The gon File, 4.0.0 | Page 9

very silly examples:
|\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___ | | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` '| _/ \ | | =(_)= THPHTH!
/ \/ \/ \ | (o)(o) U / \ C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/ | ,___| (oo) \/ \/ | /
\/-------\ U (__) /____\ || | \ /---V `v'- oo ) / \ ||---W|| * * |--| || |`. |_/\
//-o-\\ ____---=======---____ ====___\ /.. ..\ /___==== Klingons

rule OK! // ---\__O__/--- \\ \_\ /_/
There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the standard
character names in the fashion of a rebus.
+--------------------------------------------------------+ | ^^^^^^^^^^^^ | |
^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^ B
^^^^^^^^^ | | ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
+--------------------------------------------------------+ " A Bee in the Carrot
Patch "
Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are
reproduced in the silly examples above, here are three more:
(__) (__) (__) (\/) ($$) (**) /-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/ / | 666 || / |=====||
/ | || * ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----|| ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ Satanic cow This cow is
a Yuppie Cow in love
Finally, here's a magnificent example of ASCII art depicting an
Edwardian train station in Dunedin, New Zealand:
.-. /___\ |___| |]_[| / I \ JL/ | \JL .-. i () | () i .-. |_| .^. /_\ LJ=======LJ
/_\ .^.
|_| ._/___\._./___\_._._._._.L_J_/.-. .-.\_L_J._._._._._/___\._./___\._._._
., |-,-| ., L_J |_| [I] |_| L_J ., |-,-| ., ., JL |-O-| JL
L_J%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%L_J JL |-O-| JL JL
IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII|_|=======H=======|_|IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_
IIIIIIHH
-------[]-------[]-------[_]----\.=I=./----[_]-------[]-------[]--------[]- _/\_
||\\_I_//|| _/\_ [_] []_/_L_J_\_[] [_] _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ ||\ |__| ||=/_|_\=||
|__|_|_| _L_L_JJ |_|_|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__| ||- |__| |||__|__|||
|__[___]__--__===__--__[___]__| |||__|__||| |__| |||
IIIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIL___J__II__|_|__II__L___JIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIIII[_]
\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_[_]\II/[]\_\I/_/[]\II/[_]\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_/ [_] ./
\.L_J/ \L_J./ L_JI I[]/ \[]I IL_J \.L_J/ \L_J./ \.L_J | |L_J| |L_J| L_J| |[]|
|[]| |L_J |L_J| |L_J| |L_J |_____JL_JL___JL_JL____|-|| |[]| |[]|
||-|_____JL_JL___JL_JL_____JL_J
There is a newsgroup, alt.ascii.art, devoted to this genre; however, see
also {warlording}.
:ASCIIbetical order: /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ /adj.,n./ Used to indicate
that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than alphabetical order.
This lexicon is sorted in something close to ASCIIbetical order, but

with case ignored and entries beginning with non-alphabetic characters
moved to the end.
:atomic: /adj./ [from Gk. `atomos', indivisible] 1. Indivisible; cannot be
split up. For example, an instruction may be said to do several things
`atomically', i.e., all the things are done immediately, and there is no
chance of the instruction being half-completed or of another being
interspersed. Used esp. to convey that an operation cannot be screwed
up by interrupts. "This routine locks the file and increments the file's
semaphore atomically." 2. [primarily techspeak] Guaranteed to
complete successfully or not at all, usu. refers to database transactions.
If an error prevents a partially-performed transaction from proceeding
to completion, it must be "backed out," as the database must not be left
in an inconsistent state.
Computer usage, in either of the above senses, has none of the
connotations that `atomic' has in mainstream English (i.e. of particles of
matter, nuclear explosions etc.).
:attoparsec: /n./ About an inch. `atto-' is the standard SI prefix for
multiplication by 10^(-18). A parsec (parallax-second) is 3.26
light-years; an attoparsec is thus 3.26 * 10^(-18) light years, or about
3.1 cm (thus, 1 attoparsec/{microfortnight} equals about 1 inch/sec).
This unit is reported to be in use (though probably not very seriously)
among hackers in the U.K. See {micro-}.
:autobogotiphobia: /aw'toh-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ /n./ See {bogotify}.
:automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ /adv./ Automatically, but in a way
that, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too
ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like
explaining to you. See {magic}. "The C-INTERCAL compiler
generates C, then automagically invokes `cc(1)' to produce an
executable."
This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s and probably
much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in advertising (for a
shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
:avatar: /n./ Syn. 1. Among people working on virtual reality and
{cyberspace} interfaces, an "avatar" is an icon or representation of a
user in a shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on {MUD}s.
2. [CMU, Tektronix] {root}, {superuser}. There are quite a few Unix
machines on which the name of the superuser account is `avatar' rather

than `root'. This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who disliked
the term `superuser', and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at
Tektronix.
:awk: /awk/ 1. /n./ [Unix techspeak] An interpreted language for
massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and
Brian Kernighan (the name derives from their initials). It is
characterized by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable
typing and declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text
processing. See also {Perl}. 2. n.