Buffer

[Dave Paprocki]

A buffer contains data that is stored for a short amount of time, typically in the computers memory (RAM). The purpose of a buffer is to hold data right before it is used. For example, when you download an audio or video file from the Internet, it may load the first 20% of it into a buffer and then begin to play. While the clip plays back, the computer continually downloads the rest of the clip and stores it in the buffer. Because the clip is being played from the buffer, not directly from the Internet, there is less of a chance that the audio or video will stall or skip when there is network congestion.
Buffering is used to improve several other areas of computer performance as well. Most hard disks use a buffer to enable more efficient access to the data on the disk. Video cards send images to a buffer before they are displayed on the screen (known as a screen buffer). Computer programs use buffers to store data while they are running. If it were not for buffers, computers would run a lot less efficiently and we would be waiting around a lot more.

[Sarah]

The name by which gipsy’s call people, who live on the grid, with social security numbers, attend school, and own a home. A buffer is the term that the gipsy’s call basically real people, whom they lift stuff off of.

[Sarah]

A friend who is willing to come along with you when you're meeting someone who might be interested in dating you, but you're not sure if you're interested in dating them.

[Sarah]

To load data, usually when watching a video.

[Sarah]

Word often used by Irish Travellers to identify someone from the settled community. Travellers traditionally used country

[Sarah]

A towering demented mammal-amphibian, native to but not limited to Australia (found on all 8 continents), having four legs, one of which shaped like a cage, the others of which shaped like sasquatch hands, but contrary to walking on all four legs it staggers on one leg in somewhat of peg-leg motion. It has a dirty beard, a snout like a vicious anteater, but yet eats no ants, a tail in the middle of its stomach where most would assume a belly-button would be, a tentacle riddled orifice that is capable of dismantling an elephant in .2 seconds flat. The skin of the buffer has a slimy texture that it sheds every other blue moon, but the reason it is classified as a mammal-amphibian is because it has the very hairy and dirty beard and scientists decided to classify as the first of the fusion class of the two species. It is a shade of blue. It is most prominently found in underwater caves but is also found on land in moist areas. The buffer is capable if ever feeling threatened it can project poisonous darts, but it is rarely threatened.