Linux Definitions

Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
        (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse.
        (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
        (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly
            balanced.
        (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
                -- Robert Burns

buzzword, n:
        The fly in the ointment of computer literacy.

byob, v:
        Believing Your Own Bull

C, n:
        A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like
        assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything
        else.  It is either the best language available to the art today, or
        it isn't.
                -- Ray Simard

Cabbage, n.:
        A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
        a man's head.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Cache:
        A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one
        is supposed to know is there.

Cahn's Axiom:
        When all else fails, read the instructions.

Campbell's Law:
        Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.

Canada Bill Jones's Motto:
        It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Canada Bill Jones's Supplement:
        A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.

Canonical, adj.:
        The usual or standard state or manner of something.  A true story:
One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use
of jargon.  Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon as
much as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in.
Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like
fashion without thinking.
        Steele: "Aha!  We've finally got you talking jargon too!"
        Stallman: "What did he say?"
        Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."