al benedict's definitions

Total Existence Failure

When something malfunctions by virtue of not existing at all. Taken (but not precisely) from "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In the original usage, a spaceship existed for a while and then spontaneously disappeared.

Bob: Can I borrow your car?
Bill: Nope. Sorry. It's having a total existence failure.

by Al Benedict October 22, 2009

Spamburst

When your email address is chosen as the lucky winner in the contest held by a spammer to determine which email address will be used for the day's, ahem, First Amendment protected free commercial speech. The end results is hundreds if not thousands of bounced messages.

I probably got your message. It just got caught in a spamburst yesterday.

by Al Benedict October 1, 2008

Common Sense

A phrase used by someone who wants any critical analysis of what they are saying to stop immediately.

"Global warming can't exist because it was cold last winter. That's just common sense."

by Al Benedict June 11, 2009

Security by Banality

A computer system made secure by obviously containing nothing of interest. Never a protection against pranksters, in the age of Zombie Spammers, this concept is mostly obsolete.

I protected Mom's computer by installing Windows 98 on it and putting up a thick firewall of bundt cake recipes. True Security by Banality.

by Al Benedict April 9, 2008

tauntbary

A music library (iTunes or otherwise) that's visible to your roommates or coworkers, but due to firewalls or DRM restrictions, contains nothing that can be played.

Bob: Bill just shared his iTunes library. Let's take a look.

Bob: Dammit. Another tauntbary.

by Al Benedict December 20, 2012

bring the nuke

Resort to extreme measures. A metaphor for putting aside conventional weapons and using nuclear ones.

"They aren't taking the hint? OK, time to bring the nuke and tell them to cut it out or we'll drag them off the premises."

by Al Benedict January 15, 2022

Tuvan Phone Call

A phone call in which you choose your words carefully in an attempt to maintain a coherent conversation with the person on the end of the line while giving a completely different impression of what the conversation is about to anyone standing next to you. Usually involves more than the usual number of pronouns.

From "Tuvan Throat Singing", where you sing two different notes at once.

I had a Tuvan Phone Call last night with my girlfriend. We went on for half an hour and my Grandma had no idea we were having phone sex.

by Al Benedict April 17, 2010