Linux Definitions

love, n.:
        When, if asked to choose between your lover
        and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat.

love, v.:
        I'll let you play with my life if you'll let me play with yours.

Lowery's Law:
        If it jams -- force it.  If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
        There's always one more bug.

Lunatic Asylum, n.:
        The place where optimism most flourishes.

Machine-Independent, adj.:
        Does not run on any existing machine.

Mad, adj.:
        Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Madison's Inquiry:
        If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?

MAFIA, n:
        [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance
Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore
subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS.  MAFIA documentation is
rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy
reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP
operations.  From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that
MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped
variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex
security functions.  The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a
more than usually autocratic operating system.  Screen prompts carry an
imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES
options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.
Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a
powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and
entire nodal aggravations.
                -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"

Magary's Principle:
        When there is a public outcry to cut deadwood and fat from any
        government bureaucracy, it is the deadwood and the fat that do
        the cutting, and the public's services are cut.