Confused by terms your friends use in conversations? Lost online? Computer confused? Here's the place to look it up. (if its not here try The Jargon File)

afk [IRC] acronym for Away From Keyboard

anti-grump n. [forum] A positive or happy posting to grump node in forum. May be abbreviated to "a". See g/a

atm acronym for At The Moment

bbiab [IRC] acronym for Be Back In A Bit

bbl [IRC] acronym for Be Back Later

bob adj. synonym of phat. cool. might also indicate cheesyness. Barbarella is a totally bob movie!

bomb n. [Mills] Lame script originally written by Kristin Dyer. It messes with your startup files to geekify them. To run the original version, type bomb at the ella prompt. To run the newer version, which is more up to date and allows you to run emacs and the new forum, type ~cola/public/bin/bomb at the prompt.

brb [IRC] acronym for Be Right Back

btw [IRC] acronym for By The Way

Buffalo n. [forum] Any animal is a buffalo. This originates from story node, where if a story drags on too long, the charecters will die unexpectedly in a stampeed of buffalos

BUG acronym for Bisexual Until Graduation. see LUG, Millsbian

butt-pants n. pants made to highlite yer butt. think tight wranglers. think flamanco dancers. think anything they put Val Kilmer in.

ceetee n. [Rat] city. Specifically San Francisco

Chicken n. [forum - bino] Technically every human being is a chicken. Specifically refers to mills geeks, especially forum inhabitants

CPM 200 n. The Computer Lab in the Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics builiding (the one behind the clock tower). Some times abbreviated to CPM. This lab has the fastest computers on campus and is also the pysical home of oldella

Crack 1. v. To break through security on a computer. To gain unauthorized access. Note that this is NOT a synonym with hack.
2. n. A program that compares passwords in the /etc/passwd file to a file of encrypted dictionary words. If it finds a match, your password has just been cracked (see definition 1)

Crack 2. [Mills] n. see on crack

crack bunny [Mills] n. someone who is on crack

Dilbert n. A daily syndicated comic strip drawn by Scott Adams. Very funny and technically relevant. Archived on-line at the Dilbert Zone.

DNRC [Dilbert] acronym for Dogbert's New Ruling Class. Members of the DNRC will soon rule the world and have induhviduals as their slaves.

dosadi n. The email address of Dave Edict, our friendly neighborhood network administrator. dosadi is an ITS employee

eaten by dingo dogs n. [Dilbert] A method of demise for stupid people, especially management-types who should not have been promoted as high as they are. In the wild, he would have been eaten by dingo dogs, but here we make him head of ITS.

ella n. Our main unix server. You check your email on ella. She is an SGI Indy II that lives in the MDF. Ella is our only (!) name server and will soon also be our file server. When ella goes down, the entire campus goes down. see oldella.

fifteen minute rule [Mills] n. No matter what's going on, or how quiet you are, everybody knows your buisiness within 15 minutes.

forum n. A bulltien board system running on ella where users can post articles on a number of subjects. To run it, type "forum" (without the quotes) at the ella prompt.

fwiw acronym For What It's Worth

g/a [forum] Used in subject lines of posts to grump node in forum to indictae a listing of grumps and anti-grumps. Each of these lines may start with a 'g' or an 'a' to indicate whether they are grumps or anti-grumps.

gaf [IRC] acronym for Goth As F*ck

geek n. [Mills usage] One who exhibits many of the charecteristics of a hacker, but in a more social way. A geek will not necissarily know how to patch things together or any scripting, but will know every means of electronic communication and procrastination available on the network. Geeks may prefer human contact thru computer in favor of live human contact.
more enthusiastic than a regular user, but not necessarily espcially more knowledgeable. Usually eccentric :)

geeking v. using an electronic communications medium other than email. Usualy refers to a real-time thing like icb or spacebar.com, but may also refer to forum. Rarely if ever refers to USENET

geek run n. [forum] A recreational field trip made by geeks

giffing v. to gif. To search the web for cool gifs and to steal them.

granola adj. A hippy like lesbian. Granola dykes are often vegitarian, do not shave, worship the goddess, eat only organic healthfood and wear birkenstocks. Being granola is often just a state of mind. If you have ever danced barefoot at a goddess ritual, you may be granola.

hella [Bay Area] adv. syn totally, absolutely, completely. The computer is hella fast or burning man was hella cool Usually used in a positive sense

Happy dance [Mills] n. The dance one does when one is happy. It is some strange derivative of the twist.

Hard Boiled n. Software testing place run by nice geek boys that employs many Mills geeks. They test games and such for bugs and errors. Working there can be fun, when you get a good game, can also be boring as Hell.

helpdesk n. Those friendly folks at campus x2005 who are there to answer all your computer questions so you don't have to bother us geeks. helpdesk people work for ITS

het abbreviation for heterosexual

hhg [forum] abbreviation for High Holy Geek. The HHG is named upon conscensus of forum users to denote someone who is not only a geek, but also knowledgable about computers and especially unix. The HHG will probably enjoy programming. She may bring new toys for geeks to play with.

hhok [IRC] acronym for Ha Ha Only Kidding

hidey hole [mills] n. The place in which lcl lives when she is not in hmb. The hidey hole is located under Orchard Meadow Hall.

hmb [mills] acronym for half moon bay

iirc [IRC] acronym for If I Remeber Correctly

imo [IRC] acronym for In My Opinion. May sometimes be IMHO for In My Humble Opinion, allthough, more often than not, it would be more accurate without the 'H'

induhvidual [Dilbert] n. A stupid person, escpecially the computer- ignorant. Lusers are a (slight) step above induhviduals.

IOTTMCO [The Cuckoo's Egg] acronym for Intuitively Obvious To The Most Casual Observer

ITS n. acronym for Information Technical Services. ITS employees maintain all the school-owned computers and are responcible for things like your ella account.

jk [IRC] acronym for Just Kidding

klingon n. The graphics symbols ella spews when a terminal gets stuck in a funky mode. This can occur when you are reading a corrupted forum post or if you view the contents of a binary file. The only way I know of to combat this is to log out and then log back in again.

lcl n. the email adress for Carol Lennox, the person in charge of maintaining student computer resources at Mills (for ITS.
Her office is in Sage hall, and yes, it is true that she lives under Orchard Meadow Hall

leetle ajd. [forum] little

lol [IRC] acronym for Laughing Out Loud

LUG acronym for Lesbian Until Graduation. see BUG, Millsbian

lurker n. One who reads electronic communications (like forum) but does not add to the discussion.

luser n. A demeaning term for a user, esp ignorant or annoying ones who bother User Assistants while they are not working. Pronounced as "loser"

MDF acronym for Main Distribution Frame. This is the campus' link to the outside world. Ours is a room in the basement of Cowell that links us to our T1 line, houses a bunch of networking and phone equipment and is the physical home of ella

mdr acronym for Minimum Daily Requirement.

mf n. the sound one makes while scratching one's head.

midnight swim club [forum] n. A group of geeks (many of whom are ninjas) who may or may not go swimming in the pool at midnight. Only those who know secret ninja code know for sure.

Millsbian [Mills] n. synonym of LUG. This pokes fun at the (seemingly) huge number of freshman who arrive heterosexual and then come out during their first year. see BUG

millsie [rforum] n. a (possibly derisive) term to refer to Mills people on rforum.

moo n. acronym for Multi-user Object Oriented. Kind of like a chat room, but it actually has a point.

nettiquette n. [USENET] unwritten code of ettiquite that governs the use of an electronic communication medium. Usually refers to USENET, but in Mills usage may refer to any medium

newbie n. New user. One who is unfamiliar with the nettiquite that exists for the medium she is using

ninja [forum] n. see secret ninja

np 1. [IRC] acronym for No Problem.
NP 2. [Computer Science] A class of problems where the correctness of the answer can be verified in polynomial time. When used in conversation, NP may be used instead of NP-complete or NP-hard, which are problems that are difficult to solve. This however is not super-correct usage, since the NP part is not what makes the problem difficult.

oic [IRC] abbreviation for "oh, I see"

oldella n. The computer that was ella. She is an SGI Crimson that lives in a little refrigerated room in the back of CPM 200

on crack [Mills] To be on crack is to be confused or wrong. Danica says the meeting is monday, but I think she's just on crack To be stressed out, especially for reasons the listener finds silly. To act in a manner or have thoughts wich one might come up with or do when slightly inebriated.

otoh acronym for On The Other Hand

ou n. a program that allows other mills users to glimmer some information about you. If you type "ou -a" (without the quotes) it will say <date last updated> <login> is <information>.
To update your information, or to add yourself to the list, just type ou. It will say "<your login> is" and give you space in which to add your information. Some people like to add this to their .logout script.

pbest n. the email address of Paulette Best, our friendly neighborhood sysadmin. Paulette is an ITS employee

plan or .plan n. A file users may edit that gets displayed when users finger them.

post n. A message or article conatined with a USENET newsgroup or forum.
v. To create such an article

ppl abbreviation for people

proggie abbreviation for program

prolly abbreviation for probably

puter abbreviation for computer

qmail n. The program ella uses to manage email delivery. This program does the same stuff as sendmail, but is better at it.

real life 1. n. Life after college
2. n. off-line I've known her for a year, but we've only met in real life once

recursive adj. See recursive

rforum n. the remote version of forum. This program allows you to read forum in other locations. The default location is scruz.

rotfl [IRC] acronym for Rolling On The Floor Laughing

rtfm acronym for Read The F*cking Manual

scruz abbreviation for "santa cruz"

secret ninjas [forum] n. A group of forum geeks who have been known to wear all black and prowl around with water balloons.

secret ninja code [forum] n. A method of encryption where the letters are shifted by 13 (with wrap-around) so that 'a' encrypted is 'n'. This system is symmetrical so that x = ninja(ninja(x)). There is an encoder/decoder on the web.
Known in the real world as rot-13.

sig or .sig n. A file called .signature   This file will be automatically appended to all of your mail files. It should not exceed 4 lines in length.

simulpost v. To post simultaneously with another person.

spacebar.com n. A live chat server running at spacebar.com on port 7227. To connect type "telnet spacebar.com 7227" at the ella prompt (without the quotes).

Stern 14 n. The main campus computer lab. Sometimes abbreviated to Stern.

there there [Mills] a comforting post to forum. Ususally contains two or more lines of "there there" repeated multiple times

tla [Computer Science] acronym for Three Letter Acronym

ttfn [IRC] acronym for Ta Ta For Now

ua [Mills] acronym for User Assistant

User Assistant n. A student ITS employee who has work hours in Stern 14 where she answers student's questions. During her off hours,she generally goes on-line in CPM, thus avoiding horrdes of lusers.

wtf [IRC] acronym whose useage depends on the context. Can be alternately What The F*ck, Who The F*ck, Where The F*ck etc

yer [Mills] short for your or you're

ymmv acronym for Your Mileage May Vary. Used as a qualifier attached to advice

zoomer [Mills] n. syn for Resumer. At mills, all undergraduates over the age of 23 are classified as "resuming students."

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