WhatIs

/vē-är/

[MUD]

n. online abbrev for virtual reality, as opposed to RL.

/vü-dü prō-gra-miŋ/

[from George Bush's "voodoo economics"]

n. The use by guess or cookbook of an obscure or hairy system, feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand. The implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't, one will never know why. Almost synonymous with black magic, except that black magic typically isn't documented and *nobody* understands it.

/vȯis-net/

n. Hackish way of referring to the telephone system, analogizing it to a digital network. USENET sig blocks not uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and "V-Net".

Compare paper-net, snail-mail.

/vȯis/

vt. To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or connecting in talk mode.
"I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."

/V-M-S/

n. DEC's proprietary operating system for its VAX minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom largest in hacker folklore. Many UNIX fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if UNIX didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. One major hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness -- thus the following limerick:

/vi-zhə-ner-ē/

n. 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to 'see' things using TV cameras. (There isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of the camera information?

See SMOP, AI-complete.)

2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.

/vī-rəs/

[from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF]

/vər-chə-wəl rē-a-lə-tē/

n. 1. Computer simulations that use 3-D graphics and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to interact with the simulation.

See cyberspace.

/vər-chə-wəl frī-dā/

n. The last day before an extended weekend, if that day is not a 'real' Friday. For example, the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. The next day is often also a holiday or taken as an extra day off, in which case Wednesday of that week is a virtual Friday (and Thursday is a virtual Saturday, as is Friday). There are also 'virtual Mondays' that are actually Tuesdays, after the three-day weekends associated with many national holidays in the U.S.

/vər-chə-wəl/

[via the technical term virtual memory, prob. from the term virtual image in optics]

adj. 1. Common alternative to logical.

2. Simulated; performing the functions of something that isn't really there. An imaginative child's doll may be a virtual playmate.