New Terminology

DILBERTED: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I've been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

LINK ROT: The process by which links on a web page became as obsolete as the sites they're connected to change location or die.

CRAPPLET: A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. "I just wasted 30 minutes downloading this stinkin' crapplet!"

404: Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you've tried to access can't be located. "Don't bother asking him...he's 404, man."

EGOSURFING: Scanning the net, databases, print media, or research papers looking for the mention of your name.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarified organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

BOOKMARK: To take note of a person for future reference (a metaphor borrowed from web browsers). "I bookmarked him after seeing his cool demo at Siggraph."

BEEPILEPSY: The brief siezure people sometimes suffer when their cell phones go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.