:Shub-Internet: /shuhb in't*r-net/ [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft's
evil fictional deity `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a
Thousand Young] n. The harsh personification of the Internet,
Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line
Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity
formed of all the manifold connections of the net. A sect of
MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for
good connections. To no avail --- its purpose is malign and evil,
and is the cause of all network slowdown. Often heard as in
"Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down."
(A forged response often follows along the lines of:
"Shub-Internet gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.") Also
cursed by users of {FTP} and {telnet} when the system slows
down. The dread name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as
it is said that repeating it three times will cause the being to
wake, deep within its lair beneath the Pentagon.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
he network n.
1. Historicaslly, the union of all the major
noncommercial academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as
Internet, the pre-1990 ARPANET, NSFnet, BITNET, and the
virtual UUCP and Usenet `networks', plus the corporate
in-house networks and commercial time-sharing services (such as
CompuServe, GEnie and AOL) that gateway to them....
etwork, the: n. 1. The union of all the major noncommercial
academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the old
ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the virtual UUCP and {USENET}
`networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
time-sharing services (such as CompuServe) that gateway to them....
