waldo

   [From Robert A. Heinlein's story Waldo]

   1.  A  mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human
   limb.  When  these  were  developed  for  the nuclear industry in the
   mid-1940s  they  were named after the invention described by Heinlein
   in  the  story, which he wrote in 1942. Now known by the more generic
   term  telefactoring,  this  technology is of intense interest to NASA
   for tasks like space station maintenance.

   2.  At  Harvard  (particularly by Tom Cheatham and students), this is
   used  instead  of  {foobar}  as  a metasyntactic variable and general
   nonsense word. See {foo}, {bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {foo}]