In Glasgow, Scotland mob is the name given to CID or plain-clothes police officers.

Fairly funny when standing with a group of young people in one of the housing estates and an ordinary looking car pulls up. Someone shouts "MOB!" and the entire group splits up and runs off in different directions. Leaving occupants of said car rather bemused as they were only stopping to ask directions.

For a reason for the name, see pukesicks definition of the word mob above.

Game, similar to hide and seek, best played in a humongous crowded school playground.
(Although nightclubs work too)

Rules:

What you need:

Rules of The Game:
  • counter counts to 100.
  • Runners leg it into busy playground.
  • Counter goes off hunting the runners.
    He has to set eyes on them, get back to the mobbing post and say the Holy Words:
    "Mob runner's name 1 2 3 "
  • The runner now comes over to the mobbing post, and you carry on until all lthe runners are caught.

The way to win as a runner is to beat the counter back to the post, and utter the Words Of Vengeance:
"Mob counter's name 1 2 3, save all."

Runners who manage this are instant heroes; rescuing previously caught runners in this manner usually means you get to go to their birthday party.
(Or go out with their sister, depending how flash they are).

Commodore acronym for Movable Object Block, which is the correct technical term for a sprite.

MOBs were what were present in the Commodore 64 and the like. The Amiga also had MOBs, but it also had something called BOBs (Blitter Object Blocks).

I don't remember much about BOBs, but I think the difference was that BOBs were drawn with the blitter and while MOBs were transparent, BOBs needed to include the background.

One Amiga programming book (Amiga 2: Amiga BASIC, by Jyrki J.J. Kasvi) had pictures of criminal "Mobs" running around, chased by "Bobbys"... all of them were, of course, ghosts. (Picture drawn by Wallu, famed Finnish illustrator who's still doing pictures and layout for Finnish computer mags, most notably Pelit).

Widely used skateboarding term. As you read this entry remember that “mob” is bad and is considered ugly by most skaters. If anyone tells you that your kickflip or one of your tricks is mob, quickly attempt to fix it.

The use of the term mob has a very interesting history. The term was coined by Jim Greco, a very famous professional skater from East Haven, Connecticut. As defined by Grecs, mob is when a skater performs a kickflip and they do not entirely follow through with their flick with their front foot. In a normal kickflip the foot twists and slides up the board and then kicks out to flip the board under the feet with the board leveling out in the air. In a mob kickflip the foot basically goes limp halfway through the sliding process, making the board flip so it doesn't level out with the ground. That is the Jim Greco definition of the term. There is one other type of mob kickflip that is slightly different from the Greco definition. This other common form of mob kickflip is when the skater's foot does not turn sideways and slide up the board, the foot simply kicks straight down causing the board to rotate very low off the ground. This kind of mob kickflip can level out with the ground, unlike the Greco mob kickflip, but it is usually very low and generally considered ugly as is the Greco mob flip. For the record, Jim Greco himself does not have mob but he claims that he used to when he was growing up skating as a kid. Greco said he corrected his mob though an intense training process that required hours of physical practice as well as mental training. The average skater may find this correction or cleansing process extremely difficult, but for most it can be done.The only known professional skateboarder to have a mob kickflip is the highly respected Mark Gonzales. Mark is considered a legendary skater and it is quite ironic that he has a mob kickflip through all his success. Also for the record, the Gonz is the only person in the world that can make a mob kickflip look good and stylish. He will probably be the only pro skater ever to be known for performing kickflips this way.

What is interesting is how mob has evolved as a term that has several other different meanings. Mob has jumped from referring not only to kickflips, but also to several other tricks and styles. Heelflips can be mob when they do not level out with the ground. Ollies can also be mob when the front end does not level out in the air, although the more widely used term for this type of ollie is “rocket.” Mob is also used as an adjective to describe someone’s skating. If skater himself is described as mob he probably is not that good or has sketchy stlye. I have heard people using mob to describe odd facial expression that skaters show when they are doing a trick. If a skater always makes a weird or crazy expression when they do a certain trick someone else may comment, “That guy has a crazy mob face when he does his boardslides!” Mob is also used to refer to what someone’s hand does in the middle of a trick. Many skaters’ hands move in funny ways while they are balancing in mid air and they therefore certain skaters have a specific “mob hand.” Mob hands are not usually looked upon as bad and sometimes they can look pretty cool. For example, one of my favorite skaters, Arto Saari, is known to have a mob hand called the hook which often appears in his frontside boardslides. I have also seen his mob hand come out in his frontside kickflips. I personally like his type of mob hand and I think it adds to his overall style.

All in all, the subject of mob can be quite a touchy one. Directly talking to a skater and telling them that they have mob could be risky, as most skaters take offense to someone informing them of their mobness. Essentially a mobed trick, like the kickflip, is looked at as a lazy way to perform the trick. There is nothing really wrong with mobed tricks but they are almost universally looked upon as one of the ugliest things that can happen to someone’s style (with the exception of Mark Gonzales). The term is most widely used referring to kickflips, and depending on who you are talking to, the term mob, may only be used to refer to kickflips, although Jim Greco himself said that it is acceptable to label rocket ollies as mobed, as well as other tricks.

Tricks that most often have mob:

  1. Kickflip
  2. Nollie Kickflip and switch kickflips
  3. Ollie (Usually mob ollies are referred to as rocket ollies. Rocket is more accurate because it describes how the nose of the board is not fully leveled out and is pointing up, like a rocket.)
  4. Heelflip
  5. Hardflip

For more information about "mob hand", refer to Skateboarder magazine Aug 2002 Vol. 11, No. 10.

One very important aspect of the mob is this: No one person in the mob can control what the mob is going to do, yet every person who participates shares responsibility for what the mob does. This is why I find flash mobs a scary idea: to volunteer to be part of a mob?

So why go to a flash mob? There is an appeal there - no doubt about it. The mob mentality. Participants are freed from making decisions, and thus feel like they're absolved from individual responsibility. There's a feeling of solidarity, so strong, very rarely achieved in many people's lives. Those are powerful incentives; after getting criticized by your boss, nagged at by your spouse, teased by your friends, finding a few hundred people to do something with, together, even for a few minutes, in a common (if inane) task, is invigorating.

The problem is this. A flash mob is still, fundamentally, a mob. Any research into the history and nature of mobs predicts that, sooner or later, things will get ugly. The cost of the damage caused by mobs, collectively, exceeds the benefit of the 'harmless (i.e. meaningless) fun' enjoyed by mobsters. In the long run, this will hold as true for organised mobs as for all other mobs. Proponents of flash mobs say "well, they're not mobs in the bad sense". But, a mob is a mob. You can't cut-and-paste psychological effects on a whim. The essence of what a mob is, is essential to the flash mob also. A mob is a mob, and supporters of current flash mobs are responsible for increasing the number and size of these mobs, bringing the date when things do get ugly ever closer, with less chance of putting on the brakes in time.

Unfortunately, it's all to easy for individuals to rationalize away their own personal responsibility. First is, "Well, I was only one person, I didn't really make a difference". Second is "I didn't know that I was giving moral support, and the illusion of popular endorsement, to a looter (or bully, or criminal) - I didn't even know there was one there!". Third is "I couldn't have known there was a looter there!". None of these hold up to scrutiny. Participation in a mob is the choice of each person, and responsibility for the effects each choice belongs with the person who makes it.

A peripheral danger to flash mobs is pickpocketing. Many many people gathered in one place, all of them distracted; there is no better place for a petty thief to be. A further corollary is that police presence is more urgently needed at the site of a flash mob, taking them away from more important duties they could be attending to. A known time and place of a thinly-spread police force is good news for criminals, bad news for everybody else.

Mob is a term often used in online RPGs to denote a non-player character (especially a hostile one). The term originated in the MUD world as an abbreviation of mobile (or mobile object). The term was first used in the Diku engine. As a contrast, LPMUDs generally called the same type of object monsters, although the term was not technically accurate.

Mob (?), n. [See Mobcap.]

A mobcap.

Goldsmith.

 

© Webster 1913.


Mob, v. t.

To wrap up in, or cover with, a cowl.

[R.]

 

© Webster 1913.


Mob, n. [L. mobile vulgus, the movable common people. See Mobile, n.]

1.

The lower classes of a community; the populace, or the lowest part of it.

A cluster of mob were making themselves merry with their betters. Addison.

2.

Hence: A throgn; a rabble; esp., an unlawful or riotous assembly; a disorderly crowd.

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. Pope.

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. Madison.

Confused by brainless mobs. Tennyson.

Mob law, law administered by the mob; lynch law. -- Swell mob, well dressed thieves and swindlers, regarded collectively. [Slang] Dickens.

 

© Webster 1913.


Mob, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mobbed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Mobbing.]

To crowd about, as a mob, and attack or annoy; as, to mob a house or a person.

 

© Webster 1913.

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