The thing that Lister believed was the reason Kryten was being replaced by Hudzen 10, the ultimate machine.

Further Explanation: the term is taken from automobile lingo, from when a car manufacturer would add some minor cosmetic enhanchment to a model of vehicle and consequentially say it was 'new and improved', though for all intents and purposes, it was unchanged. An example I have seen recently was Chrysler selling an 'executive' model of one of its cars, where the only difference from the 'regular' model was the addition of a metal-flake paint job.

This phrase can apply for most anything that is being sold as 'new and improved', when its improvements over older models if infintesimal in all real important respects.

(Re the Jargon File entry.) So I looked at chrome to see what that meant.

Well, possibly. Go-faster stripes are specifically the stripes along the side of a flash car that make it look cool (to its owner and his cretinous mates) and of course go faster, like tailfins.

In a computer context I've always heard it as an imaginary thing of last resort when the machine or program is unacceptably slow. If there's nothing else you can do about it, you suggest painting go-faster stripes on the machine. Synonymous in this sense with giving drugs to the hamsters.

go root = G = GoAT

go-faster stripes n.

[UK] Syn. chrome. Mainstream in some parts of UK.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Any racing stripes that are added to a thing in order to superficially improve the thing's performance. These are most commonly applied to cars by teenagers in ameteur car clubs. This kind of mod is often seen by outsiders as a superficial attempt to add horsepower.

Go-faster stripes can be added to make anything at least look like it's going faster. This is often suggested for computers, but can apply to anything that has some kind of time variance. You could put them on your cat, your microwave oven, even your Nikes. It is important to note that it is not necessay for the object to have wheels or be mobile. Adding a spoiler has the same effect.

Note: adding Go-faster stripes to a clock may have unpredictable results.

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