English: KNB (Know Nothing Buzzword)

Monday, 12 October 2009

OK, it seems my sickness has completely left me... although I had several false positives before it rebounded again, and again... Lovely.

KNB (know nothing buzzword) is an acronym I have coined to describe the over-proliferation of buzzwords in modern society. The Americans started it several decades ago, and now the filth has spread throughout the business world, the technology world, and the journalism world. Among other worlds I assume.

It seems to be that people like to use buzzwords to give the appearance that they know what they are talking about, when in fact, they don't. I'm going to take the liberty to include catch-phrases in this definition. For instance "going forward".

I was listening to a humourous essay written and read by an Irish poet a couple of weeks ago (sorry I forgot his name) which was about the over-use and pointlessness of the term "going foward". This also applies to the term "moving forward". I've noticed whenever there is a business discussion and a major point is raised which questions the validity of some high-powered executive's idea, instead of discussing the issue, s/he will utter the term "going forward" and start blurting about some unrelated issue in order to divert attention from his/her stupid idea.

It can be useful of course, if discussions become rhetorical, or vitriolic, in which case it is certainly necessary to move forward. However, it is often used simply because someone is uncomfortable with the fact that they are indeed, completely incorrect.

Now, I just want to make a point about the difference between a buzzword, and a jargon word. Jargon is actually a collection of words belonging to a specific field with a fully defined meaning. Buzzwords tend to undescribe something that is ill defined, makes no sense, and isn't really a new thing anyway. You can read Wikipedia's explanation of a buzzword if you wish. Of course, the neutrality of the article is disputed, and it needs cleaning up among other issues. That's one of the things I like about Wikipedia: it is quite open when something is wrong and needs fixing... Getting it fixed, however, is another issue.

There are lots of other lurrrvely examples. For instance "leverage". "We need to leverage this technology to improve the synergy within our enterprise to empower our people to move onto the next-generation paradigm". This is the kind of sentence that one will hear from CEOs and other executives, but really, it means bugger all. I would love to leverage the use of an M4 Carbine (in coordination with the Lower Hutt Police and the SAS) to empower the English language to make a paradigm shift towards best practices.

By the way, I use state-of-the-art technologies to write this blog. Having moved on from pen and paper to a keyboard.

Personal: Sick

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Arrgh... Been down with flu for last couple of weeks. It was really bad on days 2-4, then it just lingered. THANK YOU, Maria, for looking after me :-)

In other news, despite having crusaded against Twitter ever since I closed my account a while ago, I have reopened it... if you can't beat them, join them! I do still wonder, however... does Twitter have the capability to be useful for ME??? I'll give it a trial, but still... I can't see why I need to be updated quickly... BBC News and Google News are more than good enough for me most of the time... as for knowing what my friends and family are up to... nothing beats Facebook.

Poem: Thankfulness

Sunday, 27 September 2009

A child looks at his plate in disgust
He heaves it at the wall and demands another
Far away a child is starving
His world is a mess, all is unjust
He remembers his last meal
And wishes for another.

A woman complains her salary is too low
Jealous of people with 20k more
Far away a woman is walking
Dragging six children on through the snow
Looking for shelter, and maybe some food
Blisters and pain she must ignore.

A man is pulled over and swears at the cop
For receiving a ticket for driving too fast
Far a way a peasant looks up from the field
And watches a car go over the hilltop
Smiling as he loads wheat on a cart
Happy the harvest has come at last.

Be thankful for your job, your food, and your car
Do you deserve it, do you deserve more?
Think of the people thankful to live
And think of the luxuries which you enjoy
Think of the generations which built it up
It's not all your work, not even half
So smile, and work, be glad that you live

Poem: Love

Saturday, 26 September 2009

Love

Love is everlasting and never ends
Though conflicts appear and friendships are lost
Families are broken and suffering arises
Love doesn't care, all things it transcends
Whatever the causes it tries at all cost
To cover the wounds and heal the scars
Just look to the sky and look at the stars
And listen to what your love advises

Word: Honeypot

Friday, 25 September 2009

This is a word which has been used in computer technology for quite a long time, and I quite like it. I think its use should be spread...

Basically, "honeypot" is a metaphor which refers to an isolated computer that is setup to attract attacks, whether via hacking or viruses. Researchers use these computers to find out about new viruses, or hacking methods, and to find ways to prevent them.

The metaphor basically refers to a pot of honey, which can be used to attract bees, wasps and other insects to trap them. This is the same in the computer world, they are used to trap viruses, or hackers.

Outside of computing, there is no reason not to use this word to refer to other similar situations. For instance, anti-narcotics undercover police will often infiltrate gangs by pretending to be buyers. They will express an interest in the product, come along to "buy" it, and then arrest the perpetrators for the crime of soliciting drugs. Similarly, the term could refer to a situation where a naval ship dresses up as a merchant ship to attract pirate attacks, and therefore capture then arrest/disarm the pirates.

Recently, my camera was stolen from my bag which I had left near some seats at WelTec for about five minutes. This led me to the idea (which I probably WILL NOT implement) which would be to leave a bag somewhere, watch from a hidden location, and then catch thieves in the act of trying to steal my stuff. That would be a honeypot.

Poem: Nice Wellington

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Nice Wellington

The Wellington wind wildly blows
Gusts of cold, pervading the land
Going outside for a little peace
In vain, everyone knows
Outside, shivering in the cold we stand
One wishes to be on the beaches of Nice.

---

Well, I bet there are probably hundreds of poems written about windy Wellington, but it's all I could think about today, so there you go.

I haven't yet been to Nice, which is a lovely coastal city on the blue coast in the south-east of France. But it sure would be a lot better than Wellington on yet another windy day.

Buzzword: Real Time Web

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Disclaimer: I know that in English we normally consider something like "real-time Web" to be three words, or a phrase, but I have taken the liberty to call the whole thing a word. Deal with it... Or write a comment explaining why I shouldn't do it :-)

Yet another techno-writer-know-nothing buzzword.

Intended Meaning

Other than the fact that it's just some silly phrase pulled out of the nether regions of some hairy guy somewhere in the United States probably meant to wow potential customers, rather than be an accurate name; it nonetheless does describe a concept.

This concept, is that "real time" information is presented and sorted as soon as it is created. So it's talking about things like Twitter where status updates become immediately available to thousands of people. According to Wikipedia, the "real-time Web is the concept of searching for and finding information online as it is produced.".

Of course, up until the phrase was nefariously produced from the garbage of someone's mind, "real-time" meant REAL TIME. That is, it describes computer systems that are very very accurate, to the microsecond, or millisecond. Of course, the so-called "real-time web" describes things that are quite fast, but not really real-time (i.e. it takes more than a few seconds to update anything).

As a side note, having the Web in real-time seems rather pointless to me. I don't need to know that Sally's toilet refuses to flush the instant it doesn't flush. I'm happy to know that within a few hours, or at least, before I go to her house on an empty stomach. Of course, if I was visiting her house, she would probably be so kind as to inform me prior to my arrival, that her toilet was out of order. But really, I don't actually care to begin with.

Wait a Minute!

Now, back to the definition of real-time. In computer science, as I said, real-time systems are usually very very accurate. Not only that, but they have to perform tasks before certain deadlines. For instance, in an Ethernet network, data comes through a switch very very quickly. The bits have to be processed very very accurately, otherwise the data will be completely garbled. In this sense, the Internet has a lot of real-time systems, just to allow it to exist.

Another example of real-time computing is ABS brakes (automatic breaking system). The computer here has to monitor the traction in real-time in order to break at exactly the right moment. It cannot be off by a mere millisecond, or the car will skid (or go out of control).

Now, these annoying people that talk about this new-fangled real-time Web just don't have a clue what they are talking about. They completely misunderstand the concept of real-time. It is NOT real-time. Sure, there is quick notification, and quick response, by HUMAN standards. But none of it is mission critical, and Jack doesn't really care if it takes 25s for him to find out about the condition of Sally's toilet.

In other words, having the Web in real-time would be utterly pointless to begin with. Besides, who is at their computer watching the Web 24/7 just so they can have information "IN REAL TIME!!! ZOMG"

A much better term for the concept of quickly updated information would, in my opinion, be something like "quick-response Web" or "obsessively-voyeuristic Web" or something like that. Actually, OVW has a ring to it...

Now, another thing that annoys me about this word (probably the largest reason) is that it describes something that a lot of people consider all new and novel. The point is, there has been quickly updated and available information on the Web ever since the Web was made public. It just wasn't obsessively obsessed about by obsessive people. For instance, there have been chat rooms, and there have been other Internet protocols, like MSN, ICQ etc. which have allowed instant communication (not real-time) for donkey years.

So, really, there is nothing all that new about it. It's just a lot more impersonal than it once was, and encourages people to write a whole load of crap that they for some insignificant reason wish the world to know about.