[873] in Humor
HUMOR: Slang
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Wed May 10 13:53:23 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 13:48:00 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Some of these are new to me!
-Drew
Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 09:17:47 -0800
From: skidder@ucsvax.sdsu.edu (Susie_Kidder)
>
>This was found in the Wednesday, May 10, 1995 edition of the San Diego
>Union-Tribune, under the by-line of Scott LaFee, Staff Writer.
>
>"We're spammin; now; so can any chiphead"
>
>More than half of all Americans remain technophobic to some degree, according
>to a recent survey. Getting over that fear of things technological will take
>time--and better software--but while we wait, why not learn to talk the talk
>of cyberspace, that imagined and mystical place on the other side of the
>computer screen.
>**Barfogenesis -- seasick feeling some people get using virtual reality
>headsets, caused by eyes registering movement while inner ear doesn't.
>**Betamaxed -- when a technology is taken over by an inferior, but
>better-marketed, technology
>**Bio-break -- euphemism employed by avid computer users for using the toilet
>**Bitnik -- person who uses coin-operated computers at cyber-trendy coffee
>houses
>**Bit-spit -- any form of digital correspondence
>**Blendo -- combining of different media from different sources: type,
>computer graphics, animation, video, audio, etc. Similar to multimedia, but
>more often used to describe a collage effect. Also called meltomedia
>**Bitraking -- journalistic practice of trolling the Internet in search of
>stories
>**BLOB -- acronym for Binary Large Object, an extremely large binary file
>**Brad's Mom -- from the language spoken at Microsoft headquarters. Refers to
>a technophobic customer, someone like Lillian Silverberg, mother of a
>Microsoft vice president. Example: "Can Brad's mom figure this out?"
>**Byte -- a piece of information exactly eight bits long. Essentially
>represents a single letter, number, punctuation mark or mathematical symbol
>**Chiphead -- a computer enthusiast
>**Chips and salsa -- slang for computer hardware (chips) and associated
>software (salsa)
>**Churn -- a section of computer code constantly being rewritten or changed.
>Also text documents that are repeatedly revised
>**Cyberpork -- government money flowing to well-connected contractors on the
>information superhighway
>**Cybrarian -- a person who earns a living doing on-line research and
>information retrieval. Also known as a data surfer or super searcher.
>**Dead tree edition -- printed version of a publication available in both
>paper and electronic versions
>**Easter eggs -- innocuous and usually funny electronic trapdoors created by
>programmers of commercial software. Triggered by secret combinations of
>keystrokes, these "eggs" range from cartoons to surprise snapshots of the
>programmer's family.
>**Egosurfing -- scanning the Internet, databases, print media or research
>papers for mentions of your own name
>**ENIAC -- The first electronic computer, built in the 1940s and consisting of
>18,000 vacuum tubes. ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and
>Calculator
>**Eyeballs -- euphemism for computer-owning viewing audience
>**FAQ -- acronym for Frequently Asked Questions, a listing usually found with
>each particular Usenet
>**Floodgaters -- people who deluge others with e-mail after receiving even the
>slightest response to their communications
>**Full-on honky handshake -- standard computer protocol that allows peripheral
>equipment to connect without a lot of street jive or complicated configuring
>**Future-proof -- any technology that supposedly won't become outdated (like a
>knife)
>**Graybar Land -- place you go when you're staring at a computer screen
>waiting for it to very slowly finish processing some function
>**Holy wars -- perpetual electronic bulletin board debates over subjects like
>abortion, gun control and Macintosh vs IBM
>**Infobahn -- Proposed by some as a mree cosmopolitan, global-sounding name
>for the Information Superhighway
>**IQueue -- The line of interesting e-mail waiting to be read after all the
>junk has been eliminated
>**Net spider -- someone who jumps frequently from one computer net to another
>**Phreaking -- slang for procedure used by hackers to gain illegal use of
>telephone company long-distance services
>**Spannin' -- to speak aimlessly on a variety of subjects or to stuff someon'e
>brain with information of questionable content
>**Squirt the bird -- trannsmitting a signal to a satellite
>**NRN -- proposed e-mail shorthand for "No Response Necessary" tacked to the
>end of message, it's designed to eliminate endless back-and-forth
>acknowledgments
>**Nybble -- half a byte
>**Nym-rod -- an individual or subculture that insists on turning every
>multiword term into an acronym
>**Ohnosecond -- that tiny fraction of time when you realize you've hit the
>wrong computer key and, for example, irretrievably sent your diary to an
>international Usenet
>**Open-collar workers -- people who work at home or telecommute
>**Single systemitis -- affliction of computer users who decline to learn any
>other computer system but their own
>**Thumb candy -- a computer game requiring eye-hand coordination and little
>brain power
>**Voice jail -- voice mail system so poorly designed that the caller feels
>trapped and hangs up
>
>
- ---> = ] Susie Kidder
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