Wars DEChead deckle deep hack mode deep magic deep space defenestration defined as dehose delint delta demented demigod demo demo mode demon depeditate deprecated deserves to lose desk check Devil Book devo dickless workstation dictionary flame diddle die die horribly diff digit dike ding dink dinosaur dinosaur pen dinosaurs mating dirtball dirty power disclaimer Discordianism disk farm display hack Dissociated Press distribution do protocol doc doco documentation dodgy dogcow dogwash domainist Don't do that, then! dongle dongle-disk donuts doorstop dot file double bucky double DECkers doubled sig down download DP DPB DPer dragon Dragon Book drain dread high-bit disease DRECNET driver droid drool-proof paper drop on the floor drop-ins drop-outs drugged drum drunk mouse syndrome Duff's device dumb terminal dumbass attack dumbed down dump dumpster diving dup killer dup loop dusty deck DWIM dynner earthquake Easter egg Easter egging eat flaming death EBCDIC echo eighty-column mind El Camino Bignum elder days elegant elephantine elevator controller ELIZA effect elvish EMACS email emoticon empire engine English enhancement ENQ EOF EOL EOU epoch epsilon epsilon squared era, the Eric Conspiracy Eris erotics error 33 essentials evil exa- examining the entrails EXCH excl EXE exec exercise, left as an eyeball search fab face time factor fall over fall through fandango on core FAQ list FAQL farming fascist fat electrons faulty fd leak fear and loathing feature feature creature feature key feature shock featurectomy feep feeper feeping creature feeping creaturism feetch feetch fence fencepost error fepped out FidoNet field circus field servoid Fight-o-net File Attach File Request file signature filk film at 11 filter Finagle's Law fine finger finger-pointing syndrome finn firefighting firehose syndrome firewall code firewall machine fireworks mode firmy fish FISH queue FITNR fix flag flag day flaky flamage flame flame bait flame on flame war flamer flap flarp flat flat-ASCII flat-file flatten flavor flavorful flippy flood flower key flush flypage Flyspeck 3 flytrap FM FOAF FOD fold case followup fontology foo foobar fool fool file, the Foonly footprint for free for the rest of us for values of fora foreground fork bomb forked Fortrash fortune cookie forum fossil four-color glossies fragile fred frednet freeware freeze fried friode fritterware frob frobnicate frobnitz frog frogging front end frotz frotzed frowney fry FTP FUBAR fuck me harder FUD FUD wars fudge fudge factor fuel up fuggly fum funky funny money fuzzball G gabriel gag gang bang garbage collect garply gas gaseous GC GCOS GECOS gedanken geef geek out gen gender mender General Public Virus generate gensym Get a life! Get a real computer! GFR gig giga- GIGO gilley gillion GIPS glark glass glass tty glassfet glitch glob glork glue gnarly GNU GNUMACS go flatline go root go-faster stripes gobble Godzillagram golden golf-ball printer gonk gonkulator gonzo Good Thing gorilla arm gorp GOSMACS Gosperism gotcha GPL GPV grault gray goo Great Renaming Great Runes Great Worm, the great-wall Green Book green bytes green card green lightning green machine Green's Theorem grep grind grind crank gripenet gritch grok gronk gronk out gronked grovel grunge gubbish guiltware gumby gun gunch gurfle guru guru meditation gweep h ha ha only serious hack hack attack hack mode hack on hack together hack up hack value hack-and-slay hacked off hacked up hacker hacker ethic, the hacking run Hacking X for Y Hackintosh hackish hackishness hackitude hair hairy HAKMEM hakspek hammer hamster hand-hacking hand-roll handle handshaking handwave hang Hanlon's Razor happily haque hard boot hardcoded hardwarily hardwired has the X nature hash bucket hash collision hat HCF heads down heartbeat heatseeker heavy metal heavy wizardry heavyweight heisenbug Helen Keller mode hello, sailor! hello, wall! hello, world hex hexadecimal hexit HHOK HHOS hidden flag high bit high moby highly hing hirsute HLL hobbit hog holy wars home box hook hop hose hosed hot spot house wizard HP-SUX huff humma Humor, Hacker hung hungry puppy hungus hyperspace I didn't change anything! I see no X here. i14y i18n IBM IBM discount ICBM address ice idempotent If you want X, you know where to find it. ifdef out ill-behaved IMHO Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted! in the extreme incantation include include war indent style index infant mortality infinite infinite loop infinity initgame insanely great INTERCAL interesting Internet address interrupt interrupt list, the interrupts locked out IRC Iron Age iron box ironmonger ITS IWBNI IYFEG J. Random J. Random Hacker jack in jaggies JCL JEDR JFCL jiffy job security jock joe code jolix JRST JR[LN] juggling eggs jump off into never-never land jupiter K K&R K-line kamikaze packet kangaroo code ken kgbvax KIBO kick killer micro killer poke kilo- KIPS KISS Principle kit klone kludge kluge kluge around kluge up Knights of the Lambda Calculus Knuth kremvax kyrka lace card language lawyer languages of choice larval stage lase laser chicken Lasherism laundromat LDB leaf site leak leaky heap legal legalese LER LERP let the smoke out letterbomb lexer lexiphage life Life is hard light pipe lightweight like kicking dead whales down the beach like nailing jelly to a tree line 666 line eater, the line noise line starve link farm link-dead lint lion food Lions Book LISP literature, the little-endian live data Live Free Or Die! livelock liveware lobotomy locked and loaded locked up logic bomb logical loop through loose bytes lord high fixer lose lose lose loser losing loss lossage lost in the noise lost in the underflow lots of MIPS but no I/O low-bandwidth LPT lunatic fringe lurker luser M macdink machinable machoflops Macintoy Macintrash macro macro- macrology macrotape maggotbox magic magic cookie magic number magic smoke mailing list main loop mainframe management mandelbug manged mangle mangler mango manularity marbles marginal Marginal Hacks marginally marketroid Mars massage math-out Matrix maximum Maytag mode Mbogo, Dr. Fred meatware meeces meg mega- megapenny MEGO meltdown, network meme meme plague memetics memory leak memory smash menuitis mess-dos meta meta bit metasyntactic variable MFTL mickey mickey mouse program micro- microfloppies microfortnight microLenat microReid Microsloth Windows microtape middle-endian milliLampson minifloppies MIPS misbug misfeature Missed'em-five missile address miswart moby mod mode mode bit modulo molly-guard Mongolian Hordes technique monkey up monkey, scratch monstrosity Moof Moore's Law moose call, the moria MOTAS MOTOS MOTSS mouse ahead mouse around mouse belt mouse droppings mouse elbow mouso MS-DOS mu MUD muddie mudhead multician Multics multitask mumblage mumble munch munching munching squares munchkin mundane mung Murphy's Law music mutter N na"ive na"ive user nadger nailed to the wall nailing jelly NAK nano nano- nanoacre nanobot nanocomputer nanofortnight nanotechnology nasal demons nastygram Nathan Hale nature neat hack neats vs. scruffies neep-neep neophilia net.- net.god net.personality net.police NetBOLLIX netburp nethack netiquette netlag netrock netsplit netter network address network meltdown network, the New Jersey New Testament newbie newgroup wars newline NeWS news newsfroup newsgroup nick night mode Nightmare File System NIL NMI no-op noddy NOMEX underwear Nominal Semidestructor non-optimal solution nonlinear nontrivial notwork NP- nroff NSA line eater nuke number-crunching numbers NUXI problem nybble nyetwork Ob- Obfuscated C Contest obi-wan error Objectionable-C obscure octal forty off the trolley off-by-one error offline old fart Old Testament one-banana problem one-line fix one-liner wars ooblick op open Open DeathTrap open switch operating system optical diff optical grep Orange Book oriental food orphan orphaned i-node orthogonal OS OS/2 out-of-band overflow bit overflow pdl overrun overrun screw P.O.D. padded cell page in page out pain in the net paper-net param PARC parent message parity errors Parkinson's Law of Data parm parse Pascal pastie patch patch space path pathological payware PBD PC-ism PD pdl PDP-10 PDP-20 peek pencil and paper peon percent-S perf perfect programmer syndrome Perl pessimal pessimizing compiler peta- PETSCII phase phase of the moon phase-wrapping phreaking pico- pig, run like a pilot error ping Pink-Shirt Book PIP pistol pizza box pizza, ANSI standard plaid screen plain-ASCII plan file platinum-iridium playpen playte plingnet plokta plonk plugh plumbing PM pnambic pod point-and-drool interface poke poll polygon pusher POM pop POPJ posing post postcardware posting postmaster PostScript pound on power cycle power hit PPN precedence lossage prepend prestidigitization pretty pictures prettyprint pretzel key prime time printing discussion priority interrupt profile proglet program Programmer's Cheer programming programming fluid propeller head propeller key proprietary protocol provocative maintenance prowler pseudo pseudoprime pseudosuit psychedelicware psyton pubic directory puff punched card punt Purple Book purple wire push Q-line quadruple bucky quantifiers quantum bogodynamics quarter ques quick-and-dirty quine quote chapter and verse quotient quux qux QWERTY rain dance rainbow series random random numbers randomness rape rare mode raster blaster raster burn rat belt rave rave on! ravs raw mode rc file RE read-only user README file real real estate real hack real operating system real programmer Real Soon Now real time real user Real World reality check reaper rectangle slinger recursion recursive acronym Red Book red wire regexp register dancing reincarnation, cycle of reinvent the wheel religious issues replicator reply reset restriction retcon RETI retrocomputing RFC RFE rib site rice box Right Thing RL roach robot robust rococo rogue room-temperature IQ root root mode rot13 rotary debugger round tape RSN RTBM RTFAQ RTFB RTFM RTFS RTI RTM rude runes runic rusty iron rusty memory S/N ratio sacred saga sagan SAIL salescritter salsman salt mines salt substrate same-day service samurai sandbender sandbox sanity check Saturday-night special say scag scanno schroedinbug science-fiction fandom scram switch scratch scratch monkey screw screwage scribble scrog scrool scrozzle scruffies SCSI ScumOS search-and-destroy mode second-system effect secondary damage security through obscurity SED segfault seggie segment segmentation fault segv self-reference selvage semi semi-infinite senior bit server SEX sex changer shambolic link shareware shelfware shell shell out shift left (or right) logical shim shitogram short card shotgun debugging showstopper shriek Shub-Internet sidecar SIG sig block sig quote sig virus signal-to-noise ratio silicon silicon foundry silly walk silo Silver Book since time T equals minus infinity sitename skrog skulker slap on the side slash sleep slim slop slopsucker slurp smart smart terminal smash case smash the stack smiley smoke and mirrors smoke test smoking clover SMOP smurf SNAFU principle snail snail-mail snap snarf snarf & barf snarf down snark sneakernet sniff snivitz Snooze SO social engineering social science number soft boot softcopy software bloat software rot softwarily softy some random X sorcerer's apprentice mode SOS source of all good bits space-cadet keyboard SPACEWAR spaghetti code spaghetti inheritance spam special-case speedometer spell spiffy spike spin spl splat spod sponge spooge spool spool file square tape stack stack puke stale pointer bug state steam-powered stiffy stir-fried random stomp on Stone Age stone knives and bearskins stoppage store stroke strudel stubroutine studlycaps stunning stupid-sort Stupids subshell sucking mud sufficiently small suit suitable win suitably small sun lounge sun-stools sunspots superprogrammer superuser support Suzie COBOL swab swap swap space swapped in swapped out swizzle sync syntactic sugar sys-frog sysadmin sysape sysop system system mangler systems jock SysVile T tail recursion talk mode talker system tall card tanked TANSTAAFL tar and feather taste tayste TCB tea, ISO standard cup of TechRef TECO tee Telerat TELNET ten-finger interface tense tenured graduate student tera- teraflop club terminak terminal brain death terminal illness terminal junkie terpri test TeX text thanks in advance That's not a bug, that's a feature! the X that can be Y is not the true X theology theory thinko This can't happen This time, for sure! thrash thread three-finger salute thud thumb thunk tick tick-list features tickle a bug tiger team time sink time T times-or-divided-by tinycrud tip of the ice-cube tired iron tits on a keyboard TLA TMRC TMRCie to a first approximation to a zeroth approximation toast toaster toeprint toggle tool toolsmith topic drift topic group TOPS-10 TOPS-20 toto tourist tourist information touristic toy toy language toy problem toy program trampoline trap trap door trash trawl tree-killer trit trivial troff troglodyte troglodyte mode Trojan horse tron true-hacker tty tube tube time tunafish tune turbo nerd Turing tar-pit turist tweak tweeter TWENEX twiddle twilight zone two pi two-to-the-N twonkie UBD UN*X undefined external reference under the hood undocumented feature uninteresting UNIX UNIX brain damage UNIX conspiracy UNIX weenie unixism unleaded unroll unswizzle unwind the stack unwind-protect up upload upthread urchin USENET user user-friendly user-obsequious USG UNIX UTSL UUCPNET vadding vanilla vannevar vaporware var VAX VAXectomy VAXen vaxherd vaxism vaxocentrism vdiff veeblefester Venus flytrap verbage verbiage Version 7 vgrep vi videotex virgin virtual virtual Friday virtual reality virus visionary VMS voice voice-net voodoo programming VR Vulcan nerve pinch vulture capitalist wabbit WAITS waldo walk walk off the end of walking drives wall wall follower wall time wallpaper wango wank wannabee warlording warm boot wart washing machine water MIPS wave a dead chicken weasel wedged wedgie wedgitude weeble weeds weenie Weenix well-behaved well-connected wetware whack whacker whales whalesong What's a spline? wheel wheel bit wheel wars White Book whizzy WIBNI widget wiggles WIMP environment win win big win win Winchester winged comments winkey winnage winner winnitude wired wirehead wirewater wish list within delta of within epsilon of wizard Wizard Book wizard mode wizardly womb box WOMBAT wonky woofer workaround working as designed worm wound around the axle wrap around write-only code write-only language write-only memory Wrong Thing wugga wugga WYSIAYG WYSIWYG X XEROX PARC XOFF XON xor xref XXX xyzzy YA- YABA YAUN Yellow Book yellow wire Yet Another You are not expected to understand this You know you've been hacking too long when... Your mileage may vary Yow! yoyo mode Yu-Shiang Whole Fish zap zapped zen zero zero-content zeroth zigamorph zip zipperhead zombie zorch Zork zorkmid \begin