I heard being a truly
learned individual is to have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and to always
look for a reason to discredit facts. So I now deem myself semi literate
because I do not need to ask why one (1) is not a letter and A is not a roman number.
But it is interesting to think of the things we could actually want to know
more about but we are so used to them that it is something so abnormally
obvious.
Example…
We debug a problem. In
fact we remove the bug from a system.interestingBISSA UoN story behind it.
Some attribute the
breakthrough of the rampant use of the term bug to Grace Hopper in 1964.she
traced an error to the computer system to a moth trapped in a relay. And we
have our first famous celebrity moth
*pause*why did she not
call it moth and we would now be demothing a system; or maybe unmothing(forgive
my English).or report that an insect was found in the system so we could now be
referring to the error correcting process as applying insecticide to a system…
In comes a second more
sensible and very less humorous theory. Scotts
man known as Thomas Edison is said to
have discovered it in the 1870s as he named a radar electronics equipment as a bug.
This was because it took the shape of a metal bent on either side giving the
impression of a roach.
Makes more sense now.
Or maybe a third theory
proving the existence of the word since the telepathy days.a bug was a machine
used which was not really the newer types which could automatically fill in the
dots and dashes and the older manual types.
The story of a mouse
could not be more obvious. There is surprisingly no mention of a mouse (literally)
and much to my disappointment no famous mouse except Jerry. But before you
dismiss this; it is interesting to note that the cursor was originally known (can’t
say you will be very surprised) as a cat. It was supposed to be tailing the
mouse’s movement. Maybe the whole process would have been a game of mouse and
cat…mmh ,trust the folks of 1962…Douglas(no pun intended) Engelbart.
Then the thought behind
viruses and worms. The virus was Fred Cohen’s idea attributing it to his favorite
artist Len Adleman’s play. It was a joke really; that a deadly virus landed in
a certain town and everyone was destroyed…but apparently, someone else got the joke.
Worm was based on a science fiction novel “the shockwave rider” to describe
large tapeworms that could eat knowledge and information.
The scenarios are many.
When I heard yahoo, I
often imagined that the founders were so excited to finish the product that in
that excitement one of them happily exclaimed “YAHOO!” which would be their
version of “WOOOI!” or something interesting in those lines.(now it sounds
foolish saying that out loud).the word is actually an acronym for yet another hierarchical
officious oracle but others argue for yet another hierarchical object organizer.
Bummer…but I obviously will give you a juicy story behind it.see,the founders
Jerry Yang and David Filo considered themselves as big yahoos….those of us who
read novels such as tom sawyer, tales of two cities and the like, will remember
an interesting one by Jonathan Swift called the Gulliver’s travels. Glossary
defined a yahoo as a repulsive creature both in appearance and action which was
barely human…
We talk of
Wikipedia,wikileaks etc.the proprietor, while on a trip to the Hawaiian islands
heard the first native words “wiki wiki” while at the airport. To Ward
Cunningham,it was a catchy phrase. It refers to the quick shuttle busses at the
Honolulu airport…now you know…
This leaves me wondering
about cookies.or maybe zipped folders…that for another day
The content is based on
such research but is not entirely a base of outmost truth. This is the first
blog and feedback is appreciated through the facebook fan page, www.facebook.com/Bissa.UoN…..THANK YOU!
