:stack puke: /n./ Some processor architectures are said to `puke their guts onto the stack' to save their internal state during exception processing. The Motorola 68020, for example, regurgitates up to 92 bytes on a bus fault. On a pipelined machine, this can take a while.
:stale pointer bug: /n./ Synonym for {aliasing bug} used esp. among microcomputer hackers.
:star out: /v./ [University of York, England] To replace a user's encrypted password in /etc/passwd with a single asterisk. Under Unix this is not a legal encryption of any password; hence the user is not permitted to log in. In general, accounts like adm, news, and daemon are permanently "starred out"; occasionally a real user might have the this inflicted upon him/her as a punishment, e.g. "Graham was starred out for playing Omega in working hours". Also occasionally known as The Order Of The Gold Star in this context. "Don't do that, or you'll be awarded the Order of the Gold Star…" Compare {disusered}.
:state: /n./ 1. Condition, situation. "What's the state of your latest hack?" "It's winning away." "The system tried to read and write the disk simultaneously and got into a totally {wedged} state." The standard question "What's your state?" means "What are you doing?" or "What are you about to do?" Typical answers are "about to gronk out", or "hungry". Another standard question is "What's the state of the world?", meaning "What's new?" or "What's going on?". The more terse and humorous way of asking these questions would be "State-p?". Another way of phrasing the first question under sense 1 would be "state-p latest hack?". 2. Information being maintained in non-permanent memory (electronic or human).
:stealth manager: /n./ [Corporate DP] A manager that appears
out of nowhere, promises undeliverable software to unknown end
users, and vanishes before the programming staff realizes what has
happened. See {smoke and mirrors}.
:steam-powered: /adj./ Old-fashioned or underpowered; archaic.
This term does not have a strong negative loading and may even be
used semi-affectionately for something that clanks and wheezes a
lot but hangs in there doing the job.
:stiffy: /n./ [University of Lowell, Massachusetts.] 3.5-inch
{microfloppies}, so called because their jackets are more rigid
than those of the 5.25-inch and the (now totally obsolete) 8-inch
floppy. Elsewhere this might be called a `firmy'.
:stir-fried random: /n./ (alt. `stir-fried mumble') Term used
for the best dish of many of those hackers who can cook. Consists
of random fresh veggies and meat wokked with random spices. Tasty
and economical. See {random}, {great-wall}, {ravs},
{{laser chicken}}, {{oriental food}}; see also {mumble}.
:stomp on: /vt./ To inadvertently overwrite something
important, usually automatically. "All the work I did this
weekend got stomped on last night by the nightly server script."
Compare {scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {scrog},
{roach}.
:Stone Age: /n.,adj./ 1. In computer folklore, an ill-defined period from ENIAC (ca. 1943) to the mid-1950s; the great age of electromechanical {dinosaur}s. Sometimes used for the entire period up to 1960—61 (see {Iron Age}); however, it is funnier and more descriptive to characterize the latter period in terms of a `Bronze Age' era of transistor-logic, pre-ferrite-{core} machines with drum or CRT mass storage (as opposed to just mercury delay lines and/or relays). See also {Iron Age}. 2. More generally, a pejorative for any crufty, ancient piece of hardware or software technology. Note that this is used even by people who were there for the {Stone Age} (sense 1).