Category: technology

Submitted by Wonder Boy and Matthew

In grade school we all learn rules of capitalization. Some crazy marketers think that these rules are booooring. And so they have developed their own rules.

A nice pop culture example is Prince who titles his songs with things like “I would die for U” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”.

Corporate / Tech people do it as well:

SoftMed
LanVision
SoapVision
RatBlender
pcAnywhere

There is a name for this and they are called studlycaps. Here is the definition:
“A hackish form of silliness similar to BiCapitalization for trademarks, but applied randomly and to arbitrary text rather than to trademarks. ThE oRigiN and SigNificaNce of thIs pRacTicE iS oBscuRe.”

If you are interested in what BiCapitalization is, see:

– www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/studlycaps.html
– www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/BiCapitalization.html
– www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/marketroid.html
– www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/J/Jeff-K-.html

The Jargon File has all sorts of interesting Hacker lore.

Submitted by Wonder Boy

One of the many pangs of moving involves switching your phone number for the new city that you live in. Apparently the person who had my number before I moved to Cincy was a very, very bad man. I want to give you some information on him and then maybe you can help me figure out who he is…like a detective story!

Week 1:
I get about a phone call everyday from a law office looking to speak with Alfonsi *#^*@&^! (names have been changed to protect the innocent…actually I don’t remember his last name). Apparently he had some legal problems where his attorney was looking for him as well as the law. I never called the attorney back as I was worried that I might be named an accomplice in whatever he was doing.

Week 2:
While still getting the phone calls from week 1 I start getting another string of phone calls from a bill collector that leaves the same boring pre-recorded message on my voice mail, once, sometimes twice, a day. “Hi, this is Barbara SvenGlamerham…this is an important call and I need to speak with an adult of the household by 5 pm today”. Thinking that this is a call to consolidate my mortgage or to purchase vinyl siding I call “Barb” back and not so politely blast her (actually it wasn’t her it was some other operator) for blowing up my phone for the last week. The rep on the phone was actually quite sweet and later I felt bad for calling her a filthy telemarketing bottom feeder. She explained that Alfonsi hadn’t been very good at paying his bills (she wasn’t a bill collector) and they were looking to collect. After convincing her that Alfonsi and I were not living together and I didn’t know his whereabouts either she apologized. This happened with a few other creditors and random bill collectors. Shortly after the phone calls ended.

Jump to present:
Just as I thought Alfonsi was out of my life forever I got a call yesterday from Krogers. “This call is for Alfonsi *#^*@&^!. Reference number blah bla blah bla blah”. I quickly called them back and explained again that I had never known Alfonsi nor was I aware of his current whereabouts. This time Alfonsi had written a bad check (or twenty) to Krogers while purchasing Rice a Roni, a can of Easy Cheese and 13 Slim Jims (actually I am not really sure if that is what he purchased, but I’d rather fantasize that he purchased such delicacies). I explained to her that I have never known an Alfonsi or this Alfonsi, but I did mention that this Alfonsi was a bad, bad man. She apologized for the inconvenience and removed my number from his file.

I am not sure where Alfonsi is or if he truly is permanently out of my life. I hope that someday he is able to pay off his debt, make himself right with the law and legitimately buy dehydrated beef jerky products with cash.

I am a big fan of when tech guys refer to their multiple boxes. It’s both stupid and perverted sounding. (For those of you who are not geeks, a box, I think, is a computer and some people have more than one on their desk and switch between them.)

One-upping the ridiculousness of the word, is a self-acknowledged tech geek who sits by me explaining to me that the actual plural of the word is boxen. The geek shall remain nameless to protect him.

I am now on the All Porn, All The Time email list. I don’t know why or how it happens, but I get at least 12 a day. I can’t block them because they come from obscure email addresses, which change hourly. The subject of today’s email:

Biggie size your dink.

Dink’s just a new one for me so I thought I would share.