Blivet

2 definitions found

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  blivet /bliv'*t/ n. [allegedly from a World War II military term
     meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] 1. An intractable
     problem. 2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced
     if it breaks. 3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent
     programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of hacks. 4. An
     out-of-control but unkillable development effort. 5. An embarrassing bug


     that pops up during a customer demo. 6. In the subjargon of computer
     security specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging
     limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared
     spool space on a multi-user system).
  
     This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
     experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it seems
     to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of
     {frob}). It has also been used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye
     drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to depict a
     three-dimensional object until one realizes that the parts fit together
     in an impossible way.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  blivet
       
          /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning
          "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] 1. An intractable
          problem.
       
          2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced
          if it breaks.
       
          3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent
          programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of
          hacks.
       
          4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort.
       
          5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo.
       
          6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a
          denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited
          resources that have no access controls (for example, shared
          spool space on a multi-user system).
       
          This term has other meanings in other technical cultures;
          among experimental physicists and hardware engineers of
          various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown
          purpose (similar to hackish use of {frob}).  It has also been
          used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a
          three-pronged fork that appears to depict a three-dimensional
          object until one realises that the parts fit together in an
          impossible way.
       
          [{Jargon File}]