I haven't put up a "Word-of-the-<insert time frame that best describes my random periodicity here>" in a while, so here are two, neither of which are single words:



• Parkinson's Law of Data prov. "Data expands to fill the space available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of more memory-intensive techniques. It has been observed since the mid-1980s that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to double roughly once every 18 months. Fortunately, memory density available for constant dollars also tends to about double once every 18 months (see Moore's Law); unfortunately, the laws of physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely.
  < Par: I'm sure that we've all experienced this. The more space you have, the faster it gets filled up with movies, music, games, etc. (all perfectly legal, of course) >
  



• pencil and paper n. An archaic information storage and transmission device that works by depositing smears of graphite on bleached wood pulp. More recent developments in paper-based technology include improved `write-once' update devices which use tiny rolling heads similar to mouse balls to deposit colored pigment. All these devices require an operator skilled at so-called `handwriting' technique. These technologies are ubiquitous outside hackerdom, but nearly forgotten inside it. Most hackers had terrible handwriting to begin with, and years of keyboarding tend to have encouraged it to degrade further. Perhaps for this reason, hackers deprecate pencil-and-paper technology and often resist using it in any but the most trivial contexts.
  



These are from The Jargon Dictionary in case you are interested in the bizarre terminology that computer people have come up with like PHB ("pointy-haired boss") or BOFH ("bastard operator from hell").

Fernie 2004 has been confirmed!!

Feburary 16 - 21, 2004!!!!

That is all.

yar

Yeah, I read about this worm. It's actually kind of funny/disturbing when inane stuff which points out major flaws in Windows keeps popping up; flaws that could potentially create messier problems. This worm in particular may cause your computer to crash a couple of times. It is also programmed to use your system to launch a denial-of-service attack on the Windows Update website.

If you've run windows update since the start of the month, you "should be" fine. I would scan my system with an updated anti-virus program just to make sure it's clean, too (I say would because I'm not using Windows (tee hee)). This is especially embarrassing for Microsoft because of their "Trustworthy Computing Initiative," which is now 20 months running.

(Maybe I should stop making tech posts before people start asking me questions and I can't pretend that I know what they're talking about)

hey Par (and any other tech people) you might want to take a look at this document concerning the Blaster Worm.

http://www.ualberta.ca/HELP/blasterwormremoval.txt

I got burgers... but no bread... so bring bread!!! (Pete's bbq tonight)

Man, Flash may be the media of my life. But that Star Wars stick ninja sucked donkey balls (Just like the last few movies). But that last one was pretty sweet. Anyways, just to mix it up a bit while 'sticking' with the 'ninja' theme (ahahaha) herm... do a search for 'bloodninja'. If you are familiar with the world of chatting, or just like laughing at the world of chatting, it will be pretty funny. I would give you a URL, but there are a bunch out there. Have fun!

as "phm" mehta

Not to upstage Andy and his Stick Ninja page (from what I saw, the next one looks pretty good), but this Stick flash cartoon is pretty funny.

Stick Wars

Now you're probably not saying "But Paras, isn't a Star Wars stick animation a pretty lame rip off?" because I just said it for you and you don't want to look weird by talking to the computer screen. If you were saying that, you're probably right, but this one is pretty clever. And the dialog is even more cleverly written than Attack of the Clones (not that it had a high standard to attain).

I haven't checked out much of the rest of the page, but he does have a stick ninja character that he calls "Crazy Jay". I'm sure there's room on the web for more than one Stick Ninja, though, right?

Okay Percy, here's the scoop that I've found out. I went to one link that has good information that covers the 802.11a, b, and g standards. That's CNET's Wireless Networking 101. Essentially, these are IEEE (engineering) standards of networking. The current standard is the 11b. Most people use these kinds of networks. The 11g is a newer standard that is backwards compatible with 11b, but provides better transfer rates. This was just approved by IEEE in June.

Of course, those cover only the 11 Mbps speeds. There are also the 54 Mbps ones. These are "5 times faster." Of course, this is theoretical speed. Whether or not you will notice this difference, I'm not sure. I don't want to be like Gates was way back when ("Who could possibly need more than 640k?"), but I'm not sure if, at present, you would notice a difference. Effectively, from my experience, the 11 standard works at a similar rate at good old network cable (I haven't noticed a difference.) Here's another link that details the 54g techonology:
PC-Food

If you're willing to spend the money, you will be on the cutting edge. If not, you won't be too far behind, so I'm not sure that it matters. My only piece of advice to you regarding wireless networking is make sure that it's secure. Broadcasting an unsecured gateway into your computers and to the internet is not the most brilliant of plans.

Good luck.

Yea, fight fight fight