Glossary of Dune terminology

This is a list of terminology used in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert, the primary source being "Terminology of the Imperium," the glossary contained in the novel Dune (1965).

Dune word construction could be classified into three domains of vocabulary, each marked with its own neology: the names and terms related to the politics and culture of the Galactic Empire, the names and terms characteristic of the mystic sodality of the Bene Gesserit, and the barely displaced Arabic of the Fremen language. Fremen share vocabulary for Arrakeen phenomena with the Empire, but use completely different vocabulary for Bene Gesserit-implanted messianic religion.

Due to the similarities between some of Herbert's terms and ideas and actual words and concepts in the Arabic language — as well as the series' "Islamic undertones" and themes — a Middle Eastern influence on Herbert's works has been noted repeatedly.

Whale

Whale is the common name for a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. They are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, usually excluding dolphins and porpoises. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla with even-toed ungulates and their closest living relatives are the hippopotamuses, having diverged about 40 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have split apart around 34 million years ago. The whales comprise eight extant families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), Eschrichtiidae (the gray whale), Monodontidae (belugas and narwhals), Physeteridae (the sperm whale), Kogiidae (the dwarf and pygmy sperm whale), and Ziphiidae (the beaked whales).

High roller

A high roller is a gambler who wagers large amounts of money. High rollers often receive lavish "comps" from casinos to lure them onto the gambling floors, such as free private jet transfers, limousine use and use of the casinos' best suites. Casinos may also extend credit to a player to continue betting, offer rebates on betting turnover or losses, and salaries of employees may also contain incentive arrangements to bring in high rollers.

The definition of a high roller varies. At Crown Casino in Australia, for example, it involves bringing between A$50,000 and $75,000 to the table. High roller players often have very high table limits allowing the high roller exclusive use. Casinos compete on bet limits. In Australia limits of A$300,000 are common, in Las Vegas they are between US$150,000 and $300,000, and in Macau they are up to US$500,000. Only casinos with "substantial financial firepower" can accommodate high-stakes gambling due to the "volatility" of results.

High rollers may also be subject to exceptions from various rules and regulations; for example the high roller rooms at Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia are the only licensed venue in the state not subject to a ban on smoking.

Whale (computer virus)

The Whale virus is a computer virus discovered on July 1, 1990. The file size, at 9,216 bytes, was for its time the largest virus ever discovered. It is known for using several advanced "stealth" methods.

Description

After the file becomes resident in the system memory below the 640k DOS boundary, the operator will experience total system slow down as a result of the virus' polymorphic code. Symptoms include video flicker to the screen writing very slowly. Files may seem to "hang" even though they will eventually execute correctly. This is just a product of the total system slow down within the system's memory.

It was reported that one infected program displayed the following message when run:

THE WHALE IN SEARCH OF THE 8 FISH
I AM '~knzyvo}' IN HAMBURG addr error D9EB,02

See also

References

Fur

Fur is used in reference to the hair of animals, usually mammals, particularly those with extensive body hair coverage that is generally soft and thick (as opposed to the stiffer bristles on, for example, pigs). The term "pelage" (French, from Middle French, from poil hair, from Old French peilss, from Latin pilus; first known use in English c. 1828.) is sometimes used to refer to the body hair of an animal as a complete coat. Fur is also used to refer to animal pelts which have been processed into leather with the hair still attached. The words fur or furry are also used, more casually, to refer to hair-like growths or formations, particularly when the subject being referred to exhibits a dense coat of fine, soft "hairs."

Animal fur, if layered, rather than grown as a single coat, may consist of short down hairs, long guard hairs, and, in some cases, medium awn hairs. Mammals with reduced amounts of fur are often called "naked", such as naked mole-rat and naked dogs.

An animal with commercially valuable fur is known within the fur industry as a furbearer. The use of fur as clothing and/or decoration is considered controversial by some people: most animal welfare advocates object to the trapping and killing of wildlife, and to the confinement and killing of animals on fur farms.

OpenNIC

OpenNIC is an alternate network information center/alternative DNS root which lists itself as an alternative to ICANN and its registries.

As of 2006 users of the OpenNIC DNS servers are able to resolve all existing ICANN top-level domains as well as their own.

Like all alternative root DNS systems, OpenNIC-hosted domains are unreachable to the vast majority of the Internet. Only specific configuration in one's DNS resolver makes these reachable, and very few Internet service providers have this configuration.

History

On June 1, 2000, an article was posted on kuro5hin.org advocating a democratically governed domain name system. By the end of July, OpenNIC root servers were operating and several top-level domains had been introduced as well as peering of the AlterNIC namespace. In March 2001 peering began of Pacific Root and in September a search engine was announced which was dedicated to the OpenNIC namespace.

OpenNIC restructured its architecture to improve scalability and avoid single-point-of-failure issues. Each TLD has its own policies regarding acceptable use. New TLDs may be created subject to OpenNIC stated policies.

Fur (surname)

Fur is a surname that is a common among some Ashkenazi Jews, originating in Russia. Most of their descendants live in the USA and Argentina.

References