Slashdot Mirror
Jargon File 4.2.0 Out
Baloo Ursidae writes, "The newest version of The Jargon File, 4.2.0, is up now over here at jargon.org. For the first time, AFK made the list. " Definitely a good place for newbies, and veterans seeking a few good laughs.
I love the Jargon File. I really do. I remember reading it straight through when a meg of data was still something to write home about. I contributed myself, adding some phrases from the Amiga community and some 8-bit enthusiast slang. I even helped correct their heinous error that "elite" was alleged to stem from Hayes Courier Elite modem (which came much much later). One thing I don't like about The Jargon File is its insistance (and I realize it's one a fair amount of you will agree with) that there should be a distinction between "cracker" and "hacker", and that nary the 'tween shall meet. I think that the internet geek community needs to get used to the concept of context-sensitivity, and rather than calling the Diane Reim show on NPR to correct use of "hacker" like I heard today, I think we might do better to teach the difference between what we consider "good" hacking and "bad" hacking. Good hacking is key to the creation mythos of Linux itself, so I'd think many of you would have an investment in educating the media rather than imposing on them a game of semantics. --- Ask a member of the PKK if he considers himself a "terrorist".
They don't use diffs, because the changes between revisions often contain a lot of formatting differences.. so the diff is pretty much the same size as the entire thing.
Looks like they do have a mirror.. but it's not listed on the download page. It got fully /.'d now, and I can't get to the mirror list! :(
Anyone grab the list before it pooped out on us?
So I went looking for mirrors. None of these are official. They are just what a search on Google turned up:
I found quite a few more, but all of them on older versions. I certainly don't want to kill either of these two sites, so please folks, if you are mirroring The Jargon File, update your mirrors and post the links.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Here's the main site: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/
CmdrTaco : Every winter, he emerges and looks in his inbox, and if he sees harassing "give us the slash code" messages, he returns to his hole and does not release the slash code for another 6 weeks
Hemos : A hamster
JonKatz : Producer of social commentary and rant. See Signal/Noise ratio.
Karma : black magic performed by the slash code that follows the rule what goes up must come down.
Troll : A vile creature that lives in the depths of -1 moderation
Natalie Portman : Favorite topic of trolls.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
List of Jargon Resources Mirror Sites USA:
Australia:
- http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/text/jargon/
- http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/text/jargon
Austria: http://www.snafu.priv.at/jargon/Czechoslovakia: ttp://www.instinct.org/texts/jargon-file/
Finland: http://zone.pspt.fi/jargon/
Germany:
Gret Britain: http://jargon.strugglers.net
Greece: http://www.hack.gr/jargon
Italy: http://beatles.cselt.stet.it/mirrors/jargon
Japan: http://www.vacia.is.tohoku.ac.jp/jargon/
Norway: http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/misc/jargon/ Poland: http://www.uci.agh.edu.pl/jargon/
Spain: http://www.undersec.com/jargon
Sweden: http://ftp.sunet.se/jargon/
U.K.:
A bunch of folks who don't know anything jumping on a bandwagon late, and getting the style but not the substance.
Yes, there are a lot of those. There are always going to be. And there are going to be candidates whose web sites are declared to be open source with no understanding of what that means. That doesn't mean that the Jargon File itself is useless. First, parts of it are hilarious. But more importantly, it gives a single resource that we can all point to for definitions of hackerly jargon and word play.
No matter how long you've been a hacker, and we were all newbies once, there are going to be terms that are new to you. I remember reading a predecessor to the Jargon File back in the early 80's. I thought I was a programming god because I had written a few barely interesting games in BASIC. And I grew up. I've written a lot of code since then (a million or two lines of code might be a good guess). I know how naive I was then. And I use a fair number of the terms in the Jargon File.
I'm a geek and I'm proud of it.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
The confusion stems from ESR's guide. He insists that the proper word for cybercriminal is "cracker", not "hacker". This is true in the geek community, but it is not true in either the general community or the security community. In the security community, the word "crack" has specific connontations about breaking passwords and/or copyright restrictions.
Journalists who use the word "hacker" to refer to the recent DDoS attacks gets flames from nerds insisting that they use "cracker". When they use "cracker", they get flames from security people who tell them what an idiot they are for using the wrong word since no passwords were cracked in these attacks. Most journalists I know try "cracker" a few times before they get sick of the complaints from the security other side. They also realize that their audience (the general population) just doesn't understand the word cracker as well as hacker.
I only post this because I'm tired of religious wars on the "meaning" of words. Words don't have any particular meaning; there is only what people understand when they hear a word. By creating a dictionary that defines a word contrary to how most people use it, ESR is perpetuating a religious war.
One might want to consider this alternate definition of "hacker".
Newbie Question: Is there any way to have the contents of the Jargon file presented one by one, as fortune cookies (a la KFortune)? If so, how? If not, why not?
Stupidity is mis-underestimated.
Eric, can we please have the JF as a context diff ?
:)
Of course, it's not because we want to save bandwidth, it's only to make it more easily readable for those who read earlier versions
The entry talks about how rows of blinking lights/LEDs are a thing of the past because things happen too fast now for the lights to convey any meaning. I would counter that the lights have simply moved: to the modems and the racks of ethernet switches, hubs, and routers. There are still plenty of blinkenlights in the server rooms around the globe.
If you just want to see the differences, it's probably easier than a context diff.
"Linux is the greatest thing on the planet! It's perfect doodz! I love penguins! I hate Bill Gates and the MPAA"
"I love MS products and you commie pinko Linux users are just not being logical and thoughtful, however I have a real view on the issue, but you aren't going to listen to me"
"I know the moderators are going to mark me down for this, but I just have to say it..."
Posting early in a discussion or as a reply to a high moderation comment with no real content, but including something that no one can really disagree with (except for in one of the cases above)
many replies with the title "Karma whore"
Lea
Maybe I'm a Jargon archeologist, since I can't find this on Web searches and deja.com only has my own reference to it I made awhile back, but I distinctly remember the term ATWAV being used a lot Usenet in the 86-89 timeframe. You'd particularly see this on comp.lang.c. I know what it means, but maybe I dreamed the whole thing as you'd think that it would show up on a web page somewhere.
I'm really surprised that it doesn't seem to be on the Web now... Does anybody else remember ATWAV and what it refers to?
-Jordan Henderson