Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • abbreviation software hardware abstraction layer
  • proper noun idiomatic, fiction, computing a homicidal computer, an artificial intelligence that acts similarly to the HAL 9000 featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the fictional HAL 9000

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Examples

  • And when it comes to choosing between believing Hal, or the Southern Poverty Law Center; my experience has been that HAL has far more credibility with me, than the SPLC.

    Alex Jones' Prison Planet.com 2009

  • And when it comes to choosing between believing Hal, or the Southern Poverty Law Center; my experience has been that HAL has far more credibility with me, than the SPLC.

    Alex Jones' Prison Planet.com 2009

  • Because HAL is deprecated and there is an effor going on to make sure as less applications as possible depend on it.

    The Grand App Writing Challenge Submissions! | jonobacon@home 2010

  • Then I thought about the serial killer cockpit computers I call HAL, after the maniacal 2001: A Space Odyssey (I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave) computer.

    John T. Halliday: HAL -- The Cockpit Serial Killer 2009

  • The suit called, Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL, is expected to go rental mainly for rehabilitation and everyday assistance as early as 2008, in collaboration with Daiwa House Industry Co, the Nikkei Weekly said.

    Robot Suit Designed to Assist Japan’s Elderly | Impact Lab 2007

  • But Sankai refuses to sell to a lucrative market: the military; he wants no army of superstrong soldiers in HAL suits.

    Seven Robots Destined to Change Your Life | Impact Lab 2006

  • In an episode of Penn & Teller's HBO series (if I say the name HAL will get his panties in a knot, assuming that he is wearing any today ….) they hired six illegal workers and built a section of "border fence" according to the specifications currently being discussed.

    Lone Star Times 2009

  • Impressive exoskeleton suit called the HAL (Human Assisted Limbs) increases a human's strength by 5 times:

    doggdot.us 2009

  • In an episode of Penn & Teller's HBO series (if I say the name HAL will get his panties in a knot, assuming that he is wearing any today ….) they hired six illegal workers and built a section of "border fence" according to the specifications currently being discussed.

    Lone Star Times 2009

  • And in 2010, Heywood Floyd's (now played with vastly more emotion by Roy Scheider) doubts about HAL are put paid to by the extremely rational computer scientist Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), who never feared artificial intelligence at all, and who was enraged to find that the true villain of the previous movie/expedition was Heywood Floyd, who was truly responsible for HAL's actions, and whose worries about HAL persist in 2010 right through until the end, when Floyd realizes he has to trust HAL with the truth, and armed with the truth, HAL is saner than most humans, including those in the White House and the Kremlin.

    MIND MELD: Bad Guys We Love to Hate: The Best Film Villains in SF/F/H (with Various Videos of Villainy) 2009

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