In jargon, the full phrase is sometimes heard but the {abbrev} GC is more frequently used because it is shorter. Note that there is an ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by context: "I'm going to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to clean out the drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or recycle the desk itself.
:GCOS:: /jee'kohs/ /n./ A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). Later kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction processing. After the buyout of GE's computer division by Honeywell, the name was changed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS). Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen Operating System', allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's uninformed and snotty attitude about the superiority of their product. All this might be of zero interest, except for two facts: (1) The GCOS people won the political war, and this led in the orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {{Multics}}, and (2) GECOS/GCOS left one permanent mark on Unix. Some early Unix systems at Bell Labs used GCOS machines for print spooling and various other services; the field added to `/etc/passwd' to carry GCOS ID information was called the `GECOS field' and survives today as the `pw_gecos' member used for the user's full name and other human-ID information. GCOS later played a major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe market, and was itself ditched for Unix in the late 1980s when Honeywell retired its aging {big iron} designs.
:GECOS:: /jee'kohs/ /n./ See {{GCOS}}.
:gedanken: /g*-dahn'kn/ /adj./ Ungrounded; impractical; not well-thought-out; untried; untested.
`Gedanken' is a German word for `thought'. A thought experiment is one you carry out in your head. In physics, the term `gedanken experiment' is used to refer to an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful to consider because it can be reasoned about theoretically. (A classic gedanken experiment of relativity theory involves thinking about a man in an elevator accelerating through space.) Gedanken experiments are very useful in physics, but must be used with care. It's too easy to idealize away some important aspect of the real world in constructing the `apparatus'.
Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation. It is typically used of a project, especially one in artificial intelligence research, that is written up in grand detail (typically as a Ph.D. thesis) without ever being implemented to any great extent. Such a project is usually perpetrated by people who aren't very good hackers or find programming distasteful or are just in a hurry. A `gedanken thesis' is usually marked by an obvious lack of intuition about what is programmable and what is not, and about what does and does not constitute a clear specification of an algorithm. See also {AI-complete}, {DWIM}.
:geef: /v./ [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken'] /vt./ Syn. {mung}. See also {blinkenlights}.
:geek code: /n./ (also "Code of the Geeks"). A set of
codes commonly used in {sig block}s to broadcast the interests,
skills, and aspirations of the poster. Features a G at the left
margin followed by numerous letter codes, often suffixed with
plusses or minuses. Because many net users are involved in
computer science, the most common prefix is `GCS'. To see a copy
of the current code, browse
http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/geek.html. Here is a
sample geek code (that or Robert Hayden, the code's inventor) from
that page:
——-BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK——-
Version: 3.1
GED/J d— s:++>: a- C++(++++)$ ULUO++ P+>+++ L++ !E—— W+(—-) N+++
o+ K+++ w+(—-) O- M+$>++ V— PS++(+++)>$ PE++(+)>$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++
X++ R+++>$ tv+ b+ DI+++ D+++ G+++++>$ e++$>++++ h r— y+**
———END GEEK CODE BLOCK———
The geek code originated in 1993; it was inspired (according to the
inventor) by previous "bear", "smurf" and "twink"
style-and-sexual-preference codes from lesbian and gay
{newsgroup}s. It has in turn spawned imitators; there is now
even a "Saturn geek code" for owners of the Saturn car. See also
{computer geek}.