:P.O.D.: /P-O-D/ Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a
code section). Usage: pedantic and rare. See also {pod}.
:padded cell: n. Where you put {luser}s so they can't hurt anything. A program that limits a luser to a carefully restricted subset of the capabilities of the host system (for example, the `rsh(1)' utility on USG UNIX). Note that this is different from an {iron box} because it is overt and not aimed at enforcing security so much as protecting others (and the luser) from the consequences of the luser's boundless na"ivet'e (see {na"ive}). Also `padded cell environment'.
:page in: [MIT] vi. 1. To become aware of one's surroundings again
after having paged out (see {page out}). Usually confined to
the sarcastic comment: "Eric pages in. Film at 11." See
{film at 11}. 2. Syn. `swap in'; see {swap}.
:page out: [MIT] vi. 1. To become unaware of one's surroundings
temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation. "Can you repeat
that? I paged out for a minute." See {page in}. Compare
{glitch}, {thinko}. 2. Syn. `swap out'; see {swap}.
:pain in the net: n. A {flamer}.
:paper-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service, analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network. USENET {sig block}s not uncommonly include a "Paper-Net:" header just before the sender's postal address; common variants of this are "Papernet" and "P-Net". Compare {voice-net}, {snail-mail}.
:param: /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'. See also {parm}; compare {arg}, {var}.
:PARC: n. See {XEROX PARC}.
:parent message: n. See {followup}.
:parity errors: pl.n. Little lapses of attention or (in more severe cases) consciousness, usually brought on by having spent all night and most of the next day hacking. "I need to go home and crash; I'm starting to get a lot of parity errors." Derives from a relatively common but nearly always correctable transient error in RAM hardware.