crocking
Some technical terms
Archive for Technology
Introduction and rhyme production
Hi, I’m S. You may vaguely remember me from such comments as “I think it’s good to be aware of the peculiar rules of the Pretentious Pedant dialect of English” and Eleanor Heffalump’s double-dactyl, which were written under the name of “Shmuel” before I came out as nonbinary and changed my handle. (It turns out […]
The old side-eye
Only peripherally about words, or for that matter stuff.
Sideways Dictionary: Like Urban Dictionary, but for tech analogies
CRAPCHA
sectional (and yak-shaving)
Ah, yak-shaving. I was curious about the use of the word “sectional” in Civil War-era documents; that's not a usage I had encountered before. So here's how looking up a...
Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony
Someone mentioned the Emmy Awards the other day, and I realized I wasn't sure why they were called that. I figured they must have been named after some famous person...
arsy-tansy
Not long ago, I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (in a printed copy, on paper—the relevance of which I'll explain later), and was struck by this...
Obsolescism: taping
Way back in 1997, I introduced the term “obsolescism” to refer to a term or phrase (like “dialing” a telephone) that has lost its literal meaning but hasn't yet become...
Typeface: Face recognition and generative type
Video demo of a nifty project called Typeface 2 by Mary Huang. It analyzes the user's face and generates letters of a typeface based on things like the user opening...