I just found out about Alex St. John’s ridiculous article on VentureBeat claiming that developers who object to working uncompensated overtime have “a wage-slave attitude”. Ummm, what? It sounds like he’s trying to use emotional terms and “snarl words” to make people think that “whatever a ‘wage slave attitude’ is, it must be bad!” But look […]
Tag Archives: terminology
“In a Wheelchair” Doesn’t Mean “Paraplegic”
Tuesday, February 9th, 2016 – 9:31 am
A lot of people get surprised any time someone in a wheelchair manages to stand up or walk a few steps. Somewhere along the way, the idea got popularized: if someone’s in a wheelchair, their legs are flat-out paralyzed. They’re physically incapable of standing, and they probably can’t even sense anything below the waist. Well, that’s […]
Let’s Unpack “Professional Victims”
Thursday, January 14th, 2016 – 8:12 am
The only thing more annoying than a phrase that’s overused to the point of cliché is when that overused phrase isn’t even remotely accurate — and in fact, borders on completely nonsensical. The one I’ve heard far too many times in the past year is the all-purpose favorite of Red Pillers, MRAs, GamerGaters, and other defenders […]
Singularities Aren’t Just In the Future
Saturday, May 18th, 2013 – 3:10 pm
In my first post about the Singularity, I rummaged through various possible definitions for “what the hell does ‘Singularity’ even mean, anyway?” On my list of five options, number 2 was: “A time when when technological progress goes so fast that we people before it can’t predict it (or what comes after it).” But this means that […]
“That’s So… TwenCen”
Saturday, October 27th, 2012 – 4:23 pm
A couple of weeks ago, on my way to work, my attention was caught by the SF Examiner‘s headline, about a local political scandal. It seemed like something out of The Front Page. Alternative weeklies still seem to have a place (though I can’t put my finger on why), but I suddenly looked at the institution […]
Say It Short
Friday, October 28th, 2011 – 7:12 pm
Remember when the movie 2010: Odyssey Two came out? There was a simple, easy way to say it: We all called it “Twenty-Ten”. And for a few decades, folks like Terence McKenna have been warning about what might happen in the year 2012, and we all thought of it as “twenty-twelve”. These things are short, […]
Google+ Doesn’t Want “Real” Names. They Want WASPonyms.
Friday, August 19th, 2011 – 7:52 pm
Three pieces of news lately about Google+ make it clear that when Google claims they want you to use your “real” name, it’s a load of hooey. First off, a legally mononymous Australian journalist named Stilgherrian was told he couldn’t use that name — his actual, legal name — on Google+. He was not at all pleased, […]
A “Blog” Is a Whole Bunch of Posts
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 – 2:13 pm
This is rapidly becoming one of my pet peeves, right up there with misuse of the word “literally”: This thing I’m writing right now? This single entry in my blog? This isn’t “a blog”. It’s “an entry” or “a post”. Sort of like that piece of paper in a book is a page, not a […]