:cut a tape: /vi./ To write a software or document distribution
on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically
cutting the medium! Early versions of this lexicon claimed that
one never analogously speaks of `cutting a disk', but this has
since been reported as live usage. Related slang usages are
mainstream business's `cut a check', the recording industry's
`cut a record', and the military's `cut an order'.

All of these usages reflect physical processes in obsolete
recording and duplication technologies. The first stage in
manufacturing an old-style vinyl record involved cutting grooves in
a stamping die with a precision lathe. More mundanely, the
dominant technology for mass duplication of paper documents in
pre-photocopying days involved "cutting a stencil", punching away
portions of the wax overlay on a silk screen. More directly,
paper tape with holes punched in it was an important early storage
medium.

:cybercrud: /si:'ber-kruhd/ /n./ 1. [coined by Ted Nelson]
Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The
computer equivalent of bureaucratese. 2. Incomprehensible stuff
embedded in email. First there were the "Received" headers that
show how mail flows through systems, then MIME (Multi-purpose
Internet Mail Extensions) headers and part boundaries, and now huge
blocks of hex for PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) or PGP (Pretty Good
Privacy) digital signatures and certificates of authenticity. This
stuff all services a purpose and good user interfaces should hide
it, but all too often users are forced to wade through it.

:cyberpunk: /si:'ber-puhnk/ /n.,adj./ [orig. by SF writer