(thing) by kessenich Thu Feb 03 2000 at 10:54:56
An LMI type (one of three) defined jointly by Cisco, StrataCom, Nortel, and DEC. These four companies worked together on Frame Relay technology to accelerate product interoperability. Extensions include virtual circuit status messages as well as three other optional extensions (multicasting, global addressing, and simple flow control).

Could anyone care any less? (that was a rhetorical question). Maybe I should tell a joke to ease the suffering: A ham sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says "Sorry, we don't serve food here." Thank you very much! I'll be noding all week. Enjoy the buffet!
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(person) by Kojo Tue May 23 2000 at 23:43:01

From the Jademan Comics publication "Oriental Heroes", a very good comic book from Hong Kong that is no longer published in the US; The Gang of Four were a subset of the Oriental Heroes. They consisted of Baldie (the leader), Four-Eyed Ming(the tactician), One-Eyed Draco, and Heartbreak Kid(not to be confused with pro-wrestler Shawn Michaels).

Each practiced a different style of Kung-Fu and Chi Kung. Baldie practiced the 18 Dragon-Slaying Palms and Yi Gun Prayer. Ming practiced Golden Armor Chi Kung and used a variety of clever weapons. Hearbreak Kid (the most gifted among them, Kung-Fu wise) practiced Eagle Claw and Nine Suns Chi Kung. Draco (the least talented among them) practiced The Way of the Gods, a style based in Chinese sorcery. He was also an expert with throwing knives which he carried many of. This was particularly impressive as he only had one eye (depth perception problems).

Draco was killed in battle by that evil bastard Chan Ou-Wan. Chan was later able to rescue the three surviving members from almost sure death, and in doing so made them agree to 'forget about' the fact that he killed Draco. Until this point, the other three had plans to offer Chans blood to Draco's soul. If anyone deserved this treatment, it was Chan.

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(thing) by DMan Tue Jul 11 2000 at 7:05:50
The Gang of Four was an elite political circle in the Chinese Communist party in the 1960's and the 1970's. The members were Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wen yuan, and Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's third "wife" (Mao had plenty of fun in his harems). Formerly a bunch of petty officials, they used their relation with Mao as leverage to manipulate the media to further their radical policies. They were largely responsible for the Cultural Revolution. A tangle of a play (Jiang Qing was a B-grade Chinese opera actress) and its "political content" sparked the purge of the arts and the resulting chaos.

With Mao doing nothing, the Gang of Four wildly abused their power, which was absolute as long as Mao lived. The gullible Red Guards were their toys, and they exacted revenge on their enemies, real or imagined, the intellectuals, education, cultural figures, doctors, writers, shopkeepers. The PLA (People's Liberation Army) put a stop to this in 1969, but it could not pull a coup to remove the Gang of Four. They continued to be rule China until Mao's death in 1976. Their support gone, they were promptly arrested for treason against the state. Two were sentenced to death (both committed suicide), the others to heavy jail terms. Deng Xiaoping rose through the vacuum of power to assume leadership of the nation, giving him the title "Paramount Leader".

The fact that a petty leftist band out of England can draw inspiration from a bunch of traitorous criminals speaks volumes about limousine liberalism.

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(thing) by conform Mon Apr 09 2001 at 0:28:49
Seminal Leeds-based post-punk band who took their name from a '60s Chinese Communist cabal and attached it to sharply angular political rock. Their contemporaries are Joy Division, early works by the Cure, Scritti Politti, Buzzcocks, and the more rythmic bits of early Wire albums -- putting them in pretty good company. Three Leeds students (Jon King, Andy Gill, Hugo Burnham) and a bassist found through an advertisement (Dave Allen, also of Shreikback later to be replaced by Sara Lee after two albums). Early material was dark and sharp, with the main themes being the horrid relationship between media and politics, and the horrid personal relationships between people.

The band's early material was well recieved (Entertainment being named by the NME as one of the top 5 albums of 1979), but when the band gave up a spot on Top of the Pops rather than change a line from their second single, At Home He's a Tourist (the line in question being "And the rubbers you hide/In your top left pocket", with "rubbers" being the offending word), the band was relegated to obscurity for some time. Eventually, they chanced upon the beginnings of a disco-influenced formula and found mild success in I Love a Man in a Uniform, before proceeding to work the formula into a horrid bloody death on their Hard LP.

The band broke up in 1984, but Allen and King reformed in 1990 in order to make a number of remarkably mediocre records. Still, the band's early work stands as an underappreciated gem of the late '70s.

Essential listening: The Entertainment LP and it's companion, the Yellow EP, and the first Peel session. The Yellow EP is available on the CD version of Entertainment, and the first Peel session (which includes a blistering version of At Home He's a Tourist) is available on a CD with two later Peel sessions. The second LP, Solid Gold, is also decent. The band's first 7" includes nice alternate versions of the songs Damaged Goods and Anthrax, but is a little difficult to find (no suprise; it's been out of print since 1979...). E2 readers are advised to avoid the Hard LP at all costs, as it may ruin your Gang of Four appetite.

Discography (pre-1990 only):

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(idea) by Jargon Thu Jul 19 2001 at 9:18:46
gang bang = G = garbage collect

Gang of Four n.

(also abbreviated `GOF') [prob. a play on the `Gang Of Four' who briefly ran Communist China after the death of Mao T'se Tung] Describes either the authors or the book "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" published in 1995 by Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-201-63361-2). The authors forming the Gang Of Four are Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides. They are also sometimes referred to as `Gamma et. al.' The authors state at http://www.hillside.net/patterns/DPBook/GOF.html "Why are we ... called this? Who knows. Somehow the name just stuck." The term is also used to describe any of the design patterns that are used in the book, referring to the patterns within it as `Gang Of Four Patterns.'

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

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(person) by benjya Wed Mar 09 2005 at 18:29:20

The Gang of Four were four British Labour MPs who set up the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on 26th March 1981.

They were Roy Jenkins (a former Labour cabinet member, David Owen, William Rogers and Shirley Williams. They putlished a 12-point document covering elections, education and international co-operation.

They described themselves as centre-left party and were the first to be run in Britain with a one-member one-vote system for policies and selection. (The other parties give block votes to trade unions and other organisations.)

In the Autumn of 1981, the party joined forces with the Liberal Party lead by David Steel to create the SDP-Liberal alliance. They enjoyed some increasing support through the 1980's, but by the 1987 general election the Alliance was weakened by high Labour support.

After the election, David Steel proposed an official merger with the SDP and while most of the SDP's membership voted in favour of the merger, David Owen remained adamantly opposed to it. He pledged to fight the now new Social and Liberal Democrat Party (SLD).

But by 1990, the party had lost a great deal of credibility and support and the SDP was folded.

As of now, the remnants of the party are simply the Liberal party, who often poll over 20% of the votes, but due to the UK's first past the post electoral system, rarely get more than about 10% of the seats in the House of Commons.

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