[NTLUG:Discuss] IMOCKYOU, or: MAKE.MOCKERY.NOW!!!

[Doug Shaw]

At 02:46 PM 5/4/00 -0500, Buddy Brannan wrote:

>Now maybe someone knows the answer to this, but whose bright idea was the
>term "bumped off"? As in, "I was on the Innernet and in the past few
>minutes, I've been bumped off by your server seventy-three thousand five
>hundred and forty-eight times!" 

Everybody can be mocked.  For example, whose idea was it to refer to ideas
as "bright?"  I was unaware that luminescence was an attribute of ideas.

The phrase "bumped off" is being used like the phrase "knocked off" to
refer to the state of their connection to the Internet.  The connection can
also be "dropped" or "broken," although neither of these is any more
accurate than "bumped."

But if we're going to be pedantic, let's be completely pedantic.  Instead
of saying ("typing") that they're being "bumped off," they should say
("type") that they've been "disconnected."  But WAIT!  THEY aren't
connected at all!  Their modem ("modulator/demodulating device") is
connected and IT is being disconnected or "bumped off."  Heck, to be
completely factual, THEY aren't even "on" the Internet!  ("On" is a
misleading term... better to say "connected to.")

If they aren't "connected to" the Internet, why are they calling technical
support ("assistance" would be a better choice of words)?  And why are you
paid to provide assistance to someone who isn't "connected to" the Internet?

Face it, if the people we mock knew enough to avoid being mocked, we'd be
unemployed.  Everybody would be pretty self-reliant when it came to
computers and there wouldn't be such a demand for "specialists."

So we'd move on to other fields where people weren't so self-reliant.  But
the same rules apply.

To make this post vaguely on-topic (not really "on"), consider that the
name Linux is a hybridization of "Linus' Unix."  But now that the majority
of Linux development work is being done by other people, is that name
really accurate?  We should rename it to "Worldix" or "Earthux" or
"Globlix" to more accurately reflect its modern status.

Having depleted my supply of figuratively sarcastic stones, I'm going to
retire to my figuratively sarcastic glass house.  Good day!

Doug