4 ms·

Donald Knuth: "Wanted: A Name For High-Tech Grief"

13 points by krs 19y ago

pasbesoin 19y ago
I'll raise the possibility of recycling the old "e" prefix, once more. e-rage e-despair (e-spair?) It might even be applied in initially unanticipated ways. E.g. e-lag (a takeoff of jet-lag): That tired, time-shifted feeling you get from 2 am "global" meetings, without the necessity of actually getting on a plane. It also can be taken to refer to things electronic, in general. Thus it might well be retroactively applied to activities such as programming the VCR clock, and the like. Whatever the phrase that sticks, an important component will be its easy pronunciation. "Road rage", "jet-lag". Simple and with preferred syllabic structure. For more on that, google some of Theo Vennemann's (linguist) work on optimal syllabic structures (I assume its out there somewhere).
- pasbesoin 19y ago
  That was supposed to read: e-rage e-despair (e-spair?) Not all on one line. Guess I'm experiencing a little e-rage over this non-intuitive aspect of the comment editor.
- jimbokun 19y ago
  Of the ones I've read, I think e-rage has the best chance of actually catching on. You should send it to Dr. Knuth.
dfranke 19y ago
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79924 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79924
jgrahamc 19y ago
"tech strife"
- weeee 19y ago
  You can't say strife without mentioning Gonads... and Strife http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee
jsmcgd 19y ago
"Microsoft"
alaskamiller 19y ago
tek-emo: depressed about technology. bob was pretty tek-emo after his macbook battery exploded, his ipod hard drive fragged, his gmail accounts wiped, his facebook profile vandalized, and his WoW account stolen.
tsuru 19y ago
tech vex or tech tantrum
henning 19y ago
hmm, gamers use "QQ" (due to the resemblance of tears coming from eyes), often in the context of "less qq, more pew pew" to communicate a lack of empathy. Wikipedia has an entry for the term "computer rage": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_rage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_rage , which seems to have a certain amount of acceptance in the academic community, but it doesn't seem to have the ability to catch on (not going to say the m-word, not going to say the m-word...) the way "road rage" or "workaholic" do. Notice that discussing ways of reducing this frustration are not part of the discussion.
edu 19y ago
iHate

13 points by krs 19y ago

I'll raise the possibility of recycling the old "e" prefix, once more. e-rage e-despair (e-spair?) It might even be applied in initially unanticipated ways. E.g. e-lag (a takeoff of jet-lag): That tired, time-shifted feeling you get from 2 am "global" meetings, without the necessity of actually getting on a plane. It also can be taken to refer to things electronic, in general. Thus it might well be retroactively applied to activities such as programming the VCR clock, and the like. Whatever the phrase that sticks, an important component will be its easy pronunciation. "Road rage", "jet-lag". Simple and with preferred syllabic structure. For more on that, google some of Theo Vennemann's (linguist) work on optimal syllabic structures (I assume its out there somewhere).

pasbesoin 19y ago
That was supposed to read: e-rage e-despair (e-spair?) Not all on one line. Guess I'm experiencing a little e-rage over this non-intuitive aspect of the comment editor.
jimbokun 19y ago
Of the ones I've read, I think e-rage has the best chance of actually catching on. You should send it to Dr. Knuth.

dfranke 19y ago

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79924 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79924

jgrahamc 19y ago

"tech strife"

weeee 19y ago
You can't say strife without mentioning Gonads... and Strife http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee

jsmcgd 19y ago

"Microsoft"

alaskamiller 19y ago

tek-emo: depressed about technology. bob was pretty tek-emo after his macbook battery exploded, his ipod hard drive fragged, his gmail accounts wiped, his facebook profile vandalized, and his WoW account stolen.

tsuru 19y ago

tech vex or tech tantrum

henning 19y ago

hmm, gamers use "QQ" (due to the resemblance of tears coming from eyes), often in the context of "less qq, more pew pew" to communicate a lack of empathy. Wikipedia has an entry for the term "computer rage": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_rage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_rage , which seems to have a certain amount of acceptance in the academic community, but it doesn't seem to have the ability to catch on (not going to say the m-word, not going to say the m-word...) the way "road rage" or "workaholic" do. Notice that discussing ways of reducing this frustration are not part of the discussion.

edu 19y ago

iHate