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 #
lamer (n): A user who behaves in a stupid or uneducated manner, a description often applied to newbies. larval stage (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers. Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour hacking run in a given week; neglect of all other activities including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from 6 months to 2 years, the apparent median being around 18 months. A few so afflicted never resume a more 'normal' life, but the ordeal seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to merely competent) programmers. A less protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when one is learning a new OS or programming language. Law of Differentiated Gravitation (n): Anime Law # 2. Whenever someone or something jumps, is thrown, or otherwise rendered airborne, gravity is reduced by a factor of 4. Law of Inverse Attraction (n): Anime Law # 39. Success at finding suitable mates is inversely proportional to how desperately you want to be successful. The more you want, the less you get, and vice versa. Law of Juvenile Omnipotence (n): Anime Law # 42. Always send a boy to do a man's job. He'll get it done in half the time and twice the angst. Law of Nominative Clamovocation (n): Anime Law # 44. The likelihood of success and damage done by a martial arts attack is directly proportional to the volume at which the full name of the attack is announced. Law of Temporal Variability (n): Anime Law # 6. Time is not a constant. Time stops for the hero whenever he does something 'cool' or 'impressive.' Time slows down when friends or lovers are being killed and speeds up whenever there is a fight. Leonardo Da Vinci Syndrome (n): Creative people often get new ideas and visions faster than they can implement them, making them unable to complete a project before rushing off to the next (like Leonardo da Vinci). Linux (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: The free Unix workalike created by Linus Torvalds and friends starting about 1990. This may be the most remarkable hacker project in history -- an entire clone of Unix for 386, 486 and Pentium micros, distributed for free with sources over the net. Other, similar efforts like FreeBSD and NetBSD have been much less successful. The secret of Linux's success seems to be that Linus worked much harder early on to keep the development process open and recruit other hackers, creating a snowball effect. llama (n): A person of the dork persuasion, lacking of the skillz. Including the social skillz. load-bearing boss (n): In role-playing video games, defeating a dungeon's boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes. logovisual (adj) [Steven Grant, CBR, 2000] /1: Words and pictures functioning in unison to create a single idea. /2: Words as pictures, seen but not heard as part of the pictures themselves. Term can be used to accurately describe the comics medium. lurker (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: One of the 'silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called 'delurking'. mailbomb [Usenet] /1 (v): To send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of email to a single system or person, esp. with intent to crash or spam the recipient's system. Sometimes done in retaliation for a perceived serious offense. Mailbombing is itself widely regarded as a serious offense -- it can disrupt email traffic or other facilities for innocent users on the victim's system, and in extreme cases, even at upstream sites. /2 (n): An automatic procedure with a similar effect. /3 (n): The mail sent. mailing list (n) /1: An email address that is an alias (or macro, though that word is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses. Some mailing lists are simple 'reflectors', redirecting mail sent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be 'moderated'. /2: The people who receive your email when you send it to such an address. Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized for or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face. manga (n) [Jp]: Phone-book-sized comic books ubiquitous in Japan. Six billion dollars in annual sales made comic books Japan's single most powerful media entity in 1994, with circulation numbers for top-selling manga (published monthly or weekly) dwarfing those of the larger newspapers. In Japan, 'manga' is published for a wide range of tastes and interests--from basketball-crazed schoolkids, mah-jongg-playing housewives, and weary "salarymen," to freaks and fetishists of all persuasion. manga-ka (n) [Jp]: Anyone who creates manga; a manga artist. Manga-kas are typically responsible for layout, pencilling, character design, and supply assistants with 'art direction' information. about inking, screentone, sound effects and other details. In addition, the great majority of manga-kas write their own stories and dialogue. (Those who write stories for manga are called "gensaku-sha".) The professionalism of a manga-ka is often measured by the number of mangas they have running concurrently. Marvel junkie (n) /1: A fanboy who continues to buy Marvel comics due to habit, nostalgia, or merely to continue their collection; usually done at the exclusion of titles from other publishers. Personal interest is negligible, and the comics purchased are often poorly written and badly drawn. /2: Someone who will only buy comics published by Marvel. Matrix (n) [FidoNet] /1: What the Opus BBS software and sysops call FidoNet. /2: Fanciful term for a cyberspace expected to emerge from current networking experiments. /3: The totality of present-day computer networks. McJob (n) /1: Term first coined by McDonald's in 1983 to promote an affirmative action program for handicapped employees. By the late '80s, it was widely used to describe the general shift in American work from manufacturing to low-skill, low-wage service jobs, particularly those in the fast-food industry. /2 [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one. mecha (n) ["mechanical"]: A blanket term for any machinery, robots or equipment. It particularly refers to 'giant robots', probably first used in the titles of some Godzilla films. Mecha design seems to have reached a high art for anime productions, but has been less important for the success of manga. meme (n) [Richard Dawkins]: An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used especially in the phrase 'meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Men in Black (n): Believed to be very strange creatures, perhaps aliens or government agents, who visit UFO witnesses and warn them not to tell anyone about their UFO experiences. mental ground zero (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. mid-twenties breakdown (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A period of mental collapse occuring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. mopey Goth (n): A Goth with an overdeveloped sense of angst. These Goths are the ones you may find brooding in dark corners, pondering the pain of existence, wondering why their girlfriend/boyfriend has torn their heart out (again). In general, they tend to take life very seriously. morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
llama (n): A person of the dork persuasion, lacking of the skillz. Including the social skillz. load-bearing boss (n): In role-playing video games, defeating a dungeon's boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes. logovisual (adj) [Steven Grant, CBR, 2000] /1: Words and pictures functioning in unison to create a single idea. /2: Words as pictures, seen but not heard as part of the pictures themselves. Term can be used to accurately describe the comics medium. lurker (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: One of the 'silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called 'delurking'. mailbomb [Usenet] /1 (v): To send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of email to a single system or person, esp. with intent to crash or spam the recipient's system. Sometimes done in retaliation for a perceived serious offense. Mailbombing is itself widely regarded as a serious offense -- it can disrupt email traffic or other facilities for innocent users on the victim's system, and in extreme cases, even at upstream sites. /2 (n): An automatic procedure with a similar effect. /3 (n): The mail sent. mailing list (n) /1: An email address that is an alias (or macro, though that word is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses. Some mailing lists are simple 'reflectors', redirecting mail sent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be 'moderated'. /2: The people who receive your email when you send it to such an address. Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized for or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face. manga (n) [Jp]: Phone-book-sized comic books ubiquitous in Japan. Six billion dollars in annual sales made comic books Japan's single most powerful media entity in 1994, with circulation numbers for top-selling manga (published monthly or weekly) dwarfing those of the larger newspapers. In Japan, 'manga' is published for a wide range of tastes and interests--from basketball-crazed schoolkids, mah-jongg-playing housewives, and weary "salarymen," to freaks and fetishists of all persuasion. manga-ka (n) [Jp]: Anyone who creates manga; a manga artist. Manga-kas are typically responsible for layout, pencilling, character design, and supply assistants with 'art direction' information. about inking, screentone, sound effects and other details. In addition, the great majority of manga-kas write their own stories and dialogue. (Those who write stories for manga are called "gensaku-sha".) The professionalism of a manga-ka is often measured by the number of mangas they have running concurrently. Marvel junkie (n) /1: A fanboy who continues to buy Marvel comics due to habit, nostalgia, or merely to continue their collection; usually done at the exclusion of titles from other publishers. Personal interest is negligible, and the comics purchased are often poorly written and badly drawn. /2: Someone who will only buy comics published by Marvel. Matrix (n) [FidoNet] /1: What the Opus BBS software and sysops call FidoNet. /2: Fanciful term for a cyberspace expected to emerge from current networking experiments. /3: The totality of present-day computer networks. McJob (n) /1: Term first coined by McDonald's in 1983 to promote an affirmative action program for handicapped employees. By the late '80s, it was widely used to describe the general shift in American work from manufacturing to low-skill, low-wage service jobs, particularly those in the fast-food industry. /2 [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one. mecha (n) ["mechanical"]: A blanket term for any machinery, robots or equipment. It particularly refers to 'giant robots', probably first used in the titles of some Godzilla films. Mecha design seems to have reached a high art for anime productions, but has been less important for the success of manga. meme (n) [Richard Dawkins]: An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used especially in the phrase 'meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Men in Black (n): Believed to be very strange creatures, perhaps aliens or government agents, who visit UFO witnesses and warn them not to tell anyone about their UFO experiences. mental ground zero (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. mid-twenties breakdown (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A period of mental collapse occuring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. mopey Goth (n): A Goth with an overdeveloped sense of angst. These Goths are the ones you may find brooding in dark corners, pondering the pain of existence, wondering why their girlfriend/boyfriend has torn their heart out (again). In general, they tend to take life very seriously. morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
load-bearing boss (n): In role-playing video games, defeating a dungeon's boss creature will frequently cause the dungeon to collapse, which is nonsensical but does make for thrilling escape scenes. logovisual (adj) [Steven Grant, CBR, 2000] /1: Words and pictures functioning in unison to create a single idea. /2: Words as pictures, seen but not heard as part of the pictures themselves. Term can be used to accurately describe the comics medium. lurker (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: One of the 'silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called 'delurking'. mailbomb [Usenet] /1 (v): To send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of email to a single system or person, esp. with intent to crash or spam the recipient's system. Sometimes done in retaliation for a perceived serious offense. Mailbombing is itself widely regarded as a serious offense -- it can disrupt email traffic or other facilities for innocent users on the victim's system, and in extreme cases, even at upstream sites. /2 (n): An automatic procedure with a similar effect. /3 (n): The mail sent. mailing list (n) /1: An email address that is an alias (or macro, though that word is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses. Some mailing lists are simple 'reflectors', redirecting mail sent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be 'moderated'. /2: The people who receive your email when you send it to such an address. Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized for or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face. manga (n) [Jp]: Phone-book-sized comic books ubiquitous in Japan. Six billion dollars in annual sales made comic books Japan's single most powerful media entity in 1994, with circulation numbers for top-selling manga (published monthly or weekly) dwarfing those of the larger newspapers. In Japan, 'manga' is published for a wide range of tastes and interests--from basketball-crazed schoolkids, mah-jongg-playing housewives, and weary "salarymen," to freaks and fetishists of all persuasion. manga-ka (n) [Jp]: Anyone who creates manga; a manga artist. Manga-kas are typically responsible for layout, pencilling, character design, and supply assistants with 'art direction' information. about inking, screentone, sound effects and other details. In addition, the great majority of manga-kas write their own stories and dialogue. (Those who write stories for manga are called "gensaku-sha".) The professionalism of a manga-ka is often measured by the number of mangas they have running concurrently. Marvel junkie (n) /1: A fanboy who continues to buy Marvel comics due to habit, nostalgia, or merely to continue their collection; usually done at the exclusion of titles from other publishers. Personal interest is negligible, and the comics purchased are often poorly written and badly drawn. /2: Someone who will only buy comics published by Marvel. Matrix (n) [FidoNet] /1: What the Opus BBS software and sysops call FidoNet. /2: Fanciful term for a cyberspace expected to emerge from current networking experiments. /3: The totality of present-day computer networks. McJob (n) /1: Term first coined by McDonald's in 1983 to promote an affirmative action program for handicapped employees. By the late '80s, it was widely used to describe the general shift in American work from manufacturing to low-skill, low-wage service jobs, particularly those in the fast-food industry. /2 [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one. mecha (n) ["mechanical"]: A blanket term for any machinery, robots or equipment. It particularly refers to 'giant robots', probably first used in the titles of some Godzilla films. Mecha design seems to have reached a high art for anime productions, but has been less important for the success of manga. meme (n) [Richard Dawkins]: An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used especially in the phrase 'meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Men in Black (n): Believed to be very strange creatures, perhaps aliens or government agents, who visit UFO witnesses and warn them not to tell anyone about their UFO experiences. mental ground zero (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. mid-twenties breakdown (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A period of mental collapse occuring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. mopey Goth (n): A Goth with an overdeveloped sense of angst. These Goths are the ones you may find brooding in dark corners, pondering the pain of existence, wondering why their girlfriend/boyfriend has torn their heart out (again). In general, they tend to take life very seriously. morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
logovisual (adj) [Steven Grant, CBR, 2000] /1: Words and pictures functioning in unison to create a single idea. /2: Words as pictures, seen but not heard as part of the pictures themselves. Term can be used to accurately describe the comics medium. lurker (n) [Jargon File 3.0.0]: One of the 'silent majority' in a electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." When a lurker speaks up for the first time, this is called 'delurking'. mailbomb [Usenet] /1 (v): To send, or urge others to send, massive amounts of email to a single system or person, esp. with intent to crash or spam the recipient's system. Sometimes done in retaliation for a perceived serious offense. Mailbombing is itself widely regarded as a serious offense -- it can disrupt email traffic or other facilities for innocent users on the victim's system, and in extreme cases, even at upstream sites. /2 (n): An automatic procedure with a similar effect. /3 (n): The mail sent. mailing list (n) /1: An email address that is an alias (or macro, though that word is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses. Some mailing lists are simple 'reflectors', redirecting mail sent to them to the list of recipients. Others are filtered by humans or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by humans are said to be 'moderated'. /2: The people who receive your email when you send it to such an address. Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction, along with Usenet. They predate Usenet, having originated with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections. They are often used for private information-sharing on topics that would be too specialized for or inappropriate to public Usenet groups. Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike Usenet) don't tie up a significant amount of machine resources (until they get very large, at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail software). Thus, they are often created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet face-to-face. manga (n) [Jp]: Phone-book-sized comic books ubiquitous in Japan. Six billion dollars in annual sales made comic books Japan's single most powerful media entity in 1994, with circulation numbers for top-selling manga (published monthly or weekly) dwarfing those of the larger newspapers. In Japan, 'manga' is published for a wide range of tastes and interests--from basketball-crazed schoolkids, mah-jongg-playing housewives, and weary "salarymen," to freaks and fetishists of all persuasion. manga-ka (n) [Jp]: Anyone who creates manga; a manga artist. Manga-kas are typically responsible for layout, pencilling, character design, and supply assistants with 'art direction' information. about inking, screentone, sound effects and other details. In addition, the great majority of manga-kas write their own stories and dialogue. (Those who write stories for manga are called "gensaku-sha".) The professionalism of a manga-ka is often measured by the number of mangas they have running concurrently. Marvel junkie (n) /1: A fanboy who continues to buy Marvel comics due to habit, nostalgia, or merely to continue their collection; usually done at the exclusion of titles from other publishers. Personal interest is negligible, and the comics purchased are often poorly written and badly drawn. /2: Someone who will only buy comics published by Marvel. Matrix (n) [FidoNet] /1: What the Opus BBS software and sysops call FidoNet. /2: Fanciful term for a cyberspace expected to emerge from current networking experiments. /3: The totality of present-day computer networks. McJob (n) /1: Term first coined by McDonald's in 1983 to promote an affirmative action program for handicapped employees. By the late '80s, it was widely used to describe the general shift in American work from manufacturing to low-skill, low-wage service jobs, particularly those in the fast-food industry. /2 [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one. mecha (n) ["mechanical"]: A blanket term for any machinery, robots or equipment. It particularly refers to 'giant robots', probably first used in the titles of some Godzilla films. Mecha design seems to have reached a high art for anime productions, but has been less important for the success of manga. meme (n) [Richard Dawkins]: An idea considered as a replicator, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used especially in the phrase 'meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Men in Black (n): Believed to be very strange creatures, perhaps aliens or government agents, who visit UFO witnesses and warn them not to tell anyone about their UFO experiences. mental ground zero (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The location where one visualizes oneself during the dropping of the atomic bomb; frequently, a shopping mall. mid-twenties breakdown (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: A period of mental collapse occuring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of pharmaceutical usage. mopey Goth (n): A Goth with an overdeveloped sense of angst. These Goths are the ones you may find brooding in dark corners, pondering the pain of existence, wondering why their girlfriend/boyfriend has torn their heart out (again). In general, they tend to take life very seriously. morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
mopey Goth (n): A Goth with an overdeveloped sense of angst. These Goths are the ones you may find brooding in dark corners, pondering the pain of existence, wondering why their girlfriend/boyfriend has torn their heart out (again). In general, they tend to take life very seriously. morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
morning amnesia (n) [Scott Adams, Dilbert]: A condition where a person wakes up lacking knowledge of who they are, what day of the week it is, or what has to be done that day. A defensive measure meant to prevent people from waking up screaming. multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
multitasking (n) /1: The ability of a computer to run several programs simultaneously. /2: When a person does several things at the same time. mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
mundane (n): A non-fan. At a convention, this is a derisive term. nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
nanotechnology (n) [Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation, 1987]: A hypothetical fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with the individual specification and placement of each separate atom. The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in 1990, with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company. neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
neofan (n): Someone new to fandom. nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->
nephew art (n): the concept of an executive at a professional computer firm hiring an unskilled younger relative to do web or game design in lieu of hiring a more expensive college graduate. net.god (n): One who has been online since the beginning, someone who knows all and who has done all. net.personality (n): Somebody sufficiently opinionated with plenty of time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of different USENET newsgroups, and whose presence is known to thousands of people. net.police (n): Derogatory term for those who would impose their standards on other users of the Net. netiquette (n) ["network etiquette"]: The conventions of politeness recognized on Usenet, such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups. newbie (n) [Brit "new boy"]: A Usenet neophyte. This term surfaced in the newsgroup talk.bizarre but is now in wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a respected regular in another. The label 'newbie' is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a clue. nijikon (n) [Jp]: '2-dimensional complex'. Refers to those who are more interested in two-dimensional (ie. anime or manga) girls than real people. nimbo (n) ["ninja bimbo"]: A female comic book character trained in Asian (usually Japanese) martial arts and skills who wears a skimpy outfit, often with high heels, and has incredibly large breasts and incredibly narrow waist. Much more common in comics than they should be. noddy (adj) [brit] /1: Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs are often written by people learning a new language or system. The archetypal noddy program is 'hello, world'. Noddy code may be used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using. "This editor's a bit noddy." /2 (n): A program that is more or less instant to produce. Does not necessarily connote uselessness, but describes a hack sufficiently trivial that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a noddy awk script to dump all the first fields." Also called a 'mickey mouse program'. offline (adv): Not now or not here. "Let's take this discussion offline." Specifically used on Usenet to suggest that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email. Omega Point (n) [Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man]: A possible future state when intelligence controls the universe totally, and the amount of information processed and stored goes asymptotically towards infinity. OST (n) ["Original Sound Track"]: The music to a TV show, movie or video-game; generally applied to Japanese products only. Out-of-Character (adj): A role playing term, meaning that something the player does or says is not meant to be taken in the context of the game. Abbreviated as OOC. otaku (n) [Jp] /1: A Japanese word which is commonly translated to "Obsessive Fan". It's used in much the same way as the word 'Geek' is used in English. Usually a snide reference to someone who really needs to get a life. Of course, just as some folks wear the badge of geek with an ironic pride, so do many anime fans with the word otaku. /2: A mindset involving the gathering of apparently pointless information, and the doing of gratuitous things with that information. OVA (acronym) ["Original Video Animation"]: The Japanese equivalent of Direct To Video here in the States. Unlike the DTV market here where the quality of the animation is likely to be less impressive than a theatrical release (see any Disney DTV follow-up to a popular Disney movie for a prime example). In Japan the quality of animation in an OVA release is likely to be on par with theatrical releases, or at least better than the average anime TV series. As a result, the announcement of a new OVA series is usually cause for celebration. Also referred to as "Original Animation Video" (OAV). ozmosis (n) [Douglas Coupland, Generation X, 1992]: The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image. <- back next ->