barn n.
[uncommon; prob. from the nuclear military] An
unexpectedly large quantity of something: a unit of measurement.
"Why is /var/adm taking up so much space?" "The logs have grown
to several barns." The source of this is clear: when physicists
were first studying nuclear interactions, the probability was
thought to be proportional to the cross-sectional area of the
nucleus (this probability is still called the cross-section). Upon
experimenting, they discovered the interactions were far more
probable than expected; the nuclei were `as big as a barn'. The
units for cross-sections were christened Barns, (10^-24 cm^2) and
the book containing cross-sections has a picture
of a barn on the cover.
[uncommon; prob. from the nuclear military] An
unexpectedly large quantity of something: a unit of measurement.
"Why is /var/adm taking up so much space?" "The logs have grown
to several barns." The source of this is clear: when physicists
were first studying nuclear interactions, the probability was
thought to be proportional to the cross-sectional area of the
nucleus (this probability is still called the cross-section). Upon
experimenting, they discovered the interactions were far more
probable than expected; the nuclei were `as big as a barn'. The
units for cross-sections were christened Barns, (10^-24 cm^2) and
the book containing cross-sections has a picture
of a barn on the cover.
Related:
- spam vt.,vi.,n.
[from "Monty Python's Flying
Circus"] 1.
To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer... - Jesus Christ! Close the door!
Were you born in a barn!?!... - saga n.
[WPI] A cuspy but bogus raving story about N
random broken people.
Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told... - Once upon a time there were three brothers who were knights
in a certain kingdom.
And, there was a Princess in a neighboring kingdom... - Hmmm.. A hash-singer and a cross-eyed guy were SLEEPING on a deserted
island,
when... -- Zippy the... - kremvax /krem-vaks/ n.
[from the then large number of
Usenet VAXen with names of the form foovax]
Originally,
a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, announced... - bit-paired keyboard n.,obs.
(alt. `bit-shift
keyboard') A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have
originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several
years on early computer equipment.
The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so... - Internet n.
The mother of all networks. First
incarnated beginning in 1969 as the ARPANET,
a U.S. Department of Defense research testbed. ... - Woven baskets characterized by a particular distinctive pattern have previously been found only in the immediate vicinity of the prehistoric village of Palea and therefore were believed to have been unique to the Palean people.
Recently, however, archaeologists discovered such a...
From the same category:
- go flatline v.
[from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of
EEG traces upon brain-death] (also adjectival `flatlined').
1. To die, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly... - heartbeat n.
1. The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet
transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the
collision-detection circuit is still connected.
2. A periodic ... - real operating system n.
The sort the speaker is used to.
People from the BSDophilic academic community are likely... - locked and loaded adj.,obs.
[from military slang for an
M-16 rifle with magazine inserted and prepared for firing] Said of
a removable disk volume properly prepared for use -
that is, ... - BCPL // n.
[abbreviation, `Basic Combined Programming
Language') A programming language developed by Martin Richards in
Cambridge in 1967.
It is remarkable for its rich syntax, small size...
