an e-novel by OneMind and Liquid Mind
last updated January 31, 2007
Glossary
This is a glossary of the Silicon Valley 'grammer speak in the year 2017.
2Timing: doing things in RealTime while buying, selling, coding,
playing or shredding in NetTime.
A-Baby: prototype of an agent designed to exist on the NetTime network.
agent: netware constructs under development in the labs of the major kiretsus, governments and independent NetTime developers. The agents under development are intended to be general purpose utility programs that use limited artificial intelligence to perform specific tasks on NetTime for their owner. The NetTime uses of agents promoted by developers include NetTime Data Guardians, Data Gofers, NetTime Valets, NetTime Escorts, and a broad range of NetTime maintenance, security and data sanitation roles.
PhiSony and Matsush research teams have been waging a techno-industrial war since 2010 in an effort to create the first fully viable network agent that is able to function in NetTime. It is believed that this has included industrial espionage, sabotage, kidnapping, and assassination of key researchers. Each have created several prototype agents, but none have survived long enough in NetTime to be marketable products.
AI Turing: test for artificial intelligence
developed by the AINOW team at Stanford University under Professor Manfred Reinman.
A-Life: artificial life. Software that has been written and code*evolved to have many of the characteristics of living things. These include being adaptable and flexible with a rudimentary sense of environment, circumstance and probabilities so that they can anticipate possible dangers and avoid them. As well, some can replicate in either a-, bi- or poly- sexual fashion.
bayTran: the progeny of the San Francisco Bay Area BART system.
Extended over 2005 to 2012 to add San Jose, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Santa Cruz (via tunnel), Gillroy, and Livermore.
codeblimps: software of the very verbose and code heavy kind. They are generally applications developed in the mega-kiretsus by large teams of programmers using very highly structured languages intended to ensure error free programs. These applications are five to ten times larger and slower than something code*evolved by seat of the pants 'grammer, and they are typically bug free, except that they are rarely successful products in NetTime. The process of defining functions and behavior, architecting, specifying, segmenting tasks, managing the programming teams, and integrating
and testing the final applications is so complex that the application's
NetTime behavior rarely matched the original objectives.
code*evolve: process by which a 'grammer writes a software module that, in addition to its intended special function, has the ability to create progeny modules by combining its best code features with other versions of itself and also has a short lifetime. The 'grammer then creates a testing environment as a competitive arena for evolving the best version of his module and then introduces several versions with small variations in program operation into the arena. The modules then compete, create progeny modules and die over many generations until the 'grammer ends the development session and selects the best module for use.
compile: conversion of high level computer instructions into a form than can be executed by a CP. In current NetTech usage something that doesn't compile, is something that doesn't make sense or add up.
coolBlu: street name for Quazianaline; a genetically engineered drug developed by Alagene. It enhances the efficiency of glutamine production, synaptic mobility and neuron glutamine receptor site affinity, speeding up mental processes and enhancing awareness and control of sensory inputs. The net effect is to give a taker the ability to tune out distracting thoughts and stimuli, and focus their mind on one task. The name come from the visual image frequently used to describe the feeling as the drug takes effect. The image is one of the level of mental noise, competing thoughts and sensory information dropping away as if the taker was rising rapidly over an infinite flat blue surface and the important thoughts, data and sensory inputs relevant to the takers focus are all clearly in view.
CP: micro, nano, or photocomputer. The following chart traces CP
evolution up to the year 2017.
Class 0: CPs with a level of performance roughly equivalent to the
pre-millenium Pentium Pro® CMOS microprocessor, which had a clock frequency of 200 MHz, executed 1.83 instructions per clock yielding 366 million integer operations per second. This processor achieved the minimum threshold processing power required for natural (though crude) CP-Human interfaces like speech recognition, 3D visualization and dynamic body*sense animation, enabling the first rudimentary virtual reality network environments.
Class 1CP: CPs with performance nearly 20 times that of a Class 0.
Xantium, the last mainstream CP before the nanoscale Quantom Transistor
generation, was the pinnacle of the CMOS silicon microcomputers. Its multithreading, Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) microarchitecture, voltage scaling at the transistor limit, and multi-chip module (MCM) packaging stretched the CMOS technology to achieved 7.32 billion operations per second. Class 1 CPs have turned into ubiquitously and transparent tek, hidden inside nearly all second decade consumer and industrial technology.
Class 2CP: CPs with performance 7 times that of a Class 1. Quantra, one of the early binary Quantom Transistor nanoscale CPs, achieved 44 billion instructions per second. This performance crossed the basic threshold that made NetTime possible. NetVirtual Systems used the Quantra in its "VeeMorex" deck to create a net presence that was nearly indistinguishable from reality. The net navigation experience on this deck was so good that it spawned the expression, "So good, you can't tell if it is real or if it is VeeMorex."
Class 3CP: CPs with performance 20 times that of a Class 2. The Quantra-MV (multi-value) is the foundation of all modern net tek, including NetDecks, hipCPs, domies, and business CPs. The discovery of a quantom transistor with natural ternary operation (three states, as opposed to the two states of binary transistors) boosted CP performance to 994 billion operations per second. This crossed another critical threshold which caused a tremendous technical and cultural paradigm shift as the turn over of data, soft, and hard tek goods, and coms in general on the net accelerated. The current netbuk cost of a mainstream 'nTOPS', or nearly tera operation per second, NetDek is about $36K; six months allowance for most middle-tek teens.
Class 4CP: CPs with extreme new tek yielding a performance 5 times that of a Class 3. The Photium, developed by Photonic Cyber Systems (PCS), is the first commercial (non kiretsu or military) CP with a performance of 4.97 tera operations per second.This performance has enabled the first VeeReeSync systems that are capable of creating, synchronizing and maintaining a simultaneous NetTime and RealTime environment the size of a gymnasium. These systems use dynamic holographic laser projection to put the virtual people and objects in a NetTime scene into its RealTime mirror scene. They conversely holo-record the live people and real objects in the RealTime scene, and project them into the NetTime scene, creating an identical happening in both RealTime and NetTime. The Photium is the first photocomputer based on the resonant multi-state photon well. This tek is so costly that only 3 mega-kiretsus, 9 governments, and 7 NetTime companies have them. The Photium EXP is a 10 tera ops version rumored to be delivered to PhiSony ahead of any of the governments regulating Photonic Cyber Systems.
dataful: technically competent and full of
information relevant to the situation at hand.
disso*Tab: small tab on synthetic cellulose/polymer clothing that initiates a propagating two step chemical reaction that breaks the polymer chains into several components that in turn catalyze the breakdown of the cellulose to simple water soluble polysaccharides. A garment will begin to break down with 30 seconds, after which it is easily peeled or washed off of the skin.
eRevos: generic term for hiTek sun glasses with
integrated 2048 by 1840 pixel displays in each lens. Worn nearly exclusively by the Silicon Valley sheik subset of young NetTime 'grammers who are always 2Timing; doing things in RealTime while working, playing, or shredding in NetTime.
freehaven: small cities or enclaves with
little formal government or services situated around the periphery of major tek centers.
'grammer: programmers, a semi independent group of software and netware programmers who function as free agents to corporation for the duration of a single project. Only about 20% have formal education in software technology, the rest got their first CPs and developed their skills on the net as they were learning to walk and talk. The contract fee for software projects is determined dynamically as specifications are published and 'grammers bid based on their estimate of the time required. The corporate broker for a project continually highlights the 'grammer with the lowest bid and a performance ranking that meets the project requirements. All of the bids, ranking and current favorite are visible to the 'grammers as they evaluate their chances and submit their offers. A technique frequently used by brokers to get the highest quality 'grammer for the lowest bid is to initially select a 'grammer with a higher performance level than is required for the project, and then just before the bid session expires select a 'grammer two or three points down on the performance ranking. Most 'grammers pay for the stats on the company, their projects, and the broker they have hired to manage the contract, so they play their bids straight unless they are burned (hard, soft or wet) or really hurting for work.
Green Alpha: Street name for a drug which re synchronizes a 'grammer, neurojack, JoyJoy Girl, KuzaKid, or other NetTimer to the real world (RealTime) after an extended period in NetTime. The more time spent timin', the more the flow of sensory information in the real world seems washed out, faded, dull and otherwise unreal compared with the depth and intensity of NetTime. GreenAlpha enhances the natural senses and allows a timer to acclimate as the intensity of the NetTime images/sounds/smells fade. 'grammers and NeuroJacks who become more and more immersed in timin' risk becoming wireHeads, with an inverted sense of what is real and what is virtual. They lose all desire to be in the real world and eventually suffer similar consequences to other addictions like heroin, cocaine, and alchohol.
GreenAlpha is also used to enhance RealTime experiences when it is desirable to be more incarnate in the body. The Green Alpha cult, which has taken its use to extreme, scorns the use of virtual tek. GAC members call each other by animal and insect names (Bear, Wolf, Hippo, Grasshopper, Dragonfly, etc.), look like hippies, and listen to "animal music" (old Paul Winter CDs with whale songs from the pre-millennia are prized)
hard (ware): the electronic equipment used by everyone connected
to the net-tech scene and the Nfo industries in general. In Net-Tech culture hard is primarily used in conjunction with, and in contrast to "soft" and "wet" to refer to the various hardware sensors and transducers that put on the hands, head, face, body and over the eyes to allow a person to see, hear, smell, feel and interact with the virtual world and people of NetTime as if it were real.
in-line code: used to refer to low level or basic programming in
the middle of a very high level series of instructions. This type of programming is no longer done because of the increased complexity of programming. In the current NetTech vernacular it means that something is pretty far out or extreme, but still within the realm of acceptability. Just barely.
I/O: input-output. Can refer to data, a place were data goes in and comes out, or to sexual intercourse, depending on the context.
ipRegistry: Federal Intellectual Property Registry. The NetTime equivalent to the Patent and Trademark office (PTO).
The rapid evolution of the ARPA World Wide Web caused a legal and functional restructuring of the process of submission, review and registration of intellectual property. The primary changes involved moving the process to NetTime so that submissions, distribution for peer review, revision and registration all occur electronically within a 48 hour period. The switch over from the old PTO system to the ipRegistry was made in 2009, six months after a proof was discovered verifying the security of NetTime's Hawker/Kawakami quantom mirror encryption algorithm.
jabber: to jibe, kid, or question in a NetTalk.
jam: understand, as in, "I can't quite jam
it".
JIT happening: JIT is an acronym for "just in time". It
means that it was something that happens just in time or when you really
need it.
joyJoy Girl: semi tekkies that can use simple CPs to navigate NetTime and be the groupie/gold digger/love object part of the culture.
Mips, Bips, and recently
Tips: millions of instructions per second, billions of instructions
per second, and trillions of instructions per second.
NetTalk: semi-technical computer/net jargon.
NetTime: the progeny of ARPANet and the World Wide Web.
neuroJacks: super wired technical fringe who experience NetTime through neural induction rather than sensory stimulation. They have neurological sensors and inducers surgically implanted in places like their scalp, neck, fingers genitals, and toes. Micro sockets imbedded near each major group of sensors and transducers (like on the toes for the feet and calves) provide the access points for jacking in the wiring from the neuroJacks' CP, rig or deck.
pipes: fiberoptic or microwave satellite data
links to the NetTime network.
pos: positive attitude
proto: the NetTime equivalent to Dorothy's dog Toto. Who you are
talking to (besides yourself) when no one else is there and your 'ware (software or hardware prototype) is diverging instead of converging on something that will actually work.
RealTime: the real world. The more a netter is under, the more they
find realtime to be slow, tedious and lacking in some of the richness and
complexity of NetTime.
screen shirt: a ten-billion pixel computer display shirt woven from integrated optical waveguide polymers and driven by red, green and blue laser diodes. New NetTek flexWare worn by only a few way warm 'grammers because of its price and the Class 2 plus processor required to sustain the size of virtual environment that can be displayed on it.
selfpay: booths, stalls, eTellers where buyers carry in the items
they have selected for purchase, swipe them across a scanner, and then squirt their debt or credit IDs from their smartCards, flipTalks or CPs to complete the transaction.
self simulation: the ability of a NetTime agent to simulate its operation in NetTime and project the circumstance and consequence of possible modifications to its program.
simmie: a code object that provides an abstract simulation of the program that it is bonded to, in the environment that the program is operating. A NetTime program with a simmie would be able to predict the outcomes of near term net activity in its neighborhood in order to adapt its algorithms and optimize its operation.
soft (ware): modules of computer software written and "code
evolved" by 'grammers to perform any task needed in NetTime. Software is the glue that binds together the Net, industry, commerce, and culture into the fluid ecostructure of 2017. Nearly all software is computer system independent so it runs on nearly everything attached to the net. New software, especially useful applications have a half-life of two weeks. In this time a module is put on the net for evaluation and purchase, its sales can reach several hundred thousands of units within 30 minutes as word of mouth praise builds, sales can then reach 1 to 2 million units a day by the end of the first week, and then they begin to decline as more refined competing versions begin to appear.
tek: any of the various post NetTime technologies. Tek is classified by its hardness and its dryness. The four major categories of Tek are:
Hard & Dry - hardware. Electronic/mechanical real world (RealTime) devices.
Hard & Wet - neuroware. Drug technology that influences the mind and enhances (or not) the quality of perception, awareness, attention and other mental abilities necessary to be on your toes (so to speak) in NetTime.
Soft & Dry - software. Silicon code. Generally refers to NetTime applets programmed in one of several hardware independent programming languages.
Soft & Wet - wetware. Carbon code, ideas, data and mental schema. The verbal, mathematical and pictorial medium of exchange in people interactions in RealTime or NetTime. NetTime acts as the primary liquid medium for the evolution of both software and wetware.
terrabyte: a trillion bytes of electronic data storage. Typically high speed random access memory (RAM) storage.
teraflop: one trillion floating point operations per second.
the low level code: the straight story.
toe-jacks: hardware sockets surgically implanted
in the toes. Used to wire a CP in to the sensors and inducers in the feet
and calves of a neuroJack. The generic term for jacks anywhere on the body is boJacks. The toe specific term is commonly used in expressions like, "blow the toe jacks off", to denote a dramatic effect like being struck by lightning. This is because that is what often happens with cheap transducers and CPs, as neural feedback builds up and discharges through the neuroJack user, electrocuting them and literally blowing the toe jacks off.
tux: visual image of the user in NetTime. This persona can look like
the user, but typically looks like either some surgically enhanced and glamorous version of the user, or ?????
VeeRee: really virtual reality. So good that you sort of have to
look to the side to see if it is real or its VeeMorex.
vibin': non and semi-verbal cues about a person's state of mind. particularly whether or not they are interested or so totally boared that they consider the encounter on a par with a near death experience.
vimes: virtual miming, equivalent to the old VR term "gestures", motions with hands, arms legs, lips, or any part of the body wired with sensors and transducers, to cause an effect on a NetTime user's persona in the virtual world of NetTime. A user would make a grasping motion with their hand to grab a virtual object, the hardware sensors on their arm and hand would sense the movement and send precise data to the CP managing the virtual environment. The CP in turn would manipulate the image of the user's persona through that motion and send back visual, tactile, auditory, and olfactory data to the user's sensory transducers to give the user a nearly real sense of the object.
VR: old tek talk circa 1980s for Virtual Reality.
wetware or chem(ware): Bioengineered drugs
like Green Alpha, coolBlu, jabberNot, e* and KQVI. These drugs were developed primarily to enhance concentration and reduce the taker's awareness of RealTime. Most netters use the combination of these CNS stimulants and suppressants that they have found gives them the right balance of net awareness, mental speed (too much is as bad as too little), and visual imaging to manage the flow of NetTime data into a comprehensible virtual world.
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