:monty: /mon'tee/ /n./ 1. [US Geological Survey] A program with a ludicrously complex user interface written to perform extremely trivial tasks. An example would be a menu-driven, button clicking, pulldown, pop-up windows program for listing directories. The original monty was an infamous weather-reporting program, Monty the Amazing Weather Man, written at the USGS. Monty had a widget-packed X-window interface with over 200 buttons; and all monty actually *did* was {FTP} files off the network. 2. [Great Britain; commonly capitalized as `Monty' or as `the Full Monty'] 16 megabytes of memory, when fitted to an IBM-PC or compatible. A standard PC-compatible using the AT- or ISA-bus with a normal BIOS cannot access more than 16 megabytes of RAM. Generally used of a PC, Unix workstation, etc. to mean `fully populated with' memory, disk-space or some other desirable resource. This usage is possibly derived from a TV commercial for Del Monte fruit juice, in which one of the characters insisted on "the full Del Monte". Compare American {moby}.
:Moof: /moof/ [Macintosh users] 1. /n./ The call of a semi-legendary creature, properly called the {dogcow}. (Some previous versions of this entry claimed, incorrectly, that Moof was the name of the *creature*.) 2. /adj./ Used to flag software that's a hack, something untested and on the edge. On one Apple CD-ROM, certain folders such as "Tools & Apps (Moof!)" and "Development Platforms (Moof!)", are so marked to indicate that they contain software not fully tested or sanctioned by the powers that be. When you open these folders you cross the boundary into hackerland. 3. /v./ On the Microsoft Network, the term `moof' has gained popularity as a verb meaning `to be suddenly disconnected by the system'. One might say "I got moofed".
:Moore's Law: /morz law/ /prov./ The observation that the logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed the curve (bits per square inch) = 2^((t - 1962)) where t is time in years; that is, the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented. This relation, first uttered in 1964 by semiconductor engineer Gordon Moore (who co-founded Intel four years later) held until the late 1970s, at which point the doubling period slowed to 18 months. It remained at that value through time of writing (late 1995). See also {Parkinson's Law of Data}.
:moose call: /n./ See {whalesong}.
:moria: /mor'ee-*/ /n./ Like {nethack} and {rogue}, one of the large PD Dungeons-and-Dragons-like simulation games, available for a wide range of machines and operating systems. The name is from Tolkien's Mines of Moria; compare {elder days}, {elvish}. The game is extremely addictive and a major consumer of time better used for hacking.
:MOTAS: /moh-tahz/ /n./ [Usenet: Member Of The Appropriate Sex, after {MOTOS} and {MOTSS}] A potential or (less often) actual sex partner. See also {SO}.
:MOTOS: /moh-tohs/ /n./ [acronym from the 1970 U.S. census
forms via Usenet: Member Of The Opposite Sex] A potential or (less
often) actual sex partner. See {MOTAS}, {MOTSS}, {SO}.
Less common than MOTSS or {MOTAS}, which have largely displaced
it.
:MOTSS: /mots/ or /M-O-T-S-S/ /n./ [from the 1970
U.S. census forms via Usenet] Member Of The Same Sex, esp. one
considered as a possible sexual partner. The gay-issues newsgroup
on Usenet is called soc.motss. See {MOTOS} and {MOTAS},
which derive from it. See also {SO}.
:mouse ahead: /vi./ Point-and-click analog of `type ahead'. To manipulate a computer's pointing device (almost always a mouse in this usage, but not necessarily) and its selection or command buttons before a computer program is ready to accept such input, in anticipation of the program accepting the input. Handling this properly is rare, but it can help make a {WIMP environment} much more usable, assuming the users are familiar with the behavior of the user interface.
:mouse around: /vi./ To explore public portions of a large system, esp. a network such as Internet via {FTP} or {TELNET}, looking for interesting stuff to {snarf}.