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brain-damaged


brain-damaged: 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain Damage'
   (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter
   cretinisms in Honeywell Multics] adj. Obviously wrong;
   cretinous; demented.  There is an implication that the
   person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he
   should have known better.  Calling something brain-damaged is
   really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to
   work is due to poor design rather than some accident.  "Only six
   monocase characters per file name?  Now *that's*
   brain-damaged!"  2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free
   demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some
   way so as not to compete with the commercial product it is
   intended to sell.  Syn.  crippleware.