Some New Open Source Email Clients: Postoffice by Robert Bernstein PO Box 17312, Esmond, RI, 02917 401-231-5502 poobah@ruptured-duck.com words :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}. :hacker: /n./ [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating {hack value}. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a Unix hacker'. (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence `password hacker', `network hacker'. The correct term for this sense is {cracker}. The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see {network, the} and {Internet address}). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see {hacker ethic}). It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled {bogus}). See also {wannabee}. :cracker: /n./ One who breaks security on a system. Coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker} (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a failure. Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval stage} is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except for immediate, benign, practical reasons (for example, if it's necessary to get around some security in order to get some work done). Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than the {mundane} reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have little overlap with the huge, open poly-culture this lexicon describes; though crackers often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life. Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into someone else's has to be pretty {losing}. Some other reasons crackers are looked down on are discussed in the entries on {cracking} and {phreaking}. See also {samurai}, {dark-side hacker}, and {hacker ethic}. For a portrait of the typical teenage cracker, see {warez d00dz}. dict interesting: From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Interesting \In"ter*est*ing\, a. Engaging the attention; exciting, or adapted to excite, interest, curiosity, or emotion; as, an interesting story; interesting news. --Cowper. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Interest \In"ter*est\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Interested}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Interesting}.] [From interess'd, p. p. of the older form interess, fr. F. int['e]resser, L. interesse. See {Interest}, n.] 1. To engage the attention of; to awaken interest in; to excite emotion or passion in, in behalf of a person or thing; as, the subject did not interest him; to interest one in charitable work. To love our native country . . . to be interested in its concerns is natural to all men. --Dryden. dict hacker: From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Hacker \Hack"er\, n. One who, or that which, hacks. Specifically: A cutting instrument for making notches; esp., one used for notching pine trees in collecting turpentine; a hack. From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]: hacker n 1: someone who plays golf poorly 2: a programmer for whom computing is its own reward; may enjoy the challenge of breaking into other computers 3: one who works hard at boring tasks [syn: {hack}, {drudge}] dict cracker: From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Cracker \Crack"er\ (kr[a^]k"[~e]r), n. 1. One who, or that which, cracks. 2. A noisy boaster; a swaggering fellow. [Obs.] What cracker is this same that deafs our ears? --Shak. 3. A small firework, consisting of a little powder inclosed in a thick paper cylinder with a fuse, and exploding with a sharp noise; -- often called {firecracker}. 4. A thin, dry biscuit, often hard or crisp; as, a Boston cracker; a Graham cracker; a soda cracker; an oyster cracker. 5. A nickname to designate a poor white in some parts of the Southern United States. --Bartlett. 6. (Zo["o]l.) The pintail duck. 7. pl. (Mach.) A pair of fluted rolls for grinding caoutchouc. --Knight. From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]: cracker n 1: a thin crisp wafer made or flour and water with or without leavening and shortening; unsweetened or semisweet 2: a poor white person in the southern US [syn: {redneck}] 3: a small explosive charge and fuse in a heavy paper casing [syn: {firecracker}, {banger}] 4: a party favor consisting of a paper roll (usually containing candy or a small favor) that pops when pulled at both ends [syn: {snapper}, {cracker bonbon}] jargon meme: :meme: /meem/ /n./ [coined by analogy with `gene', by Richard Dawkins] An idea considered as a {replicator}, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. This lexicon is an (epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex; each entry might be considered a meme. However, `meme' is often misused to mean `meme complex'. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons.