August 8, 2005


This Dilbert strip caused me to ROTFLMAO, i.e., LOL i.e. laugh out loud.

 

 

 

 

 

  A quick web search turned up an excellent techie slang dictionary What They Really Mean Is... Here are a few phrases which struck a chord with me:

Open the Kimono: A synonym for "open the books," it means to reveal the inner workings of a project or company to a prospective new partner.
BENOFTMUE:(ben-ofta-moo): Big event no one foresaw that messes up everything.
Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired.
Dorito Syndrome: Feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content.
SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
Square-Headed Girlfriend: Another word for a computer. The victim of a square-headed girlfriend is a "computer widow."
Three-Finger Salute: Process of simultaneously striking Ctrl, Alt, Delete in order to restart your computer after it freezes up.
Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand position required to reach all of the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key, and the Power On key.
Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
Ping: To send a brief e-mail.
NOTE: A "real" ping is a confirmation that an IP address or web address (internet connection) is live. To ping, go to Start, select run, type "cmd" (command line), and type "ping www.yahoo.com" or whatever IP address you want to ping. The response if the connection is good will be packet data.
404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found."
Blowing a Buffer: Losing one's train of thought.
NOTE: A buffer is memory (virtual or actual) set aside to store data being processed; when a printer is working on printing a long document, the doc loads to a buffer. In my old Apple II Laserwriter, the buffer is only 2 MB, so larger docs simply don't print.
GOOD Job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.
Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software.
Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
Cobweb Site: A World Wide Web site that hasn't been updated for a long time.
Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
Crapplet: A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet.
Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss.
Nonlinear: Inappropriately intense negative response, a.k.a. freak-out.
PNAMBC: pronounced "panambic" An acronym meaning "Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain."
Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps over everything and then leaves.

Also of interest is Microsoft Lexicon and NetLingo, which also has an excellent list of emoticons.

BTW IMO Scott Adams--along with several other cartoonists--is a uniquely American genius.

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copyright © 2005 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media.

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