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<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Thought some folks here might find the following
email exchange of interest. We've gotten a number of backhoe-related terms
submitted to Jargon Watch over the years and as many questions about the meaning
of this usage.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mike,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks for your email. Backhoe-related terms have actually been around for
awhile. A "backhoe day" is a day when a network is down (think: the
digital world equivalent of a snow day). "Backhoe-induced deep fade"
is another way of saying a network is down. There are several other variations
on the theme that I can't recall at the moment. These terms are obviously
derived from stories of network outages caused by over-zealous backhoe operators
cutting through network cables.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Regards,</DIV>
<DIV>Gareth Branwyn</DIV>
<DIV>Jargon Watch Editor</DIV>
<DIV>Wired</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR>From: Mike Hicks
<<U><FONT color=#0000ff>xxxx</FONT></U><A
href="mailto:hick0088@umn.edu">@umn.edu</A>><BR>To: <A
href="mailto:jargon@wired.com">jargon@wired.com</A> <<A
href="mailto:jargon@wired.com">jargon@wired.com</A>><BR>Date: Monday, October
18, 1999 12:10 PM<BR>Subject: I'll give this a
shot..<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>>Browsing around today, I came across this
statement, made by Alan Cox<BR>>(basically the second-in-command of Linux
development):<BR>><BR>>"Someone backhoed the network for the
morning."<BR>><BR>>I'm not sure what the _exact_ meaning of that was
(whether is Net<BR>>connection was just bogged down, or if a backhoe
somewhere actually did<BR>>cut him off.<BR>><BR>>Anyway, just to be
nice about citing my sources, The URL is here:<BR>><A
href="http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/">http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/</A> and he
wrote that sentence on October<BR>>11th.<BR>><BR>>I suppose you've
probably seen something like this before, but I figured<BR>>sending it in
couldn't hurt..<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>