Film At 11 : (MIT, in parody of US TV newscasters) 1. Used in
conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic
implication that these events are earth-shattering. "{ITS
crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."
2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional
information will be available at some future time, *without*
the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the
referenced event. For example, "The mail file server died
this morning; we found garbage all over the root directory.
Film at 11." would indicate that a major failure had occurred
but that the people working on it have no additional
information about it as yet; use of the phrase in this way
suggests gently that the problem is liable to be fixed more
quickly if the people doing the fixing can spend time doing
the fixing rather than responding to questions, the answers to
which will appear on the normal "11:00 news", if people will
just be patient.
[{Jargon File]
(1998-03-24)
From Jargon File :
Film At 11 : [MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] 1. Used in conversation
to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these
events are earth-shattering. "{{ITS} crashes; film at 11." "Bug found
in scheduler; film at 11." 2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate
that additional information will be available at some future time,
_without_ the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the
referenced event. For example, "The mail file server died this morning;
we found garbage all over the root directory. Film at 11." would
indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the people working
on it have no additional information about it as yet; use of the phrase
in this way suggests gently that the problem is liable to be fixed more
quickly if the people doing the fixing can spend time doing the fixing
rather than responding to questions, the answers to which will appear on
the normal "11:00 news", if people will just be patient.
The variant "MPEGs at 11" has recently been cited (MPEG is a
digital-video format.)
