Word: mud
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...waste, fraud and abuse, Congress and the Executive Branch enmesh operating personnel in endless spider webs of rules. Line-item budgets allow no flexibility in shifting money from one use to another. Two areas of one military base boasted well-maintained sidewalks, while in another area, personnel walked in mud because the base commander's budget contained money only for repairing sidewalks, not for building any. Government employees who need to travel must get approvals from many superiors and superiors' superiors, and then often have to deal with a single airline under contract to their agency; they cannot snap...
...panic. Just hang up, take a deep breath, and log on again. You're not going to Panama, after all, just to a machine somewhere in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And what you are exploring is not an exotic ecosystem but a computer system called a MUD...
...MUDs (the name stands for Multi-User Dungeons) are the latest twist in the already somewhat twisted world of computer communications. A sort of poor man's virtual reality -- created by using words, not expensive head-mounted displays -- MUDs are a quantum leap over computer bulletin boards, where you not only meet and interact with other computer users from all over the world but build your own imaginary worlds as well. The first MUD was invented in 1979 as a way for British university students to play the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons by computer. But in the past few years...
...Some MUDs are fashioned after medieval villages, with town squares, blacksmiths and churches. Others re-create science-fiction and fairy-tale settings, like C.S. Lewis' Narnia, Frank Herbert's Dune and the universe of Star Trek. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have built a MUD model of their famous Media Lab, with offices and corridors corresponding to the real thing. One intrepid group of computer users constructed a section of the London Underground, complete with a virtual subway. MUDs come and go, drifting in and out of favor, but the current count is estimated at 300 worldwide, most of them...
...snatchers such as Palamarchuk claim that the center of Philadelphia's black market is Passyunk Avenue, in the southwestern part of the city. Here lies a sprawling shantytown of 70 salvage yards, and journalists are about as welcome as the rusty mud after a heavy rain. "Is that your car?" barks the manager of one junkyard. "Leave it there a couple of hours, and see what ! happens to it." His sidekick, an unfriendly German shepherd, growls in agreement...