:Anthropomorphization:
----------------------

   Semantically, one rich source of jargon constructions is the hackish
tendency to anthropomorphize hardware and software.  This isn't done in
a naive way; hackers don't personalize their stuff in the sense of
feeling empathy with it, nor do they mystically believe that the things
they work on every day are `alive'.  What _is_ common is to hear
hardware or software talked about as though it has homunculi talking to
each other inside it, with intentions and desires.  Thus, one hears
"The protocol handler got confused", or that programs "are trying" to
do things, or one may say of a routine that "its goal in life is to X".
One even hears explanations like "...  and its poor little brain
couldn't understand X, and it died."  Sometimes modelling things this
way actually seems to make them easier to understand, perhaps because
it's instinctively natural to think of anything with a really complex
behavioral repertoire as `like a person' rather than `like a thing'.

