:Datamation: /day`t*-may'sh*n/ /n./ A magazine that many
hackers assume all {suit}s read. Used to question an unbelieved
quote, as in "Did you read that in `Datamation?'" (But see
below; this slur may be dated by the time you read this.) It used
to publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like
the original paper on {COME FROM} in 1973, and Ed Post's
"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" ten years later, but for
a long time after that it was much more exclusively
{suit}-oriented and boring. Following a change of editorship in
1994, Datamation is trying for more of the technical content and
irreverent humor that marked its early days.

Datamation now has a WWW page at http://www.datamation.com
worth visiting for its selection of computer humor, including
"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" and the `Bastard Operator
From Hell' stories by Simon Travaglia (see {BOFH}).

:DAU: /dow/ [German FidoNet] /n./ German acronym for
D"ummster Anzunehmender User (stupidest imaginable user).
From the engineering-slang GAU for Gr"osster Anzunehmender
Unfall, worst assumable accident, esp. of a LNG tank farm plant
or something with similarly disastrous consequences. In popular
German, GAU is used only to refer to worst-case nuclear acidents
such as a core meltdown. See {cretin}, {fool}, {loser} and
{weasel}.

:day mode: /n./ See {phase} (sense 1). Used of people only.

:dd: /dee-dee/ /vt./ [Unix: from IBM {JCL}] Equivalent to