Bonum Certa Men Certa

2019 Tech Glossary

A de facto fallacy.

A dictionary



Summary: This clavis refers to what the de facto definition may be, based on how (and when) media uses the words nowadays

Cloud: server you don't control or own Serverless: server you cannot even access Smart: surveillance Big Data: surveillance using "cloud" (see above) Assistant: surveillance using a small device Speaker: microphone, sometimes "smart" (see above) because it sends audio streams to a "cloud" Open Source: may contain freely-accessible source code for some portions of the product Free: temporarily accessible free of charge (also known as bait) API: access point for surveillance AI: algorithm that collects data 4IR: something new or needing to sound novel App: proprietary, contained software that limits what users can do DevOp: overworked software developer you can wake up at any time of the day (and night) or sysadmin you can ask to code Security: national security, i.e. back doors, but not too many (or not too obvious) Standards: means for passing surveillance data (or "big data") around Community Edition: see "Free" above Enterprise Edition/Enterprise Software: proprietary software Foundation: a corporate front group for PR/lobbying purposes (e.g. Mozilla Foundation, Linux Foundation) Privacy: GUI controls to give people a perception of control over data Inclusiveness: corporate posturing for the appearance of tolerance or disregard for technical merit/quality in pursuit thereof Openness: friendliness towards business, profit Values: personification of corporations, ascribing feelings and ideologies to a collective of shareholders Agile: more managers and bureaucrats, less of the rest Self-driving: driven by corporations instead of people Innovation: patent monopolies that give market exclusivity IoT: devices with security holes in them (see security above) Engagement: puff piece or AstroTurfing Review: shipping of a product to someone with a site (or access to one) in exchange for an advertisement that looks like an article Sponsorship: bribe Keynote: exchanged for sponsorship (see above) Manager: non-technical person who can leverage ignorance to overrule technical people who voice concerns about ethics

And now it's readers' turn to come up with more.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Passkeys Are Vendor Lock-in and Imperialism, Not Security, So Escape Them Before They Latch Onto Your Workflows
This is their 'grand vision' of computing. You merely 'rent' what you assumed you truly bought to own.
Microsoft Says Demand/Budget for "AI" is Decreasing, Bing is Also Moving Down and Down This Year ("Bing Chat" Was an Utter Failure, People Want Sites, Not Slop)
Skype is about to shut down, XBox will likely die soon
Data Shows Largest EU Economies Shifting to GNU/linux
all-time highs
Microsoft President Panics Over Europe's Abandonment of Microsoft/GAFAM/Trump's USA, These Figures Show Us Why
Microsoft is bluffing
Microsoft Windows Falls Below Quarter in "Market Share" (While Microsoft Fakes Rising Dominance... in Buzzwords and Fake Accounting)
Cooking the books while Windows gets 'cooked'
Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues
Good News, Bad News: Groklaw is Back Online, SoylentNews Apparently Loses Editor
Jan ought to change the resignation into a mere pause
 
Links 03/05/2025: Australian Election and manpage for Gemini Considered
Links for the day
Links 03/05/2025: UK Arrests for Bribery Connected to Microsoft Datacentres
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 02, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 02, 2025
Not Just an OSU Open Source Lab Issue
Prominent and very prolific news sites about Linux ask for help
GNU/Linux Has Risen to All-Time High in South America, Windows Has Fallen a Lot Due to Android
What will the rest of the year bring?
Richard Stallman (RMS) Says US "Magats" Have Destroyed Press Freedom in the US
Now they're exporting their attacks on the media to the UK
In Africa, GNU/Linux Rose From 3% to 4% in Just Two Months
So says statCounter anyway... What will it be like by the end of this year?
Gemini Links 02/05/2025: Bandcamp and Spying "Smart Glasses"
Links for the day
Asia is Running Away From USA-ware (Trump or 'Tariff Regime'), Including Microsoft Windows
The nationalism harms Microsoft
Links 02/05/2025: Expedia Group Undergoes Layoffs, Twitter Exodus in Europe
Links for the day
Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) Made the First GNU/Linux Distro, But You Probably Never Heard of It
People like Owen are barely remembered, not because they didn't do valuable work but because they didn't suck up to "The Establishment"
Online Mobs and Crabs: Doing to Fabrice Bellard What They Did to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds
They just don't want skilled people to be productive
E-mail is Not HTML, Web Pages Aren't a Form of E-mail
as an associate remains us, always use "plain text, it was good enough for Shakespeare"
Slopwatch: Stigma-Baiting by the Serial Sloppers and Latest Garbage From the Slopfarm LinuxSecurity.com (Also Slopping Away at "OpenBSD" With SEO SPAM Made by LLMs)
Microsoft et al are trying to profit from blurring away information
Links 02/05/2025: Mineral Selloff and Chinese Sanctions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/05/2025: Hens and Tmux
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 01, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 01, 2025
Gopher/Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Slop/LLM Bot Troubles and Driving Angry
Links for the day
Links 01/05/2025: Apple Lies to Courts, European Patents Thrown Out by British Courts Again
Links for the day
Microsoft's CEO is Hyping Up 'AI' (Plagiarism) to Distract From Falling Interest in It and Missed Expectations (Investors Run Out of Patience as Reality Does Not Meet or Match Early False Promises)
Microsoft clearly needs 1) a distraction and 2) hype about "AI"
No, Microsoft, Plagiarism is Not "AI"
"Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by AI"
Microsoft Has Become Almost Extinct in Web Servers, Netcraft Now Ranks It in Only One Category (Microsoft Down Sharply), Deranked/Outranked in All the Rest
Microsoft used to be in all categories, now it's in just one
Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Small Web and Going Offline
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Hundred of Layoffs Again, Same Week as the Company's Fake Results
those people were in effect Microsoft employees, just classified as contractors
Sirius Open Source in Court
I personally was a witness and an alibi
What GNU/Linux Means to Us
Linux without freedom is like becoming a vegetarian "except on special occasions"
Links 01/05/2025: Slop Blowback, Social Control Media as Vehicle of "Sextortion"
Links for the day
Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
Some of the Evidence We'll Be Relying Upon in the Lawsuits Against Matthew J. Garrett
Finally facing the consequences for his actions
Symptom or Hallmark of Ponzi Schemes: Microsoft Says It Gains Over 100 Million Dollars in "Goodwill" and Its Speculative "Value" Nearly Doubled to $119,329,000,000 in the Past Year Alone
Total liabilities are now over $240,000,000,000
Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Trying OpenBSD and Usenet Reborn Released
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 30, 2025