What's a tech term you hate?

[da na]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Heh.  Once upon a time that was an absurdly fast machine.  The last Mac desktop I bought was an 840av that was terribly proud of its massive 40mhz

Even crazier - that's in a laptop. 

Battery life was bad even when it was new, but that's understandable for a machine with that CPU, an active matrix display, ATI Rage VGA and Sound Blaster 16... 

[Rusty Proto]

On 9/10/2021 at 8:52 AM, HelpfulTechWizard said:

But if you have the twitter app, on your phone, twitter is an app.

And the website isnt great anyways, so really, app is the the only option.

I would argue you on that one as a user of both. I have since deleted the app and began just using the site. The only thing the app appears to do is spy on you and provide notifcations

[YoungBlade]

19 minutes ago, Rusty Proto said:

I would argue you on that one as a user of both. I have since deleted the app and began just using the site. The only thing the app appears to do is spy on you and provide notifcations

But Proto! They're just trying to "enhance your user experience." Losing privacy and having less control over your experience is a small price to pay.

 

If the service works fine in a browser, that's always better. Browsers give you an extra layer between you and the service that allows you to have better control of everything. Things like that are why I disabled the YouTube app on my phone. Playing YouTube in Firefox lets me use ad-block and enable playing videos in the background and while the screen is off.

[Commodus]

Old-school tech term beef: "interactive multimedia."

 

There was a large chunk of the 1990s (particularly the middle) where developers insisted on slapping the "interactive multimedia" description on any software that included a bit of video (sometimes audio), whether it was a game or an encyclopedia. Aside from overuse, it did create real problems where game creators and others would lean too much on video simply to ride that bandwagon. I remember one game, Maabus, where the big hook (and really the only hook) was that it came on three CDs because of the sheer amount of media involved.

 

Thankfully, that term lost much of its strength as rich media became par for the course. You can play games on your phone that have far more lavish productions than those early "interactive multimedia CD-ROM" games.

[Rusty Proto]

On 9/11/2021 at 10:16 AM, Commodus said:

Old-school tech term beef: "interactive multimedia."

 

There was a large chunk of the 1990s (particularly the middle) where developers insisted on slapping the "interactive multimedia" description on any software that included a bit of video (sometimes audio), whether it was a game or an encyclopedia. Aside from overuse, it did create real problems where game creators and others would lean too much on video simply to ride that bandwagon. I remember one game, Maabus, where the big hook (and really the only hook) was that it came on three CDs because of the sheer amount of media involved.

 

Thankfully, that term lost much of its strength as rich media became par for the course. You can play games on your phone that have far more lavish productions than those early "interactive multimedia CD-ROM" games.

I remember that game, and The Journeyman Project as well. They were still trying to figure out full motion video during that time, as well as how to at least somewhat use it.

On 9/11/2021 at 10:16 AM, Commodus said:

On 9/11/2021 at 9:48 AM, YoungBlade said:

But Proto! They're just trying to "enhance your user experience." Losing privacy and having less control over your experience is a small price to pay.

 

If the service works fine in a browser, that's always better. Browsers give you an extra layer between you and the service that allows you to have better control of everything. Things like that are why I disabled the YouTube app on my phone. Playing YouTube in Firefox lets me use ad-block and enable playing videos in the background and while the screen is off.

 

Same. I notice no real difference between mobile Twitter and "the app" aside from just not having notifications, which for someone who doesn't exactly live on the platform, isn't that much of a loss. ...and the way YouTube seems to use ads pretty much gets in their own way. The only thing I can think of to make ads on such a platform at least somewhat tolerable, is to educate the content makers on how to make their content around ads, such as by using primers, and just when to expect them. It's hard to watch a video when being interrupted every couple minutes by ads without warning. Could this be a good subject for a LTT video?

[Jaesop]

On 9/9/2021 at 10:18 AM, Bombastinator said:

It will work of course.  The issue is games don’t work quite like a lot of other types of software . They’re extremely flow rate sensitive. So flow rate sensitive the standard methodology is to create a software frame buffer just to smooth out that stuff.  The question of use it fine vs use it fine for gaming are different things.  Momentary hitches and skewed flow can be a massive problem in games where another type of app might not even notice. The key work I think is “need” people don’t “need” video games at all generally.   Remove video game play from personal computers and requirements go way down.  This is why people talk about PCs vs gaming PCs.  Will no man’s sky run on my machine at 1080p?  Sure.  But there are hitches.  Hitches that if it were a PvP shooter would probably get me “killed”.   It’s not one though and when the frame rates drop momentarily it doesn’t matter all that much.  There is an opening starfield scene every time no-man’s-sky opens where one smoothly flies past a bunch of stars.  It is not smooth on my machine.  There are noticeable stutters which happen, I assume, as the buffer empties and has to wait for the next frame. It makes such things easy to spot though.  It’s a tolerance thing.  I can tolerate it because of the type of game it is and such things don’t bug me all that much. There are those who can’t though.  If it was a different type of game I might not be able to.

 

The 4770k machine isn’t my only one. I’ve got a “backup” in the form of an lga775 machine which is much older even than that.  Will it game?  Not really.  It will get me on the internet and do various other things fine though.  It’s 4/4. A higher end lga775. For internet tasks it is “fine”. 

No idea how that's relevant to what I said.

[whm1974]

I find those who call a computers Hard drives, and Displays Computers to really annoying...

 

It drove me nuts back in the Early 90's when Computer/Programing Teachers kept referring to Personal Computers as the CPU.... The same with Storage to Memory...

 

The Former doesn't any sense. The Later makes Folks sound Outdated...

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Jaesop said:

No idea how that's relevant to what I said.

The issue I think is gaming vs nongaming.  Because this is a site largely about computer games there is an assumption that computer gaming is being discussed.  If you’re not talking about playing modern video games, sure.  For the internet it gets harder because of security.  You could run an antique computer built for win98, and you could even attach it to a network.  Ethernet protocols have been around for a long time.  It wouldn’t be safe though.  So while such a machine might be able to play a DVD movie, actually attaching it to the internet to run Netflix or something is more or less asking to be PWNed in minutes.  It’s not safe.  For non-gaming non internet stuff? Sure.  There’s an argument.  Word processing was done in the early 80’s

 

There are games designed for lower speed lower thread count machines.  I saw a thing once where someone ran doom on a disposable pregnancy test.  I’ve owned desktop computers that weren’t fast enough to run doom that I wrote papers with.  Doom1 isn’t much like a modern game though.  If all one is doing is watching movies and editing text files sure.  I’d add browsing the internet though that has gotten a bit tougher.  Rich text everywhere and JavaScript changed that a bit.  Still within the capacity of the machines you name.  I no longer own any machines that lack such power but I have owned them.  Does one strictly speaking NEED more than 2 threads for much of what most people do most of the time? No.  I wouldn’t be surprised if a discord client could be written for a pentium3.  If you’re willing to run only one app at a time and you aren’t running apps with heavy needs, it’s true.  I’m currently attempting to repair a bent pin on an lga775 machine. It’s my backup.  I plan to put win10 on it and run the puppy. I bought it originally as a gaming machine.  It’s pretty fast for an lga775 from 2008.  500x faster than the machine I owned in the mid 80’s.  I even played games on it.  They weren’t the same kind of games.  Monochrome 2d things with resolutions so low you could count the steps in the jaggies at a glance, but games.  The lga775 thing worked too.  It will run games built to exist within its specs.  3d games with textures and stuff.  Not modern ones though.  Games like that haven’t been made in a long time.  They’re hard to even find anymore.  4/4 machines will run games built for PS3 and some PS4 stuff.  The machine I have now is 4/8, and will run games built for PS4 and some ps5 stuff.  Not all of it. It’s not quite obsolete yet for gaming. It will get there though just as other systems have before it.  Will that 4/4 machine serve as a useful backup? Sure.  I can run a modern safe to use OS on it and do most everything I even want to.  Will it run cyberpunk2077? Maybe.  At what is often termed “slide show” fps.  At speeds usable to play the game though? Ohellno. 
 

The term I see used these days is “potato”. My current isn’t a potato yet.  My backup is potato though.  It will do potato things.  Often that’s all I actually need to do. It will answer email and browse websites.  Some people don’t need more than potato.  Tech is an escalator that doesn’t stop though.  My current machine will require an OS change in 5 years just to keep doing potato things if it will even still be able to.  

Edited September 14, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Avocado Diaboli]

This one might be hard to follow for you native English speakers, but I hate the term CPU. Not when used while speaking or writing English, just if it's used during conversations in another language that already has a perfectly acceptable word that could be used instead of a foreign initialism. I have a coworker who constantly uses it, even though the word "Prozessor" exists in German and everybody knows what's meant by it (yes, I'm aware that "processor" is a generic term that can refer to a variety of things, context matters). Similarly, he uses HDD instead of "Festplatte". And the worst thing is that he sounds out these initialisms with how the letters are called in German. It just sounds so dumb. And the interesting thing I've noted is that this only happens with people who don't regularly work with computers. Every IT person I know uses the regular German expressions. 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

This one might be hard to follow for you native English speakers, but I hate the term CPU. Not when used while speaking or writing English, just if it's used during conversations in another language that already has a perfectly acceptable word that could be used instead of a foreign initialism. I have a coworker who constantly uses it, even though the word "Prozessor" exists in German and everybody knows what's meant by it (yes, I'm aware that "processor" is a generic term that can refer to a variety of things, context matters). Similarly, he uses HDD instead of "Festplatte". And the worst thing is that he sounds out these initialisms with how the letters are called in German. It just sounds so dumb. And the interesting thing I've noted is that this only happens with people who don't regularly work with computers. Every IT person I know uses the regular German expressions. 

There can be really unfortunate things that can happen with direct language translation.  Especially with acronyms and slang. 

[YoungBlade]

14 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

This one might be hard to follow for you native English speakers, but I hate the term CPU. Not when used while speaking or writing English, just if it's used during conversations in another language that already has a perfectly acceptable word that could be used instead of a foreign initialism. I have a coworker who constantly uses it, even though the word "Prozessor" exists in German and everybody knows what's meant by it (yes, I'm aware that "processor" is a generic term that can refer to a variety of things, context matters). Similarly, he uses HDD instead of "Festplatte". And the worst thing is that he sounds out these initialisms with how the letters are called in German. It just sounds so dumb. And the interesting thing I've noted is that this only happens with people who don't regularly work with computers. Every IT person I know uses the regular German expressions. 

That sort of thing annoys me, too, but for a very different reason. When I'm listening to tech videos in French to practice my French, and the presenter suddenly says "SSD" (pronounced as the letters are in French) or the word "gaming" (said with a French accent) it can break my immersion.

 

This happens all over in French, not just with tech, so I know I just have to get used to it, but I still find it frustrating at times.

[Jaesop]

23 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The issue I think is gaming vs nongaming.  Because this is a site largely about computer games there is an assumption that computer gaming is being discussed.  If you’re not talking about playing modern video games, sure.  For the internet it gets harder because of security.  You could run an antique computer built for win98, and you could even attach it to a network.  Ethernet protocols have been around for a long time.  It wouldn’t be safe though.  So while such a machine might be able to play a DVD movie, actually attaching it to the internet to run Netflix or something is more or less asking to be PWNed in minutes.  It’s not safe.  For non-gaming non internet stuff? Sure.  There’s an argument.  Word processing was done in the early 80’s

 

There are games designed for lower speed lower thread count machines.  I saw a thing once where someone ran doom on a disposable pregnancy test.  I’ve owned desktop computers that weren’t fast enough to run doom that I wrote papers with.  Doom1 isn’t much like a modern game though.  If all one is doing is watching movies and editing text files sure.  I’d add browsing the internet though that has gotten a bit tougher.  Rich text everywhere and JavaScript changed that a bit.  Still within the capacity of the machines you name.  I no longer own any machines that lack such power but I have owned them.  Does one strictly speaking NEED more than 2 threads for much of what most people do most of the time? No.  I wouldn’t be surprised if a discord client could be written for a pentium3.  If you’re willing to run only one app at a time and you aren’t running apps with heavy needs, it’s true.  I’m currently attempting to repair a bent pin on an lga775 machine. It’s my backup.  I plan to put win10 on it and run the puppy. I bought it originally as a gaming machine.  It’s pretty fast for an lga775 from 2008.  500x faster than the machine I owned in the mid 80’s.  I even played games on it.  They weren’t the same kind of games.  Monochrome 2d things with resolutions so low you could count the steps in the jaggies at a glance, but games.  The lga775 thing worked too.  It will run games built to exist within its specs.  3d games with textures and stuff.  Not modern ones though.  Games like that haven’t been made in a long time.  They’re hard to even find anymore.  4/4 machines will run games built for PS3 and some PS4 stuff.  The machine I have now is 4/8, and will run games built for PS4 and some ps5 stuff.  Not all of it. It’s not quite obsolete yet for gaming. It will get there though just as other systems have before it.  Will that 4/4 machine serve as a useful backup? Sure.  I can run a modern safe to use OS on it and do most everything I even want to.  Will it run cyberpunk2077? Maybe.  At what is often termed “slide show” fps.  At speeds usable to play the game though? Ohellno. 
 

The term I see used these days is “potato”. My current isn’t a potato yet.  My backup is potato though.  It will do potato things.  Often that’s all I actually need to do. It will answer email and browse websites.  Some people don’t need more than potato.  Tech is an escalator that doesn’t stop though.  My current machine will require an OS change in 5 years just to keep doing potato things if it will even still be able to.  

Again - not sure how this is a response to what I said at all. Which, to be clear, can be summed up as - most people overestimate the CPU they need (i.e., it isn't bottlenecking their system, so no, no actual difference in use) and that I didn't really need to update mine but did see some appreciable difference in doing so.

[sub68]

On 9/10/2021 at 12:18 PM, HanZie82 said:

But worst is if they just call it wireless.

Then i just name a FM frequency to a (popular) radio station.

Or call it by IP addresses at this point.

[Bombastinator]

51 minutes ago, Jaesop said:

Again - not sure how this is a response to what I said at all. Which, to be clear, can be summed up as - most people overestimate the CPU they need (i.e., it isn't bottlenecking their system, so no, no actual difference in use) and that I didn't really need to update mine but did see some appreciable difference in doing so.

I don’t disagree with that part because I think the majority of people don’t do things that need the kind of power modern CPUs are capable of providing.
 

That wasn’t the bit that bugged me though. The bit that bugged me was your implication that 4/4 machines could still game and you were somehow cheated because you would have been fine with your 6500 or whatever it was. Would such a machine still do office work? Sure.  It wouldn’t game well though some individual games perhaps, but everything generally?  No.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

6 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

That sort of thing annoys me, too, but for a very different reason. When I'm listening to tech videos in French to practice my French, and the presenter suddenly says "SSD" (pronounced as the letters are in French) or the word "gaming" (said with a French accent) it can break my immersion.

 

This happens all over in French, not just with tech, so I know I just have to get used to it, but I still find it frustrating at times.

Just about every language is like that, including English. We just don’t see it though.  English is famous for porting words with abandon. “Umami”? Japanese. ‘Gesundheit”? “Shadenfreude”? “Ring”? “Finger”? German.  There’s a lot of dead languages that got pulled from too.  English is so full of that stuff it’s practically a pidgin.  Hitler had that same issue and attempted to create “wholly German words” for things.  He’s one reason the word for firetruck is so long it won’t fit on the side of a firetruck.  We even do it with things besides language.  Common law marriage doesn’t come from American or even English law.  It’s from Napoleonic law.  The one that screwed me up as a kid was regional and structural. “can I come with?” was considered a full sentance where I grew up, but on the East cost people just looked at me confused waiting for me to finish the sentence.  I grew up in an area predominantly settled by Swedes and Norwegians.  The most common last name wasn’t Smith, it was Nelson.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Bombastinator

[WhitetailAni]

18 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The one that screwed me up as a kid was regional “can I come with?” was considered a full sentance where I grew up, but on the East cost people just looked at me confused waiting for me to finish the sentence.

Ditto on that. "Can I come with?" is definitely a full sentence here, but it confuses the heck out of relatives who live in Boston.

[BuckGup]

Spindle based drives. Yuck

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, BuckGup said:

Spindle based drives. Yuck

Deal with magnetic core memory for an hour and you’ll change your mind. 

[Hachi_Roku256563]

I hate the word "Glitch" its used so much to mean so much and hides actual problem

IE

is the ram broken?

No but it keeps Glitching

what do you mean by Glitching?
I dont know its not working?
So its broken
yeah i guess
*this is how most conversations go that involve glitch

[Felipe9999]

On 5/7/2021 at 8:37 PM, ShrimpBrime said:

FUTURE PROOF -

 

Oh yes I hate this one the most. 

 

IT WAS BLEEPING OUTDATED WHEN YOU BOUGHT IT!!

I feel like "future proofing" is kinda subjective imo, for example if you built a top of the line no compromises PC today just for web browsing(probably a stupid idea) and 15 years for now it could still perfectly browse the web, it would technically be "future proof", but I feel like it mostly makes no sense because technology advances and so do the requirements to run even basic stuff, like a web browser. Unlike say, a watch(normal watch, not smartwatch) could still be perfectly functional for telling you the time forever as long as it's build quality is good, in the tech world say, a mid-range CPU that can deal with most stuff today may struggle quite a bit with basic stuff 15 years for now.

[Bombastinator]

50 minutes ago, Felipe9999 said:

I feel like "future proofing" is kinda subjective imo, for example if you built a top of the line no compromises PC today just for web browsing(probably a stupid idea) and 15 years for now it could still perfectly browse the web, it would technically be "future proof", but I feel like it mostly makes no sense because technology advances and so do the requirements to run even basic stuff, like a web browser. Unlike say, a watch(normal watch, not smartwatch) could still be perfectly functional for telling you the time forever as long as it's build quality is good, in the tech world say, a mid-range CPU that can deal with most stuff today may struggle quite a bit with basic stuff 15 years for now.

Etymology helps with this one I think.  The oldest definition of proofing that I know of was for knight’s armor.  The armorer would build a suit of armor and then shoot a crossbow at a joint.  This was the “proof” as a result most high quality armors have a dent on a joint somewhere. The ‘proof mark’.  Later ther were “proof marks” on coinage and guns.  They said that for coinage they were at one time tested with volumetric weight testing or acid testing (the acid test was considered more reliable but would destroy impure materials hence the term) with guns they would shoot a round through them to show the barrel didn’t blow up. None of these things keep an object from being destroyed later.  They merely show that they would do their job at least once. It was never supposed to be forever.

[Guest]

On 5/7/2021 at 7:00 PM, NZgamer said:

gaming rig

When I'm joking around I'll refer to PC's as sickass gaming rigs

 

^{and yes I know  this is old}

[YoungBlade]

6 hours ago, IsaacisWeeb said:

I hate the word "Glitch" its used so much to mean so much and hides actual problem

IE

is the ram broken?

No but it keeps Glitching

what do you mean by Glitching?
I dont know its not working?
So its broken
yeah i guess
*this is how most conversations go that involve glitch

I like the false etymology of the term: it's supposedly an acronym for "gremlins lurking in the computer hardware." This isn't true, but I think it's cute.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Felipe9999 said:

I feel like "future proofing" is kinda subjective imo, for example if you built a top of the line no compromises PC today just for web browsing(probably a stupid idea) and 15 years for now it could still perfectly browse the web, it would technically be "future proof", but I feel like it mostly makes no sense because technology advances and so do the requirements to run even basic stuff, like a web browser. Unlike say, a watch(normal watch, not smartwatch) could still be perfectly functional for telling you the time forever as long as it's build quality is good, in the tech world say, a mid-range CPU that can deal with most stuff today may struggle quite a bit with basic stuff 15 years for now.

It's an overly used saying.

 

People are buying low end hardware and inquire about future proofing. 

 

Or they buy older hardware and want to future proof that.

 

What about 15 years ago? Windows 7 I think it was. Just after XP. Some out dated operating systems... even the software is not future proof.

[Felipe9999]

24 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

It's an overly used saying.

 

People are buying low end hardware and inquire about future proofing. 

 

Or they buy older hardware and want to future proof that.

 

What about 15 years ago? Windows 7 I think it was. Just after XP. Some out dated operating systems... even the software is not future proof.

I would personally use Windows 7 on my main PC except for the fact that nvidia drivers refused to install on it. I personally feel like Windows 7 was the last good Windows with 8 and 8.1 being bad and 10 being meh. 11 would have to prove me wrong when it launches on October 5th.