meaning of bogon
1. bogon /bohgon/ [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adamss "Vogons"] 1. The elementary particle of bogosity see quantum bogodynamics. For instance, "the Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed packet sent on a network. 4. A person who is bogus or who says bogus things. This was historically the original usage, but has been overtaken by its derivative senses. See also bogosity; compare psyton, fat electrons, magic smoke. The bogon has become the type case for a whole bestiary of nonce particle names, including the "clutron" or "cluon" indivisible particle of cluefulness, obviously the antiparticle of the bogon and the futon elementary particle of randomness, or sometimes of lameness. These are not so much live usages in themselves as examples of a live meta-usage: that is, it has become a standard joke or linguistic maneuver to "explain" otherwise mysterious circumstances by inventing nonce particle names. And these imply nonce particle theories, with all their dignity or lack thereof we might note parenthetically that this is a generalisation from "bogus particle theories" to "bogus particle theories"!. Perhaps such particles are the modern-day equivalents of trolls and wood-nymphs as standard starting-points around which to construct explanatory myths. Of course, playing on an existing word as in the "futon" yields additional flavour. [Jargon File] bogon filter /bohgon filtr/ Any device, software or hardware, that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons. "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and the VAXen, and now were getting fewer dropped packets. " See also bogosity. bogon flux /bohgon fluhks/ A measure of a supposed field of bogosity emitted by a speaker, measured by a bogometer; as a speaker starts to wander into increasing bogosity a listener might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is rising". See quantum bogodynamics. [Jargon File] bogosity /boh-gos*-tee/ The degree to which something is "bogus" in the hackish sense of "bad". At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading one might also say "You just redlined my bogometer". The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat. Also, the potential field generated by a bogon flux; see quantum bogodynamics. See also bogon flux, bogon filter.
Related Words
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