In C++, short is a synonym for short int. It is a fundamental type, meaning that all C++ implementations allow you to declare variables of type short. They are typically used in places where a normal int would be overkill in terms of memory usage.

It is guaranteed to have at least 16 bits. It is guaranteed to be bigger than a bool, and smaller than an int and a long int.

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Timesplitters 2

Short is a characteristic that a handful of TS2 characters possess. The advantage is, obviously, that it makes you more difficult to hit. There are two main disadvantages, although some people will dismiss them as insignificant. The first is the fact that these characters cannot effectively use the turret guns mounted in the Ice Station and the Training Ground. The weapons can still be fired, but the gun blocks almost all the vision of the player, so aiming becomes a major issue. The second disadvantage is the shorter angle makes head shots more difficult to score at close range.

This is a list of all the short characters in the game:

Note that none of these characters are playable initially. They are only available after unlocking them in Story, Challenge, or Arcade League.


    Sources:
  • My own play experience, verified at:
  • http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/file/timesplitters_2_char_abilities.txt
  • http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/timesplitters_2_arcade_char.txt

A short, in an electrical circuit, refers to an alternate circuit path around a component. Resistance=0.

A short in parallel will make voltage equal zero for all branches, and will cause total current to go up exponentially. This is a Bad Thing.

A short in series will knock out one component, and throw off pretty much the rest of your voltages due to ohm's law and Kirchoff's laws.

In short you don't want shorts. Unless it's hot outside. Then they're preferable.
Oh yes... short is also a fantastic source of puns.

Being short an asset, in finance terms, is the opposite of being long an asset. We can define it as:

A short exposure to an underlying means that you make money when the underlying falls in value, and lose money when it rises in value.

The term "underlying" here is a bit of an umbrella term that can mean things like stocks, bonds, commodities, or other assets.

This exposure is exactly the opposite of being long. Now, being long is easy: you just buy the asset. Being short is not nearly as easy: you normally can't sell something you don't have. Now, it turns out that in the marvelous world of finance, selling stuff you don't have is indeed possible. It requires jumping through some hoops and costs some money, but it is possible. What you for instance can do is the following:

  1. I borrow a share from someone.
  2. I sell the borrowed share for, say, 75 dollars.
  3. I wait.
  4. The share price dropped. I buy back the share for 50 dollars.
  5. I give the share back to the person I borrowed it from.
  6. I keep the 75 - 50 = 25 dollars.

Now, as you can see, you make money in this trade if the share price drops, and you lose money when it rises, which is exactly opposite to buying the share; hence you are short.

This selling stuff you don't own is tricky business at the best of times, and chances are your broker doesn't allow you to do it unless you are a big, professional trading firm. For private investors, derivatives allow you to have a short exposure without having to short sell the asset.

One way of being short an asset is by selling the call option. A call option is the right to buy a stock; by selling it, I have the obligation to sell a stock at a certain level. For this, I get money. Now, imagine I want to short Microsoft, which at the moment of writing this trades at 27.06. Imagine I sell the 25 call. This means I am obliged to sell Microsoft at 25, if my counterparty wants this. It will typically want this if the share price of Microsoft is above 25. This is bad as I have to buy it at the current price. So, if it trades at 27.06, I lose 2.06 dollars, but I make the money I got for selling the call.

If Microsoft falls, it's less likely I have to sell Microsoft at a loss at 25. In fact, if it drops below 25, I might just not have to sell it at all, and just pocket the money I got for selling the call! Because a drop in the price of Microsoft stock makes this more likely, I make money when Microsoft falls. If Microsoft rises, the call increases in value, as I have to buy back the stock I'm going to have to sell at 25 at an ever higher price. Hence, I lose money. The net effect is that I lose when Microsoft rises, and make money when it falls; hence I am short Microsoft.

A second example would be buying a put option. Imagine I buy the 30 put in Microsoft. Buying the put means I get to sell Microsoft at 30. Now, if Microsoft drops, to say 20, I make 10 dollars, minus what I paid for the put. The further Microsoft stock falls, the more valuable my put option, and the more money I make. When Microsoft rises, I have to buy it at a higher price to be able to sell it for 30, and I make less money. I make money when Microsoft rises and lose money when Microsoft falls, so I am short Microsoft.

Having discussed what a short position is and how to get one, we will now discuss why we would want to have a short position. It is important to note that there are few assets that have a price that drops in the long run. Hence, a short position is usually temporary: funds or investors that profit from systematically going short are rare. Another disadvantage of short selling is that the price of an asset might rise to an indefinite value; hence, your potential loss is unlimited. This makes short selling quite dangerous.

To give an example, imagine you (correctly) predicted that dot-com stocks in the late 1990s were overvalued. To speculate on this, you short them. Before crashing, the price triples, bankrupting you in the process. This is a common danger associated with shorting: The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

The most common reason to go short is in arbitrage trades and in hedges. I'll give an example of the latter. Imagine I think one oil company, say Royal Dutch, will perform better than another, say BP. However, the share price of both Royal Dutch and BP is in principle strongly dependent on both the general sentiment and the level of the oil price, both variables I don't know anything about-I only care about the difference between BP and Royal Dutch. If I short BP and go long Royal Dutch, I make money when Royal Dutch goes up and BP goes down. If both move up, my the gain on my long and the loss on my short cancel; if both go down, the gain on my short and the loss on my long will cancel as well. This is exactly the exposure I wanted.

Summarizing, being short an asset means that if the asset falls, you make money. This is used to speculate on a drop in the price of the asset. It isn't too easy to achieve this for a private investor. One way of getting a short position is to use derivatives. However, if you are a big firm, you can just sell an asset you don't have. Going short can be used just to speculate on a drop in share price, but is also used in arbitrage trades and as a hedge. This makes the ability to go short, either by means of short selling or by using derivatives an important part of the financial market.

Short (?), a. [Compar. Shorter (?); superl. Shortest.] [OE. short, schort, AS. scort, sceort; akin to OHG. scurz, Icel. skorta to be short of, to lack, and perhaps to E. shear, v. t. Cf. Shirt.]

1.

Not long; having brief length or linear extension; as, a short distance; a short piece of timber; a short flight.

The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it. Isa. xxviii. 20.

2.

Not extended in time; having very limited duration; not protracted; as, short breath.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn. Chaucer.

To short absense I could yield. Milton.

3.

Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty; as, a short supply of provisions, or of water.

4.

Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied; scantily furnished; lacking; not coming up to a resonable, or the ordinary, standard; -- usually with of; as, to be short of money.

We shall be short in our provision. Shak.

5.

Deficient; defective; imperfect; not coming up, as to a measure or standard; as, an account which is short of the trith.

6.

Not distant in time; near at hand.

Marinell was sore offended That his departure thence should be so short. Spenser.

He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day. Clarendon.

7.

Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory.

Their own short understandings reach No farther than the present. Rowe.

8.

Less important, efficaceous, or powerful; not equal or equivalent; less (than); -- with of.

Hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war. Landor.

9.

Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; as, he gave a short answer to the question.

10. Cookery

Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp; as, short pastry.

11. Metal

Brittle.

⇒ Metals that are brittle when hot are called ot-short; as, cast iron may be hot-short, owing to the presence of sulphur. Those that are brittle when cold are called cold-short; as, cast iron may be cold-short, on account of the presence of phosphorus.

12. Stock Exchange

Engaging or engaged to deliver what is not possessed; as, short contracts; to be short of stock. See The shorts, under Short, n., and To sell short, under Short, adv.

⇒ In mercantile transactions, a note or bill is sometimes made payable at short sight, that is, in a little time after being presented to the payer.

13. Phon.

Not prolonged, or relatively less prolonged, in utterance; -- opposed to long, and applied to vowels or to syllables. In English, the long and short of the same letter are not, in most cases, the long and short of the same sound; thus, the i in ill is the short sound, not of i in isle, but of ee in eel, and the e in pet is the short sound of a in pate, etc. See Quantity, and Guide to Pronunciation, §§22, 30.

Short is much used with participles to form numerous self-explaining compounds; as, short-armed, short-billed, short-fingered, short-haired, short-necked, short-sleeved, short-tailed, short-winged, short-wooled, etc.

At short notice, in a brief time; promptly. -- Short rib Anat., one of the false ribs. -- Short suit Whist, any suit having only three cards, or less than three. R. A. Proctor. -- To come short, To cut short, To fall short, etc. See under Come, Cut, etc.

 

© Webster 1913.


Short, n.

1.

A summary account.

The short and the long is, our play is preferred. Shak.

2. pl.

The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran.

The first remove above bran is shorts. Halliwell.

3. pl.

Short, inferior hemp.

4. pl.

Breeches; shortclothes.

[Slang]

Dickens.

5. Phonetics

A short sound, syllable, or vowel.

If we compare the nearest conventional shorts and longs in English, as in "bit" and "beat," "not" and "naught," we find that the short vowels are generally wide, the long narrow, besides being generally diphthongic as well. Hence, originally short vowels can be lengthened and yet kept quite distinct from the original longs. H. Sweet.

In short, in few words; in brief; briefly. -- The long and the short, the whole; a brief summing up. -- The shorts Stock Exchange, those who are unsupplied with stocks which they contracted to deliver.

 

© Webster 1913.


Short (?), adv.

In a short manner; briefly; limitedly; abruptly; quickly; as, to stop short in one's course; to turn short.

He was taken up very short, and adjudged corrigible for such presumptuous language. Howell.

To sell short Stock Exchange, to sell, for future delivery, what the party selling does not own, but hopes to buy at a lower rate.

 

© Webster 1913.


Short, v. t. [AS. sceortian.]

To shorten.

[Obs.]

 

© Webster 1913.


Short, v. i.

To fail; to decrease.

[Obs.]

 

© Webster 1913.

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