Contents page

Index (83KB)

randomness

   inelegance.  2. A hack or crock that depends on a complex
   combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon
   which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).
   "This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the character
   in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting
   six bits --- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right
   thing."  "What randomness!"  3. Of people, synonymous with
   `flakiness'.  The connotation is that the person so described is
   behaving weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons
   which are (a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are
   probably as inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are
   likely to pass with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe
   it's just randomness.  See if he calls back."