What 'Tech Terms' make you cringe?

[lonewolff]

For me, the following term is up there in the 'You have got to be kidding me' range.

Webinar - A 'virtual' seminar conducted over the internet.

Webinar, how bad is that?

[jacmoe]

I don't think it gets any worse - (hopefully)

[MrD]

Progressive disclosure; I can understand the need for it, but the name just sounds unnecessarily pompous.

[Kojack]

Anything that has an "i" at the front (ipod, iphone, ipad, etc).
Although I make an exception for iriver, because the H340 is the best portable music player ever made, and they didn't call it the i340.

Also the entire IEEE 1541-2002 list of unit prefixes. I absolutely refuse to say mebibyte instead of megabyte, kibibyte instead of kilobyte, gibibyte instead of gigabyte, etc.

[lonewolff]

'e' is a similar one. Like eCommerce etc..

[xavier]

Progressive disclosure; I can understand the need for it, but the name just sounds unnecessarily pompous.

Euphemism for "need to know basis"?

Jakob Nielsen rocks.

[PolyVox]

Here's my personal favourite:

We developed several new Wii hardware specific tricks and techniques like Dynametric Light Tightening, Reframbriance, and Approxiflexion that contribute to The Conduit's performance and unique graphics style.

Taken from an interview here:http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/982/982962p2.html

Apparently these all resulted from "our engineers experience and understanding of the underlying mathematics and physical principals of light and rendering". Hmmm... Ok, then.

Really, marketing people drive me mad sometimes...

[jjp]

Here's my personal favourite:

We developed several new Wii hardware specific tricks and techniques like Dynametric Light Tightening, Reframbriance, and Approxiflexion that contribute to The Conduit's performance and unique graphics style.

What the..

[Kyle_Katarn]

We developed several new Wii hardware specific tricks and techniques like Dynametric Light Tightening, Reframbriance, and Approxiflexion that contribute to The Conduit's performance and unique graphics style.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?


And I have to agree with Kojack on the whole "i" thing. It's like them dubbing the new Vegimite flavour as the iSnack 2.0, it's to appeal to people who are just following the apple trend to make them think of their iPod, so they can buy the product.

Although I think they renamed it to cheesymite or something which sounds worse than it is...

[Kojack]

A dynameter is a device used to measure the magnification of a telescope.
Ambriance is a road in Illinois.
Flexion means bending joints.

Dynametric Light Tightening sounds like faking non linear light falloff due to quadratic light falloff being too expensive or not available.
Reframbriance sounds like reflected ambient light. (probably not related to the road)
Approxiflexion sounds like constraint relaxation used in soft body physics, or a disease.

Even if these are really cool techniques (and not just marketing speak), the names just sound fake.

Yeah, iSnack 2.0 is stupid (it was a contest to name the new flavour, that one won).

[emarcotte]

The word cloud should be abolished.

It basically means "anything having to do with computing not on my desktop." what used to be a cluster is now a 'cloud' what used to be two servers talking together on the internet using TCP is now "magical cloud activity."

Cloud can be used if referring to the weather I suppose.

[betajaen]

iSnack 2.0 sounds more of a parody, and I don't mind the term "cloud". I use it all the time.

Things I don't like:
- "i" or "e" prefixes. Unless it's Apple, but they should stop it now anyway. Apple Tablet sounds better than iPad.
- Hardware/Software companies using the abbreviation "PC" in the brand name. It's Personal Computer.
- "Tech"
- Made up words that sound real.
- Words that have a proper meaning but are not used in the correct context; Synergy, Embargo, Entropy, etc.
- Smilies!

[MrD]

iSnack 2.0 sounds more of a parody

That would be the iPotato.

[reptor]

Hmm... I guess this is a bit related... it is about abbreviations.

I got a teacher upset at an engineering school I was attending. She was giving us instructions how we should write technical reports. I got her upset by questioning why we need to do certain things certain way.

As an example: don't write 'millimetre', write 'mm'. I couldn't understand why she thought she can enforce such a rule on us. I think the readability actually improves if certain words are not abbreviated in the body text. If you have a body text with lots of abbreviations it in my opinion becomes harder to read even if you know exactly what all those abbreviations mean.

So I told her that in my opinion it is perfectly okay to write the word out and not abbreviate it in the body text. She didn't like my opinion and clearly got upset that I had dared to question her instructions. That is an attitude I say is greatly unwelcome but it is commonly seen in such contexts. Language teachers, and engineers too, do seem to get a bit too serious about their beliefs how some things should be done. It was like this particular language teacher got personally upset at me because I dared to question the instruction she was giving to the class. I didn't mean it personally but by the look and sound she took it personally that someone did not just accept what she was saying but was actually questioning it.

In general I got excellent grades for every course that required me to write technical reports and I think I couldn't be entirely wrong when I raised the point in the class that there cannot be such a strict rule that you must never write 'millimetre' as the teacher was suggesting. I thought it is non-sense and still think the same. I think she was "too close to the trees to see the forest" which I think happens very often for people who often need to deal with small details in their work and language teachers and engineers are often like that. Take a step back and a deep breath and consider perhaps that one way is not the only correct way to do something

Edit: Oh, I need to mention that that class was meant to prepare us for writing our final theses. And the person in question was going to be the one who was going to read our final theses and grade them regarding the language and formatting matters. I was concerned that she would reduce my points because of the difference in opinion and that is the reason why I was questioning her and trying to understand better why she was being so strict regarding the instructions she was giving. In the end it turned out that she would not grade my final thesis after all so the concern went away automatically.

[MrD]

"too close to the trees to see the forest"

Never heard it said like that before, I usually hear "can't see the wood for the trees"; or if you say it in my regional accent "canna see wood fort rees".

[madmarx]

Strange story about your teacher...

Anyway, in France there are many projects and firms that have the @ in their name .

Each time we got an official project, he gots the @.
P@rtage
ProIm@ge
Met@World
...

It looks like an "old internet meme".
It feels like reading "this european project was certified 2KY compliant" ... for a project that started in 2009.

Who likes b@n@n@s, anyway ?

[Kojack]

Leet speak.

SMS style massively abbreviated text. (When I send sms messages, I use full english and correct punctuation).
A guy I know is a high school teacher, some of his students were using a program that turned the number pad into a phone style sms input device, because they found the rest of the keyboard too hard. That's just depressing.

Euler. I don't mind the word itself, I just hate the way it's supposed to be pronounced. (Which is especially annoying since I teach 3d maths).

[MrD]

A guy I know is a high school teacher, some of his students were using a program that turned the number pad into a phone style sms input device, because they found the rest of the keyboard too hard. That's just depressing.

That's just... wow. Imagine programming like that, having to press each key 1 - 3 times to get the letter you wanted, you'd hope it had predictive text

Euler. I don't mind the word itself, I just hate the way it's supposed to be pronounced.

Ah yes, Mr Euler and his maths. Every time I see that, I go "Yewler", NO "Oiler"... damn it.

[Kojack]

Every time I see that, I go "Yewler", NO "Oiler"... damn it.

Exactly.
I warn my students that I'm going to mispronounce foreign mathematicians.

[lonewolff]

I have never heard the word pronounced, on written.

I always assumed it was 'yewler'.

[CABAListic]

The funny thing is, even though I'm German and would naturally pronounce the name Euler correctly in day-to-day use, when I'm reading or writing in English I 'switch' to pronouncing the name like 'yewler' in my head.

[xavier]

Web 2.0

[Kyle_Katarn]

iSnack 2.0 sounds more of a parody, and I don't mind the term "cloud". I use it all the time.

I shit you not: http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2009 ... -420x0.jpg

Web 2.0

Agreed

[betajaen]

iSnack 2.0 sounds more of a parody, and I don't mind the term "cloud". I use it all the time.

I shit you not: http://images.brisbanetimes.com.au/2009 ... -420x0.jpg

I believe you when you say it exists. When I was younger, in school and had my hair. We used to drink a lot of "Tango" (A fruity soft-drink), because of the strange adverts behind it. They were funny and appealed to our teenage sense of humour. The same with Cadbury's Cream eggs and other junk food I used/still to eat.

The iSnack 2.0 is more of a parody than a full on joke, but it's obviously working because we are talking about it, and if I had any marmite and actually liked the stuff, I'd probably have some right now.

[emarcotte]

Euler. I don't mind the word itself, I just hate the way it's supposed to be pronounced. (Which is especially annoying since I teach 3d maths).

100% agreement here. I'm "Eugene" not "oy-gene" so I'm supposed to have double-think as far as how the letters make sounds or something.