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film at 11
[MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] 1. Used in
conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic
implication that these events are earth-shattering. "ITS
crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."
2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional
information will be available at some future time, without
the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the
referenced event. For example, "The mail file server died this
morning; we found garbage all over the root directory. Film at
11." would indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the
people working on it have no additional information about it as
yet; use of the phrase in this way suggests gently that the problem
is liable to be fixed more quickly if the people doing the fixing
can spend time doing the fixing rather than responding to
questions, the answers to which will appear on the normal "11:00
news", if people will just be patient.
The variant "MPEGs at 11" has recently been cited (MPEG is a
digital-video format.)
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.
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