SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Domain	Definition
Computing	Smoke and mirrors n. Marketing deceptions. The term is mainstream in this general sense. Among hackers it's strongly associated with bogus demos and crocked benchmarks (see also MIPS, machoflops). "They claim their new box cranks 50 MIPS for under $5000, but didn't specify the instruction mix -- sounds like smoke and mirrors to me." The phrase, popularized by newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin c.1975, has been said to derive from carnie slang for magic acts and `freak show' displays that depend on `trompe l'oeil' effects, but also calls to mind the fierce Aztec god Tezcatlipoca (lit. "Smoking Mirror") for whom the hearts of huge numbers of human sacrificial victims were regularly cut out. Upon hearing about a rigged demo or yet another round of fantasy-based marketing promises, hackers often feel analogously disheartened. See also stealth manager. Source: Jargon File.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Specialty Definition: Smoke And Mirrors

Smoke and Mirrors is a collection of short fiction by Neil Gaiman. It was first published in 1999 by Avon Books, in the UK by Headline Book Publishing.

The included stories and poems are:

Reading the Entrails: A Rondel
The Wedding Present (in the introduction)
Chivalry
Nicholas Was...
The Price
Troll Bridge
Don't Ask Jack
The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories
Eaten (Scenes from a Moving picture)
The White Road
Queen of Knives
The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch
Changes
The Daughter of Owls
Shoggoth's Old Peculiar
Virus
Looking for the Girl
Only the End of the World Again
Bay Wolf
Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot
We Can Get Them for You Wholesale
One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock
Cold Colours
The Sweeper of Dreams
Foreign Parts
Vampire Sestina
Mouse
The Sea Change
How Do You Think It Feels?
When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11 1/4
Desert Wind
Tastings
In the End
Babycakes

Modern Usage: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	It's all smoke and mirrors, fellas. (Far from Heaven; writing credit: Todd Haynes)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Commercial Usage: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Domain	Title
Books	Smoke and Mirrors (reference) Smoke and Mirrors [DOWNLOAD: ADOBE READER] (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Smoke and Mirrors (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Ancestral Language Translations: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	Conospermum, Cotinus coggygria Scop., Rhus cotinus L.. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Anagrams: SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-d-e-i-k-m-m-n-o-o-r-r-r-s-s"
	-5 letters: kaiserdoms, modernisms, seminomads.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.