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When PC terms start becoming regular terms of daily speech.

By on September 30, 2008 5:25:57 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

It really hit me today when reading a postmortem sign written by my 6 yo after his older sister broke his boogie board. "Here lies terminatorII, Because my sister BSOD it."  I couldnt help but chuckle to see him use A PC term more befittingly.

 

Any one else noticing the trend toward common PC terms being incorporated in to daily conversation? Or have any stories about comical use of PC terms?

+332 Karma | 40 Replies
September 30, 2008 5:29:37 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

My wife and I were at the market reading the back of a box of cereal.  Her had was in my way so, without thinking about it, I asked her to "scroll down".  We both laughed.

Another time, we were sitting on the couch watching the tube when she said something cute and I said out loud, "Me huggles Susan".  [e digicons]8(|[/e]

I don't think she was paying attention because she diddn't say anything and I know that if I explained I'd have to restrict my IRC usage. 

September 30, 2008 5:30:40 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

I can't say I've experienced that so much as my 3 teens using l33t-speak (or whatever it happens to be called these days!)

I've taken to fighting fire with fire though, and my three kids are now known as.....

noob

nooblet

and nub!

...around the house anyway!  hehe   (I have on occasion "slipped" while in public...) 

 

the Monk

September 30, 2008 5:43:27 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

I use leet and noob all the time

September 30, 2008 6:07:50 PM from JoeUser Forums JoeUser Forums

My little brothers call each other noobs when they do something stupid - it makes me laugh so hard, I think that's why I let them come over so much.  It's interesting the way that they're computer literate at that age.

It's also more than a little scary.

September 30, 2008 10:14:40 PM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

I actually have a variation on the theme. In this case it's a matter of how a computer term that I thought was fairly universally well known can be misconstrued.

This happened about 10 years ago when I was designing Alpha workstations for the now defunct Digital Equipment Corp. Alpha workstations were designed to run Unix, VMS and NT and other than processor and core chipset differences, they pretty much used the same peripheral components as a standard PC of the day.

Anyway, I was having some difficulty bringing up my latest design and over dinner with my wife I realized that the problem I had been having was probably due to CMOS losing power. I mentioned this to my wife, who although is particularly clueless regarding PC's, otherwise has an excellent memory, so I asked her to remind me about the CMOS before I went to work the next day.

So the next day when leaving for work my wife handed me an index card with the following note.

Don't forget the Sea Moss.

It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I have no clue as to what possible connection she thought Sea Moss had to my work but clearly she had no idea of what CMOS is.

Of course nowadays all your boot settings are kept in Flash and there's no need for battery backed CMOS so people under 30 might not even recognize the term but I assume there are a few codgers out there that know what I'm talking about.

September 30, 2008 10:56:41 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

people under 30 might not even recognize the term but I assume there are a few codgers out there that know what I'm talking about.

OK...I'm a codger....

September 30, 2008 11:17:38 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

I assume there are a few codgers out there that know what I'm talking about.

 

ROFL..  I join the ranks of the old codgers.

September 30, 2008 11:46:27 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Of course nowadays all your boot settings are kept in Flash and there's no need for battery backed CMOS so people under 30 might not even recognize the term but I assume there are a few codgers out there that know what I'm talking about.

Hey - I'm sub 30!!! (For another month and a few days...)

October 1, 2008 12:46:10 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

 

damn.....thought counting myself among the ranks of the "codgers" wouldn't be for quite some time......but if that's all it takes guess I was wrong! 

October 1, 2008 1:19:43 AM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

i'm always saying peeps

October 1, 2008 3:12:42 AM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

Speaking of Sea Moss,

I had a guy come into my (ex)shop with his non booting PC.

When asked what the problem was he replied

"It wont boot, I`ve tried everything,  I`ve even reset the CosMos back to the default settings !"

 

October 1, 2008 5:16:03 AM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

A friend of mine will at times say L O L instead of laughing.....Which brings to question...why am i still friends with this guy....oh yeah, the mini bar he has.....

October 1, 2008 7:42:20 AM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

What's amusing is that my Geography teacher uses "BC/AD" in her speech and "BCE/ACE" in her slide presentations.

Oh, wrong PC .

I've often heard the word "google" used as a generic replacement for "search."

UNIX people seem to be obsessed with the word "grok."

"noob" is popular among the gamers.

I have no clue as to what possible connection she thought Sea Moss had to my work but clearly she had no idea of what CMOS is.

She's just putting in words what she heard at the table, lol.

October 1, 2008 8:05:30 AM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

My wife often complains of "input overload" .......

now that read what I typed......it kinda sounds dirty.

 

 

October 1, 2008 8:18:01 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

I've often heard the word "google" used as a generic replacement for "search."

Yeah, 'google' might as well be a common slang now.

Myself, I'm guilty of using "afk" - admittedly, usually over voice chat on the PC, so I'm not sure how much that counts.

Another time, we were sitting on the couch watching the tube when she said something cute and I said out loud, "Me huggles Susan". 

Most of my real-life friends are gamers, and among us we've gotten to saying "Slash yawn" and the like out loud, to mimic some generic emotes found in games.

October 1, 2008 9:34:51 AM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

My wife often complains of "input overload" .......

now that read what I typed......it kinda sounds dirty.

Didn't think it was dirty when I first read it... but now that you mention it.

October 1, 2008 2:37:04 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

Well, I realize the grossness of what I'm about to say, but when my wife yelled thru our house the other day asking where I was, I was on the pot, having a BM. I told her I was downloading...  

October 1, 2008 3:33:50 PM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

Quoting Mumblefratz,

Of course nowadays all your boot settings are kept in Flash and there's no need for battery backed CMOS so people under 30 might not even recognize the term but I assume there are a few codgers out there that know what I'm talking about.

 

I recognize the term from another msgboard, along with CMOS flasher- aka a piece of malware that will give you a computer that can't be booted.

 

I have no idea what "Flash" is, though. Unless it's from Macromedia/Adobe.

October 1, 2008 3:43:51 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

My old PC terminology is very rusty, but I believe the term 'flash' in this instance refers to basically erasing the info contained in the CMOS that's needed for the PC to boot up.

AFAIK, the CMOS is a circuit on the motherboard that stores some system settings and things like the system clock (which is why when you shut off your PC and power it back up it still shows the right time).

It's been too long since I took hardware design classes

October 1, 2008 7:49:15 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Goodness. I've been a codger for half a decade now.

For some reason, I just can't stand when somebody actually says or writes something like "lol". On a computer, fine. Off of one, it just seems really strange to me.

I did nearly crack up when my writing teacher handed me my essay with lol scrawled on the side.

 

October 1, 2008 7:50:51 PM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

I have no idea what "Flash" is, though. Unless it's from Macromedia/Adobe.
Flash memory is non volatile RAM which means it retains its contents when power is removed. Flash memory can support a limited number of write/erase cycles, typically 100K, before operation is no longer guaranteed. Flash memory is the technology that enables USB drives and memory cards.

CMOS is a circuit on the motherboard
Technically CMOS is merely a Complementary MOSFET or Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor. The point about a MOSFET is that the input signal (the gate) only causes the channel (the source to drain conduction path) to either conduct or not and in the ideal case requires no gate current (of course there is some leakage current on the order of microamp's or in some cases 100's of nanoamps).

Complementary refers to the implementation of a push-pull output stage that consists of a parallel N and P channel MOSFET, one connected between power and the output and the other connected between the output and ground. Since only one transistor is on at any one time there is no conduction path between power and ground within the device itself and therefore CMOS dissipates very little power. The only power dissipated is when the input changes and is proportional to the input frequency, however compared to BiPolar devices is probably an order of magnitude less.

CMOS is actually an entire technology of low power semiconductor devices that are the basis for probably 95% of every electronic component that exists. At the time the term CMOS became a "PC" term it was a slow technology that was used only when low power was a requirement as in a battery powered application. Since then it has pretty much become the standard.

Is this geeky enough for you?

October 1, 2008 8:07:34 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

You win, but you do it for a living

October 1, 2008 8:09:40 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

Is this geeky enough for you?

Pretty much....

Jafo is all geeked-out now...

October 1, 2008 8:44:25 PM from WinCustomize Forums WinCustomize Forums

Is this geeky enough for you?

 

Totally geekalicious..

October 1, 2008 9:05:55 PM from GalCiv II Forums GalCiv II Forums

Quoting kapkao,

I recognize the term from another msgboard, along with CMOS flasher- aka a piece of malware that will give you a computer that can't be booted.

I have no idea what "Flash" is, though. Unless it's from Macromedia/Adobe.

I this case "flash" actually refers to a much older form of CMOS chip, you used to delete the data on it by "flashing" it with a UV light pulse through a clear plate on the chip.  The term was later carried over to include chips that were deleted by electric pulses as well, which is what the virus CMOS flasher used to do.

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