Linux Definitions

Ray's Rule of Precision:
        Measure with a micrometer.  Mark with chalk.  Cut with an axe.

Re: Graphics:
        A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
        the picture.  Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately
        described with pictures.

Real Time, adj.:
        Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then.

Real World, The, n.:
        1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc.  2. To
programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
to programming.  3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5.  4.
The location of the status quo.  5. Anywhere outside a university.
"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world."  Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there.  In conversation, talking
of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
deceased person.

Reappraisal, n.:
        An abrupt change of mind after being found out.

Reception area, n.:
        The purgatory where office visitors are condemned to spend
        innumerable hours reading dog-eared back issues of trade
        magazines like Modern Plastics, Chain Saw Age, and Chicken World,
        while the receptionist blithely reads her own trade magazine --
        Cosmopolitan.

Recursion n.:
        See Recursion.
                -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary

Reformed, n.:
        A synagogue that closes for the Jewish holidays.

Regression analysis:
        Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are
        getting worse.

Reichel's Law:
        A body on vacation tends to remain on vacation unless acted upon by
        an outside force.