= I =
=====

   :I didn't change anything!: interj.  An aggrieved cry often    heard
as bugs manifest during a regression test.  The    {canonical} reply to
this assertion is "Then it works just the    same as it did before,
doesn't it?"  See also {one-line fix}.     This is also heard from
applications programmers trying to blame an    obvious applications
problem on an unrelated systems software    change, for example a
divide-by-0 fault after terminals were added    to a network.  Usually,
their statement is found to be false.  Upon    close questioning, they
will admit some major restructuring of the    program that shouldn't
have broken anything, in their opinion, but    which actually {hosed}
the code completely.

   :I see no X here.:  Hackers (and the interactive computer    games
they write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage    over
other possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or    "X is
missing."  or "Where's the X?".  This goes back to the    original
PDP-10 {ADVENT}, which would respond in this wise if    you asked it to
do something involving an object not present at    your location in the
game.

   :IANAL: //  [Usenet] Abbreviation, "I Am Not A Lawyer".     Usually
precedes legal advice.

   :IBM: /I-B-M/  Inferior But Marketable; It's Better    Manually;
Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning;    Incontinent Bowel
Movement; and a near-{infinite} number of even    less complimentary
expansions, including `International Business    Machines'.  See {TLA}.
These abbreviations illustrate the    considerable antipathy most
hackers long felt toward the    `industry leader' (see {fear and
loathing}).

   What galled hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level wasn't
  so much that they were underpowered and overpriced (though that does
  count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic,
{crufty}, and {elephantine} ... and you can't _fix_ them    -- source
code is locked up tight, and programming tools are    expensive, hard
to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found    them. For many
years, before Microsoft, IBM was the company hackers    loved to hate.

   But everything changes.  In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with
 Microsoft.  In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services
company, began to release open-source software through its
AlphaWorks group, and began shipping {Linux} systems and    building
ties to the Linux community.  To the astonishment of all    parties,
IBM emerged as a friend of the hacker community

   This lexicon includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM';
these derive from some rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated
within IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground.

   :IBM discount: n.  A price increase.  Outside IBM, this    derives
from the common perception that IBM products are generally
overpriced (see {clone}); inside, it is said to spring from a    belief
that large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause    prices
to rise.

   :ICBM address: n.  (Also `missile address') The form    used to
register a site with the Usenet mapping project, back    before the day
of pervasive Internet, included a blank for    longitude and latitude,
preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy.     This was actually used for
generating geographically-correct maps of    Usenet links on a plotter;
however, it became traditional to    refer to this as one's `ICBM
address' or `missile address', and    some people include it in their
{sig block} with that name.  (A    real missile address would include
target elevation.)

   :ice: n.  [coined by Usenetter Tom Maddox, popularized by    William
Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived acronym for    `Intrusion
Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in    Gibson's novels,
software that responds to intrusion by attempting    to immobilize or
even literally kill the intruder).  Hence,    `icebreaker': a program
designed for cracking security on a    system.

   Neither term is in serious use yet as of early 1999, but many
hackers find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a
denotation in the future. In the meantime, the speculative usage
could be confused with `ICE', an acronym for "in-circuit    emulator".

   In ironic reference to the speculative usage, however, some hackers
 and computer scientists formed ICE (International Cryptographic
Experiment) in 1994. ICE is a consortium to promote uniform
international access to strong cryptography.

   :idempotent: adj.  [from mathematical techspeak] Acting as if
used only once, even if used multiple times.  This term is often
used with respect to {C} header files, which contain common
definitions and declarations to be included by several source    files.
If a header file is ever included twice during the same    compilation
(perhaps due to nested #include files), compilation    errors can
result unless the header file has protected itself    against multiple
inclusion; a header file so protected is said to    be idempotent.  The
term can also be used to describe an    initialization subroutine that
is arranged to perform some critical    action exactly once, even if
the routine is called several times.

   :IDP: /I-D-P/ v.,n.  [Usenet] Abbreviation for {Internet    Death
Penalty}. Common (probably now more so than the full form),    and
frequently verbed. Compare {UDP}.

   :If you want X, you know where to find it.:  There is a legend
that Dennis Ritchie, inventor of {C}, once responded to demands    for
features resembling those of what at the time was a much more
popular language by observing "If you want PL/I, you know where to
find it."  Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for
fending off requests to alter a new design to mimic some older    (and,
by implication, inferior and {baroque}) one.  The case X =    {Pascal}
manifests semi-regularly on Usenet's comp.lang.c    newsgroup.  Indeed,
the case X = X has been reported in discussions    of graphics software
(see {X}).

   :ifdef out: /if'def owt/ v.  Syn. for {condition out},    specific
to {C}.

   :IIRC:  Common abbreviation for "If I Recall Correctly".

   :ill-behaved: adj.  1. [numerical analysis] Said of an    algorithm
or computational method that tends to blow up because of    accumulated
roundoff error or poor convergence properties.     2. Software that
bypasses the defined {OS} interfaces to do    things (like screen,
keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way    that depends on the
hardware of the machine it is running on or    which is nonportable or
incompatible with other pieces of software.     In the IBM PC/MS-DOS
world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true)    to the effect that
(owing to gross inadequacies and performance    penalties in the OS
interface) all interesting applications are    ill-behaved.  See also
{bare metal}. Oppose {well-behaved},    compare {PC-ism}.  See
{mess-dos}.

   :IMHO: // abbrev.  [from SF fandom via Usenet; abbreviation for
`In My Humble Opinion'] "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be    avoided,
as mistyping something in the wrong case can cause    hard-to-detect
errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."     Also seen in variant
forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble    Opinion) and IMAO (In My
Arrogant Opinion).

   :Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!: prov.  [Usenet] Since
{Usenet} first got off the ground in 1980-81, it has grown
exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year.  On the
other hand, most people feel the {signal-to-noise ratio} of    Usenet
has dropped steadily.  These trends led, as far back as    mid-1983, to
predictions of the imminent collapse (or death) of the    net.  Ten
years and numerous doublings later, enough of these    gloomy
prognostications have been confounded that the phrase    "Imminent
Death Of The Net Predicted!" has become a running joke,    hauled out
any time someone grumbles about the {S/N ratio} or    the huge and
steadily increasing volume, or the possible loss of a    key node or
link, or the potential for lawsuits when ignoramuses    post
copyrighted material, etc., etc., etc.

   :in the extreme: adj.  A preferred superlative suffix for many
hackish terms.  See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' under
{obscure}, and compare {highly}.

   :inc: /ink/ v.  Verbal (and only rarely written) shorthand    for
increment, i.e. `increase by one'.  Especially used by    assembly
programmers, as many assembly languages have an `inc'    mnemonic.
Antonym: dec (see {DEC}).

   :incantation: n.  Any particularly arbitrary or obscure    command
that one must mutter at a system to attain a desired    result.  Not
used of passwords or other explicit security features.     Especially
used of tricks that are so poorly documented that they    must be
learned from a {wizard}.  "This compiler normally    locates
initialized data in the data segment, but if you    {mutter} the right
incantation they will be forced into text    space."

   :include: vt.  [Usenet] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole)    of
another's message (typically with attribution to the source) in    a
reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.
See the discussion of inclusion styles under "Hacker Writing    Style".
2. [from {C}] `#include <disclaimer.h>' has    appeared in {sig
block}s to refer to a notional `standard    {disclaimer} file'.

   :include war: n.  Excessive multi-leveled inclusion within a
discussion {thread}, a practice that tends to annoy readers.  In    a
forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as Usenet, this can lead    to
{flame}s and the urge to start a {kill file}.

   :indent style: n.  [C programmers] The rules one uses to    indent
code in a readable fashion.  There are four major C indent    styles,
described below; all have the aim of making it easier for    the reader
to visually track the scope of control constructs.  The    significant
variable is the placement of `{' and `}'    with respect to the
statement(s) they enclose and to the guard or    controlling statement
(`if', `else', `for',    `while', or `do') on the block, if any.

   `K&R style' -- Named after Kernighan & Ritchie, because the
examples in {K&R} are formatted this way.  Also called `kernel
style' because the Unix kernel is written in it, and the `One True
Brace Style' (abbrev. 1TBS) by its partisans.  The basic indent
shown here is eight spaces (or one tab) per level; four spaces are
occasionally seen, but are much less common.

     if (<cond>) {
             <body>
     }

   `Allman style' -- Named for Eric Allman, a Berkeley hacker who
wrote a lot of the BSD utilities in it (it is sometimes called    `BSD
style').  Resembles normal indent style in Pascal and    Algol.  Basic
indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four    spaces are
just as common (esp. in C++ code).

     if (<cond>)
     {
             <body>
     }

   `Whitesmiths style' -- popularized by the examples that came    with
Whitesmiths C, an early commercial C compiler.  Basic indent    per
level shown here is eight spaces, but four spaces are    occasionally
seen.

     if (<cond>)
             {
             <body>
             }

   `GNU style' -- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software
Foundation code, and just about nowhere else.  Indents are always
four spaces per level, with `{' and `}' halfway between the    outer
and inner indent levels.

     if (<cond>)
       {
         <body>
       }

Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most
common, with about equal mind shares.  K&R/1TBS used to be nearly
universal, but is now much less common (the opening brace tends to
get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an `if'    or
`while', which is a {Bad Thing}).  Defenders of 1TBS    argue that any
putative gain in readability is less important than    their style's
relative economy with vertical space, which enables    one to see more
code on one's screen at once.  Doubtless these    issues will continue
to be the subject of {holy wars}.

   :index: n.  See {coefficient of X}.

   :infant mortality: n.  It is common lore among hackers (and in
the electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak
by now) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off
exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until
the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O
devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated    for
the machine to start going senile).  Up to half of all chip and    wire
failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such    failures
are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems    (or,
occasionally, as `sudden infant death syndrome').  See    {bathtub
curve}, {burn-in period}.

   :infinite: adj.  [common] Consisting of a large number of
objects; extreme.  Used very loosely as in: "This program produces
infinite garbage."  "He is an infinite loser."  The word most    likely
to follow `infinite', though, is {hair}.  (It has been    pointed out
that fractals are an excellent example of infinite    hair.)  These
uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning.     The term
`semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount    of some
resource, is also heard.  "This compiler is taking a    semi-infinite
amount of time to optimize my program."  See also    {semi}.

   :infinite loop: n.  One that never terminates (that is, the
machine {spin}s or {buzz}es forever and goes {catatonic}).     There is
a standard joke that has been made about each generation's    exemplar
of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3 is so fast it can    execute an
infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"

   :Infinite-Monkey Theorem: n.  "If you put an {infinite}    number of
monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the    script for
Hamlet."  (One may also hypothesize a small number of    monkeys and a
very long period of time.)  This theorem asserts    nothing about the
intelligence of the one {random} monkey that    eventually comes up
with the script (and note that the mob will    also type out all the
possible _incorrect_ versions of    Hamlet).  It may be referred to
semi-seriously when justifying a    {brute force} method; the
implication is that, with enough    resources thrown at it, any
technical challenge becomes a    {one-banana problem}.  This argument
gets more respect since    {Linux} justified the {bazaar} mode of
development.

   This theorem was first popularized by the astronomer Sir Arthur
Eddington.  It became part of the idiom of techies via the classic
SF short story "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, and    many
younger hackers know it through a reference in Douglas Adams's
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

   :infinity: n.  1. The largest value that can be represented in    a
particular type of variable (register, memory location, data    type,
whatever).  2. `minus infinity': The smallest such value,    not
necessarily or even usually the simple negation of plus    infinity.
In N-bit twos-complement arithmetic, infinity is    2^(N-1) - 1 but
minus infinity is -    (2^(N-1)), not -(2^(N-1) - 1).  Note also that
this    is different from "time T equals minus infinity", which is
closer to a mathematician's usage of infinity.

   :inflate: vt.  To decompress or {puff} a file.  Rare among
Internet hackers, used primarily by MS-DOS/Windows types.

   :Infocom: n.  A now-legendary games company, active from    1979 to
1989, that commercialized the MDL parser technology used    for {Zork}
to produce a line of text adventure games that remain    favorites
among hackers.  Infocom's games were intelligent, funny,    witty,
erudite, irreverent, challenging, satirical, and most    thoroughly
hackish in spirit.  The physical game packages from    Infocom are now
prized collector's items.  After being acquired by    Activision in
1989 they did a few more "modern"    (e.g. graphics-intensive) games
which were less successful than    reissues of their classics.

   The software, thankfully, is still extant; Infocom games were
written in a kind of P-code and distributed with a P-code
interpreter core, and not only freeware emulators for that
interpreter but an actual compiler as well have been written to
permit the P-code to be run on platforms the games never originally
graced. In fact, new games written in this P-code are still bering
written.  (Emulators that can run Infocom game ZIPs, and new games,
are available at
`ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu:/doc/misc/if-archive/infocom'.)

   :initgame: /in-it'gaym/ n.  [IRC] An {IRC} version of    the trivia
game "Botticelli", in which one user changes his    {nick} to the
initials of a famous person or other named entity,    and the others on
the channel ask yes or no questions, with the one    to guess the
person getting to be "it" next.  As a courtesy, the    one picking the
initials starts by providing a 4-letter hint of the    form sex,
nationality, life-status, reality-status.  For example,    MAAR means
"Male, American, Alive, Real" (as opposed to    "fictional").  Initgame
can be surprisingly addictive.  See also    {hing}.

   [1996 update: a recognizable version of the initgame has become a
staple of some radio talk shows in the U.S.  We had it first!  - ESR]

   :insanely great: adj.  [Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also    BSD
Unix people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly {elegant}    that it
is imaginable only to someone possessing the most puissant    of
{hacker}-natures.

   :INTERCAL: /in't*r-kal/ n.  [said by the authors to stand    for
`Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] A computer
language designed by Don Woods and James Lyons in 1972.  INTERCAL    is
purposely different from all other computer languages in all    ways
but one; it is purely a written language, being totally    unspeakable.
An excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference Manual will    make the style
of the language clear:

     It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose
     work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem.  For example, if
     one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536
     in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is:

          DO :1 <- #0$#256

     any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd.  Since this
     is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look
     foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to
     turn up, as bosses are wont to do.  The effect would be no less
     devastating for the programmer having been correct.

   INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even
more unspeakable.  The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used
by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton.  The language
has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently
enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an
alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...
appreciation of the language on Usenet.

   Inevitably, INTERCAL has a home page on the Web:
`http://www.tuxedo.org/intercal/'. An extended version,    implemented
in (what else?) {Perl} and adding object-oriented    features, is
available at `http://dd-sh.assurdo.com/INTERCAL'.     See also
{Befunge}.

   :interesting: adj.  In hacker parlance, this word has strong
connotations of `annoying', or `difficult', or both.  Hackers    relish
a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out    of the
ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".     Oppose
{trivial}, {uninteresting}.

   :Internet:: n.   The mother of all networks.  First    incarnated
beginning in 1969 as the ARPANET, a U.S. Department of    Defense
research testbed.  Though it has been widely believed that    the goal
was to develop a network architecture for military
command-and-control that could survive disruptions up to and
including nuclear war, this is a myth; in fact, ARPANET was
conceived from the start as a way to get most economical use out of
then-scarce large-computer resources.

   As originally imagined, ARPANET's major use would have been to
support what is now called remote login and more sophisticated    forms
of distributed computing, but the infant technology of    electronic
mail quickly grew to dominate actual usage.     Universities, research
labs and defense contractors early    discovered the Internet's
potential as a medium of communication    between _humans_ and linked
up in steadily increasing numbers,    connecting together a quirky mix
of academics, techies, hippies, SF    fans, hackers, and anarchists.
The roots of this lexicon lie in    those early years.

   Over the next quarter-century the Internet evolved in many    ways.
The typical machine/OS combination moved from {DEC}    {PDP-10}s and
{PDP-20}s, running {TOPS-10} and    {TOPS-20}, to PDP-11s and VAXes and
Suns running {Unix}, and    in the 1990s to Unix on Intel
microcomputers.  The Internet's    protocols grew more capable, most
notably in the move from NCP/IP    to {TCP/IP} in 1982 and the
implementation of Domain Name    Service in 1983.  It was around this
time that people began    referring to the collection of interconnected
networks with ARPANET    at its core as "the Internet".

   The ARPANET had a fairly strict set of participation guidelines -
connected institutions had to be involved with a DOD-related
research project.  By the mid-80s, many of the organizations
clamoring to join didn't fit this profile.  In 1986, the National
Science Foundation built NSFnet to open up access to its five
regional supercomputing centers; NSFnet became the backbone of the
Internet, replacing the original ARPANET pipes (which were formally
shut down in 1990).  Between 1990 and late 1994 the pieces of    NSFnet
were sold to major telecommunications companies until    the Internet
backbone had gone completely commercial.

   That year, 1994, was also the year the mainstream culture
discovered the Internet.  Once again, the {killer app} was not the
anticipated one - rather, what caught the public imagination was    the
hypertext and multimedia features of the World Wide Web.
Subsequently the Internet has seen off its only serious challenger
(the OSI protocol stack favored by European telecom monopolies) and
is in the process of absorbing into itself many of the    proprietary
networks built during the second wave of wide-area    networking after
1980.  It is now a commonplace even in mainstream    media to predict
that a globally-extended Internet will become the    key unifying
communications technology of the next century. See    also {the
network} and {Internet address}.

   :Internet address:: n.  1. [techspeak] An absolute network
address of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar    is a
{sitename}, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly    including periods
itself.  Contrast with {bang path}; see also    {the network} and
{network address}.  All Internet machines    and most UUCP sites can
now resolve these addresses, thanks to a    large amount of
behind-the-scenes magic and {PD} software    written since 1980 or so.
See also {bang path}, {domainist}.     2. More loosely, any network
address reachable through Internet;    this includes {bang path}
addresses and some internal corporate    and government networks.

   Reading Internet addresses is something of an art.  Here are the
four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed
by a selection of geographical domains:

    com
          commercial organizations

    edu
          educational institutions

    gov
          U.S. government civilian sites

    mil
          U.S. military sites

   Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in    the
U.S. or Canada.

    us
          sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains

    su
          sites in the ex-Soviet Union (see {kremvax}).

    uk
          sites in the United Kingdom

   Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty    states,
each generally with a name identical to the state's postal
abbreviation.  Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for
academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones.  Other    top-level
domains may be divided up in similar ways.

   :Internet Death Penalty:  [Usenet] (often abbreviated IDP) The
ultimate sanction against {spam}-emitting sites - complete    shunning
at the router level of all mail and packets, as well as    Usenet
messages, from the offending domain(s). Compare {Usenet    Death
Penalty}, with which it is sometimes confused.

   :Internet Exploiter: n.  Standard name-of-insult for    Internet
Explorer, Microsoft's overweight Web Browser.  Reflects    widespread
hostility to Microsoft and a sense that it is seeking to    hijack and
corrupt the Internet.  Compare {Exploder}    and the less pejorative
{Netscrape}.

   :interrupt:  1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event    that
interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts    flow-of-control
through an "interrupt handler" routine.  See also    {trap}.  2.
interj. A request for attention from a hacker.     Often explicitly
spoken.  "Interrupt -- have you seen Joe    recently?"  See {priority
interrupt}.  3. Under MS-DOS, nearly    synonymous with `system call',
because the OS and BIOS routines    are both called using the INT
instruction (see {{interrupt list}})    and because programmers so
often have to bypass the OS (going    directly to a BIOS interrupt) to
get reasonable    performance.

   :interrupt list:: n.  [MS-DOS] The list of all known    software
interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM    PCs and
compatibles, maintained and made available for free    redistribution
by Ralf Brown <<ralf@cs.cmu.edu>>.  As of late    1992, it had grown to
approximately two megabytes in length.

   :interrupts locked out: adj.  When someone is ignoring you.     In a
restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the    waitress's
attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have    interrupts
locked out".  The synonym `interrupts disabled' is    also common.
Variations abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit    set" and
"interrupts masked out" are also heard.  See also    {spl}.

   :intro: n. [{demoscene}]  Introductory {screen} of some
production.  2. A short {demo}, usually showing just one or two
{screen}s.  3. Small, usually 64k, 40k or 4k {demo}. Sizes are
generally dictated by {compo} rules.  See also {dentro},    {demo}.

   :IRC: /I-R-C/ n.  [Internet Relay Chat] A worldwide "party    line"
network that allows one to converse with others in real    time.  IRC
is structured as a network of Internet servers, each of    which
accepts connections from client programs, one per user.  The    IRC
community and the {Usenet} and {MUD} communities overlap    to some
extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have    discovered
the wonders of computer networks.  Some Usenet jargon    has been
adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as    {emoticon}s.  There
is also a vigorous native jargon,    represented in this lexicon by
entries marked `[IRC]'.  See also    {talk mode}.

   :iron: n.  Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of
{mainframe} class with big metal cabinets housing relatively
low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern
supercomputers).  Often in the phrase {big iron}.  Oppose    {silicon}.
See also {dinosaur}.

   :Iron Age: n.  In the history of computing, 1961-1971 -- the
formative era of commercial {mainframe} technology, when
ferrite-core {dinosaur}s ruled the earth.  The Iron Age began,
ironically enough, with the delivery of the first minicomputer (the
PDP-1) and ended with the introduction of the first commercial
microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971.  See also {Stone Age};
compare {elder days}.

   :iron box: n.  [Unix/Internet] A special environment set up to
trap a {cracker} logging in over remote connections long enough    to
be traced.  May include a modified {shell} restricting the    cracker's
movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed    to keep him
interested and logged on.  See also {back door},    {firewall machine},
{Venus flytrap}, and Clifford Stoll's    account in "{The Cuckoo's
Egg}" of how he made and used    one (see the {Bibliography} in
Appendix C).  Compare {padded    cell}.

   :ironmonger: n.  [IBM] A hardware specialist (derogatory).
Compare {sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.

   :ISO standard cup of tea: n.  [South Africa] A cup of tea    with
milk and one teaspoon of sugar, where the milk is poured into    the
cup before the tea.  Variations are ISO 0, with no sugar; ISO    2,
with two spoons of sugar; and so on.

   Like many ISO standards, this one has a faintly alien ring in North
 America, where hackers generally shun the decadent British practice
of adulterating perfectly good tea with dairy products and    prefer
instead to add a wedge of lemon, if anything.  If one were    feeling
extremely silly, one might hypothesize an analogous `ANSI    standard
cup of tea' and wind up with a political situation    distressingly
similar to several that arise in much more serious    technical
contexts.  Milk and lemon don't mix very well.

   :ISP: /I-S-P/  Common abbreviation for Internet Service    Provider,
a kind of company that barely existed before 1993.  ISPs    sell
Internet access to the mass market.  While the big nationwide
commercial BBSs with Internet access (like America Online,
CompuServe, GEnie, Netcom, etc.) are technically ISPs, the term is
usually reserved for local or regional small providers (often run    by
hackers turned entrepreneurs) who resell Internet access cheaply
without themselves being information providers or selling
advertising.  Compare {NSP}.

   :ITS:: /I-T-S/ n.  1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an
influential though highly idiosyncratic operating system written for
PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab.  Much
AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an    ITS
hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most
venerable sort.  ITS pioneered many important innovations,    including
transparent file sharing between machines and    terminal-independent
I/O.  After about 1982, most actual work was    shifted to newer
machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run    essentially as a hobby
and service to the hacker community.  The    shutdown of the lab's last
ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end    of an era and sent old-time
hackers into mourning nationwide (see    {high moby}).  The Royal
Institute of Technology in Sweden is    maintaining one `live' ITS site
at its computer museum (right    next to the only TOPS-10 system still
on the Internet), so ITS is    still alleged to hold the record for OS
in longest continuous use    (however, {{WAITS}} is a credible rival
for this palm).  2. A    mythical image of operating-system perfection
worshiped by a    bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and
ex-users (see    {troglodyte}, sense 2).  ITS worshipers manage somehow
to    continue believing that an OS maintained by assembly-language
hand-hacking that supported only monocase 6-character filenames in
one directory per account remains superior to today's state of
commercial art (their venom against {Unix} is particularly intense).
See also {holy wars}, {Weenix}.

   :IWBNI: //  Abbreviation for `It Would Be Nice If'.  Compare
{WIBNI}.

   :IYFEG: //  [Usenet] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite
Ethnic Group'.  Used as a meta-name when telling ethnic jokes on    the
net to avoid offending anyone.  See {JEDR}.

