Big Hat, No Cattle Texas expression used to dismiss a cowboy wannabe. In Lone Star IT circles, it describes a technician with a certificate or degree in computer science, but little or no field experience.
Sneakers-up A dotcom that's gone belly-up. Reminiscent of the older hacker slang "casters-up," meaning a broken-down or dead computer.
GNU Economy The open source software marketplace, named after the GNU General Public License, which prevents corporations from acquiring public domain systems like Linux.
Cycle Brokering The farming out of number-crunching tasks to a distributed network of consumer PCs.
Relevance Switching P2P collaborative-searching technology being developed by OpenCola. Users can share their database-scouring results with other people who have similar search interests and behavior.
Tip o' the tuque to Ronan Heffernan and Paul McFedries.
- Gareth Branwyn (jargon@wiredmag.com)
MUST READ
Linux Inside
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
A Brush With AI
High-Voltage Connectivity
Ask Dr. Bob
People
TV Your Way
Making Dead Birds "The Deal of the Century"
Jargon Watch
McCurry's Multiplier Effect
Digicamouflage
Cranium Drive
InterCommunication Arts
Do You Copy?
Wired Index
Raw Data
