Month: August 2003

You know, for a guy who carries a Powerbook around a good chunk of the time, a digital camera most of the time, writes his own Palm software, and maintains a blog, I’m a little behind on my geeky must-reads. Luckily, as I settle into full-time work and move away from freelance — which actually seems to be giving me more free time, I’ll be able to do some catching up on…

• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. It’s doubly shameful that I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, since I’m both a geek and Filipino. Big thanks to Emma Jane for giving me her hardcopy edition!
• Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties and Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Also a shame, because at Crazy Go Nuts University, I was the go-to guy for cyberpunk.

I’m also catching up on my popular culture criticism reading:

• Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism by Daniel Harris
• Welcome to the Jungle: The Why Behind “Generation X” by Geoffrey T. Holtz.

First, there was Amborse Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary, and later, Stan Kelley-Bootle’s computer-related twist, The Devil’s DP Dictionary. Now, Greg Knauss has created The Devil’s Dictionary 2.0, a lovely skewering of terms you’ve heard in the blogosphere (he even dumps on the term blogosphere!). He seems to be adding new entries whenever the inspiration strikes.

Some examples:

Anti-Idiotarian, noun: Idiot. “That Eric Raymond is quite an anti-idiotarian.”

BigCo, noun: A successful software company.

blogosphere, noun: An poisonous environment of methane, self-satisfaction and other hot gasses. “The only creatures that can survive in the blogosphere are low-order molds, able to feed off the waste of others.”

flash mob, noun: An impromptu gathering, organized by means of electronic communication, of the unemployed.

This one is my favourite:

social software, noun: Any arbitrary collection of algorithms, protocols and metadata that allows friendless agoraphobics to pretend otherwise. “I’m having trouble deciding which node in my social software network I’m going to ask to the e-prom.”

Recommended Reading

Here’s the etymology of the non-word Anti-Idiotarian.

Dave Winer likes to throw around the term BigCo, which is a conglomeration of Big and Company.

I saw Freddy Vs. Jason on Monday. Not because I was planning on seeing it, but because I got invited, last-minute style, by friends I hadn’t seen in a while: Ed Leung and Mike Wise (yes, as in the CBC reporter), two friends of mine from Crazy Go Nuts University, and Ed’s girlfriend Jenn.

I have this to report about the movie:

• In my opinion, the fight between Freddy and Jason ends in a draw.
• Those are precious brain cells and moments of my life I will never get back.

…to Doc Searls, the adult supervision of the blogosphere. His mom passed away yesterday at the age of 90. My heart and prayers go out to him and his family.