[from the technical term logical device, wherein a physical device is
referred to by an arbitrary `logical' name] Having the role of. If a
person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL) who had long held a certain post
left and were replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as
the logical Les Earnest. (This does not imply any judgment on the
replacement.) Compare {virtual}.
At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate system
relative to El Camino Real, in which `logical north' is always toward
San Francisco and `logical south' is always toward San Jose--in spite
of the fact that El Camino Real runs physical north/south near San
Francisco, physical east/west near San Jose, and along a curve
everywhere in between. (The best rule of thumb here is that, by
definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-south.)
In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco
restaurant, get onto {El Camino Bignum} going logical north." Using
the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from worrying about
that the fact that the sun is setting almost directly in front of
him. The concept is reinforced by North American highways which are
almost, but not quite, consistently labeled with logical rather than
physical directions. A similar situation exists at MIT: Route 128
(famous for the electronics industry that grew up along it) wraps
roughly 3 quarters around Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating
near the coastline at each end. It would be most precise to describe
the two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and
`counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and "south",
respectively. A hacker might describe these directions as logical
north and logical south, to indicate that they are conventional
directions not corresponding to the usual denotation for those words.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {defined as}{El Camino Bignum}{saga}{virtual}]