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Science & Technology

"Will Using the Prefix Cyber Make Me Look Like An Idiot?"

Jesse Walker | 11.12.2010 11:29 AM

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NEXT: The Fitness Divide

Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

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  1. SugarFree   15 years ago

    I just wish The Internet looked more like it did in The Lawnmower Man. The way The Internet was supposed to look.

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      You’re just using the wrong browser.

      1. AlmightyJB   15 years ago

        or smoking the wrong pot

    2. Barely Suppressed Rage   15 years ago

      What I’d like to know is how the fuck they got that movie out of the story that Steven King actually wrote. The only thing the movie had in common with the written story was the title.

    3. Episiarch   15 years ago

      Incorrect; the internet is supposed to look like what it looked like in Weird Science: a series of tubes. With Kelly LeBrock.

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        Memphis Kelly or Vegas Kelly?

        1. Joe M   15 years ago

          Like you have to ask. Memphis all the way!~

          1. Joe M   15 years ago

            Although that could be an allegory for the Internet in general: it promises Memphis and delivers Vegas.

  2. Id   15 years ago

    Lately I’ve been wondering how I accomplished anything before the Internet. With books I guess? I dunno…. Then I realized what used to take me 10 hours now takes 1 and I spend the other 9 reading stupid blogs. So there’s that.

    1. waffles   15 years ago

      Amen to that! Praise the new cyberworld of ease and success!

  3. Dagny T.   15 years ago

    When I was a kid and people still talked about “cybersex”, even at 11 I was smart enough to realize that “cybersex” was just typing and masturbating.

    1. CyberOO=========D   15 years ago

      Yup.

  4. skr   15 years ago

    But what about when I use a phrase along these lines, “It does an ageing/old cyberpunk’s heart good to see…”?

  5. ?   15 years ago

    If you say you’re a science fiction writer, the answer it gives you is wrong.

    Ada Sushi Dorito roughly guided Punch Spacecheese’s already spurting cyberock into the horribly gnashing meat-gears of her cyberunt.

  6. sloopyinca   15 years ago

    This ranks right up (down) there with the Friday Funnies.

    Try this on for size. Teh arrogance is just incredible in this asshole.

    1. Warty   15 years ago

      “In some parts of the world people are accustomed to spending a higher percentage of their income on food, but in America we suffer from sticker shock because of Wal-Mart and other discount vendors,” reads Don Otto’s online farewell. “The reality is we pay for what we eat. Some are informed enough to know what that statement means. For those that don’t, I am not going to elaborate.”

      I hope you monsters who didn’t buy from her are happy. Monsters!

      1. Joe M   15 years ago

        From Atlas Shrugged:

        “If you don’t understand it, I can’t explain,” he said in the tone of a mystic who implies that a lack of understanding is the confession of a shameful inferiority.

        1. Pip   15 years ago

          So Atlas Shrugged is about black people?

    2. Almanian   15 years ago

      Stoopid customers! Former customers I mean!!11!

    3. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      Egad. No wonder our national economy is fucked up.

      1. prolefeed   15 years ago

        Nah, people like this going out of business is why at least parts of the economy are working fairly well. Fucked up would be a government bailout that kept their doors open.

        1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

          I meant that mindset, not the result.

    4. Trespassers W   15 years ago

      These are the sweetest-tasting tears I’ve savored since last Tuesday.

      1. Cyto   15 years ago

        Wow. Why those idiots customers wouldn’t buy free range eggs at $8.50 per dozen is beyond me… They really don’t understand customer loyalty at all….

        Ok, you caught me – I’m being sarcastic. What I really don’t understand is how she got anyone to patronize the place at all. It sounds perfectly horrible. 400%-600% markeup for “free range” and “local” foods, and she can’t figure out why nobody wanted to shop there.

    5. Spartacus   15 years ago

      Although pricey eggs may not be for everyone, salsa, made in nearby Jamaica Plain, is a bit more accessible for the everyday shopper.

      No wonder they failed. That there salsa’s made in New York City!!!

      1. Brett L   15 years ago

        Get a rope.

        1. wylie   15 years ago

          Racist.

          1. Brett L   15 years ago

            Me and the Pace picante sauce ad writers. Before Pace got bought out by a group based in NYC.

    6. prolefeed   15 years ago

      What is the opposite of “market failure”? Because these arrogant idiots going out of business is a huge success.

      1. Jason   15 years ago

        Creative Destruction?

  7. Fist of Etiquette   15 years ago

    The day we stop using phrases like “surfing the web” or “virtual reality” or “compuserve” is the day the cybernazis win.

    1. Almanian   15 years ago

      They came for A-holeOnline users, and I said nothing because I had a real ISP….

    2. Bee Tagger   15 years ago

      You know who tried to create a reality in his own image but never used the word cyber, don’t you?

  8. sloopyinca   15 years ago

    If McDonalds in San Francisco changed the name of the Happy Meal to the Gay Meal, would they be OK with the Board of Supes?

    1. Almanian   15 years ago

      I was thinking Cyber Meal

      1. sloopyinca   15 years ago

        George Jetson would be fine with this.

        1. Almanian   15 years ago

          Is he on the SF city council?

          1. George Jetson   15 years ago

            Why yes, I am.

            JANE! STOP THIS CRAZY THING! JANE!!!

  9. AlmightyJB   15 years ago

    this cyberarticle is cyberstupid.

  10. Almanian   15 years ago

    So this is kind of a cybersurvey, right?

    1. AlmightyJB   15 years ago

      I cyberthink I’m going to use my cyberpenis to fuck that cybersurvey in it’s cyberass.

      1. Almanian   15 years ago

        Cyberbully!!!

  11. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

    The prefix cyber- is derived from the Greek ?????????? (kybernetes), which means helmsman. This has come to represent a computer prefix because the ancient Greeks were aware of Mr. Sulu, a helmsman who used computers to steer a starship, because of that time a Greek god got his ass kicked by Kirk.

    1. Episiarch   15 years ago

      Kirk has kicked multiple “gods'” asses.

      “What does God need with a starship?”

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        Yes. Frankly, I’m surprised that he’s not worshiped as one.

        1. Episiarch   15 years ago

          Kirk got in a fight with a Gorn and won. Picard got in a fight with a spring and won.

          1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

            I like Picard, but comparing him with Kirk is like comparing a modern president to George Washington.

            1. Episiarch   15 years ago

              When Picard found humans from the 20th century, he returned them to Earth. When Kirk found humans from the 20th century, he beamed them to a hostile planet.

              1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

                And gave them a hot modern woman to use as they will. Kirk was a man’s man, after all.

                1. Jeff P   15 years ago

                  Yeah, but Kirk would have fucked the smoke-puffing orifice on the front of the Guild Steersman in the Dune movie given half a chance. The back of a Talosian’s head would have gotten him hard.

                  1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

                    Kirk would’ve taken the spice essence and, through sheer will power alone, become the Kwisatz Haderach.

                    Speaking of Kirk and powers, how come he didn’t keep a vial of that stuff from “Plato’s Step Children” on hand for situations where he got into a bind?

                    1. Jeff P   15 years ago

                      I see Kirk, Finny, and Gary Mitchell pulling off a panty raid at the Bene Gesserit convent…

                    2. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

                      And a nameless red-shirted guy they unfortunately had to leave behind.

          2. Xenocles   15 years ago

            Picard killed the Borg with a thought.

        2. sloopyinca   15 years ago

          I was about to say they did.

          “Now the second thing we observe upon the time, it is said “in these days.” What days were these? Days wherein the vengeance of the Lord fastens upon Bablyon and upon the enemies of the Kirk. Then Israel and Judah shall come back to their own land to seek the Lord and to join in a covenant with Him.

          Can anybody please tell me what the fuck they are saying in this (cyber)piece?

          1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

            It’s a reference to that episode where Kirk threatens to blow a whole planet up if it doesn’t stop fighting a fake/real war with another world in its system.

      2. Mo   15 years ago

        “Behold a god who blogs!”

        1. Episiarch   15 years ago

          The Cyberdise Syndrome?

          1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

            Helmsmansdise Syndrome? Was that one of those unaired episodes that helped fuel Takei’s hatred of the Shat?

        2. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

          I am Kirok!

    2. Fiscal Meth   15 years ago

      Well then I’m gonna go have some helmsman-sex.

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        In helmsman-space?

        1. Fiscal Meth   15 years ago

          Helmsman-bullying is killing our kidzz!!

  12. Nor West   15 years ago

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

    The term cybernetics stems from the Greek ?????????? (kybern?t?s, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder ? the same root as government). YIKES!

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      I prefer my interpretation.

      1. Nor West   15 years ago

        .. me too!

  13. Cyber House Ruler   15 years ago

    All your cyber are belong to us

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      All your helmsmen are belong to us?

  14. Jeff P   15 years ago

    Can I still use “Khyber” as a prefix?

    1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

      Helmsman Pass? Waht does that mean? Was Sulu an Afghan?

      1. Pro Libertate   15 years ago

        What does that mean, I mean.

  15. Juvenile Lurker   15 years ago

    Q: Cold enough for you?

    A: Cyber.

  16. Kristen   15 years ago

    Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?

  17. Almanian Hemingway   15 years ago

    Our cyber who art in cyber, cyber be thy name thy kingdom cyber thy will be cyber as it is in cyber. Give us this cyber our daily cyber and cyber us our cyber as we cyber our cybers and cyber us not into cyber but deliver us from cyber; pues cyber.

    Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.

    1. sloopyinca   15 years ago

      That was the smurfiest smurf I’ve ever smurfed.

  18. Kristen   15 years ago

    Spam filter wouldn’t let me post Sirius Cybernetics Corporation? What does the reason spam filter have against Douglas Adams?

  19. Cuddly Soft Balls of Death   15 years ago

    Since the ‘tards and teh gheyz have both taken their special words away from us, from being all offended and shit, I propose adopting the word “cyber” to replace both of them.

    “YOU NEVER GO FULL CYBER!”
    “Dude, those shoes make you look cyber.”

    I mean, nobody’s going to write letters to the editor that say “I’m a cyber-American, and I am offended by the use of this term in any demeaning way.”

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