Technology Trends

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary publisher, recently asked its readers on its web site to submit their favorite words which didn’t exist yet in the dictionary. After receiving about 3,000 submissions, the company published a top ten list of non-existing words. This list is dominated by ‘ginormous‘ (bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous) and by ‘confuzzled‘ (confused and puzzled at the same time). However, a search on Google reveals a different story. Read more…

A research on ‘ginormous’ brings 70,900 results while a look at ‘confuzzled’ returns 48,300 items — even if you still can’t look at more than a thousand results in reality.

The number 3 on the Merriam-Webster list, ‘woot’ (an exclamation of joy or excitement), is the clear winner on Google, with 717,000 results. But it’s not surprising with the popularity of the Woot web site where you can buy things only on a single day.

‘Chillax’ (chill out/relax, hang out with friends) and ’snirt’ (dirty snow) are numbers 4 and 9 on the Merriam-Webster list, and are respectively mentioned 21,700 and 14,900 times by Google.

After these five words, numbers are falling dramatically.

The number 5 on the Merriam-Webster list, ‘cognitive displaysia’ (the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something), has only been found in 42 documents by Google.

And one of my favorites on this list at number 7, ‘phonecrastinate’ (what you do when you check the caller ID box before answering the phone), is only mentioned 45 times by Google. So I guess there are not many ‘phonecrastinators.’

Other words fare a little bit better: for instance, ‘lingweenie’ (a person incapable of producing neologisms), which is number 10 on the list of the dictionary publisher, is featured in 466 documents found by Google.

Contrary to ‘lingweenies,’ ‘vocabularians’ are people who make up new words. And you can find today 2,040 references to this word on Google.

So, as a very unscientific conclusion, there are about four times more people able to create new words than people who can’t. This is refreshing.

Sources: Roland Piquepaille, with various websites

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Two entomologists at Cornell University who were in charge to name several new species of slime-mold beetles have decided to honor U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, according to this news release. These beetles are living in different environments, and pretty far from the White House: the Agathidium bushi lives in Southern Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia, while the Agathidium rumsfeldi and the Agathidium cheneyi come from different regions of Mexico. Anyway, executives from the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) have some concerns, and these names might not be approved by this organization. Read more…

Here is the beginning of the story.

Two former Cornell University entomologists who recently had the job of naming 65 new species of slime-mold beetles named three species that are new to science in the genus Agathidium for members of the U.S. administration. They are A. bushi Miller and Wheeler, A. cheneyi Miller and Wheeler and A. rumsfeldi Miller and Wheeler.

These naming rules are strongly codified and here is a short explanation.

According to rules established by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the first word of a new species is its genus; the second word must end in “i” if it’s named after a person; and the final part of the name includes the person or persons who first described the species. That’s why all the new slime-mold beetle species’ names end with Miller and Wheeler.

Before going further, let’s look at a good-looking beetle.

Now, why have these entomologists decided to give the names of U.S. political leaders to some insects?

The decision to name three slime-mold beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, however, didn’t have anything to do with physical features, says Quentin Wheeler, a professor of entomology and of plant biology at Cornell for 24 years until last October, but to pay homage to the U.S. leaders. “We admire these leaders as fellow citizens who have the courage of their convictions and are willing to do the very difficult and unpopular work of living up to principles of freedom and democracy rather than accepting the expedient or popular,” says Wheeler.

So far, eyebrows are raised at the ICZN, but according to its executive secretary, Andrew Polaszek, in this news report, there is no formal opposition to the names of these insects.

“Religion and politics should be kept out of naming of animals,” Mr Polaszek said. “It goes really against the spirit of the [nomenclature] code.”

There are no rules in the code that specifically ban biologists from naming species after political figures. However, it does allow for proposed names to be barred if they cause offence.

So will we see one day A. chiraci or A. blairi species? Who knows?

Finally, for more information about beetles, check this Wikipedia page.

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Big companies usually don’t like when people such as you and me are criticizing their products or making fun of their brands. You probably remember the two British guys who posted some weeks ago a spoof advertisement on the Web suggesting Volkswagen’s cars were so tough they could withstand a suicide bombing. They were threatened by the company, which later agreed to drop action against them. Now, a group of Italian people has designed a single Web page making fun of three of the biggest brands on the planet: Apple, Google and McDonald’s.. Read more…

Let’s start with the image created by the people at red-lobster.it

So how these Italians designed this Quarter Pounder Mac mini Cluster — or ‘Photoshop’ cluster? They put together for just $2,000 four Mac minis to create the slowest supercomputer in the world, still reaching a teraflops/s — which is obviously impossible, but funny.

Recently, they connected their cluster to a Google Mini search appliance — which is also known online for looking like a block of cheese.

And here was born the “Quarter Pounder Mac mini Cluster (with cheese).”

What will happen next? Will armies of U.S lawyers sue these Italian guys? Or will Apple, Google and McDonald’s smile? It’s hard to know.

And just for fun, here is a link to a list of trademarks owned by McDonald’s Corporation. Some of these trademarks are “Hamburger University” or “Super Size.”

Sources: Various websites

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It’s hard to deny that Sun Microsystems is good at communicating its messages. Its president, Jonathan Schwartz, started this year one of the most influential business blogs, Jonathan Schwartz’s Weblog. And now, in a story attributed to its CEO, Scott Mc Nealy describes his Christmas dream. In this text, which was almost certainly written by the folks at the Register, Scott Mc Nealy is in line with many other kids to talk with Santa. And these other kids have names such as Bill Gates, Carly Fiorina, Paul Otellini or Sam Palmisano, so you can imagine the jokes when they meet Santa — from a Sun point of view. To me, the best one is when Matthew Szulik of Red Hat wants to offer a Finnish terrier to Santa — for free. But then he asks that Santa sends him $5,000 per year to take care of the puppy. Of course, Santa is not amused. Scott sends you his very best wishes for 2005. I’m joining him to wish you a Happy 2005.

Here are some short excerpts. Let’s start with a collage.

Now, here is what Paul Otellini of Intel asks Santa.

Next up on the Big Guy’s lap is Paul Otellini of Intel. “Santa, can’t I please, please have a 64-bit processor that works?”

Santa puts on a very stern face. “Paul, last year you wished for that and I gave you Itanium. Now you can’t just throw it in the trash because you’re fed up with it. You’ve got to find a way to make it work.”

“Aw, Santa. You know it’ll never work. Our engineers know it’ll never work. Only HP believes it’ll work — and those guys believe in fairies and elves.” Paul trudges off sullenly.

Let’s now turn to Matthew Szulik of Red Hat, who wants to make a free gift to Santa. Surprised, Santa asks what is the gift. Here is the conversation.

It’s a puppy — a Finnish terrier — for you to bring back to the North Pole. It wears sandals, it likes to take saunas, and, best of all, it won’t cost you a penny… right now.”

“Right now?” Santa asks. (You don’t get to control all the presents in the world if you’re not a pretty smart cookie.)

“Er…yes. There’s one tiny catch. To pay for the proper care and maintenance of the puppy, every year you have to send me $5000.”

As Szulik speaks, Santa’s face darkens like one of those storms that blow in from Siberia. “If I have to send you $5000 a year, then the truth is that this is one expensive puppy, isn’t it Matthew?”

Matthew is looking down at his shoes and nodding. Santa pushes the naughty boy off his lap. “Go to your room, Matthew. It’s coal for you this year.”

Then arrives Sam Palmisano of IBM. As he’s too short to climb on Santa’s knee, he asks a gigantic army of “IBM Global Services” consultants to build him a chair. Of course, they fail. So Santa asks an elf to bring a perfect chair and Palmisano asks Santa where this chair comes from.

“Oh, we do a lot more up here than sit in the snow and wrap presents, Sam. We have one room where some very smart designers create some great innovations. We call it the Sun room.” Sam begs and pleads for access to this room for Christmas, but Santa replies. “Unfortunately, Sammy, this is a place where only the best and brightest can visit, so we won’t be able to let you or your friends in dark suits enter there. Make sure to come back next year with another wish!”

Well, even if it was not written by Scott McNealy, it’s really fun. Merry Christmas!

Source: Scott McNealy, CEO at Sun Microsystems, for The Register, December 23, 2004

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