Technology

90% of any given Internet community only view content, 9% edit, and 1% create. Said another way, 1% are participants while 99% are lurkers.

The adage of overestimating the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimating the effect in the long run.

The tendency to trust automated systems over one's own judgment or other information sources — accepting computer-generated recommendations even when contradictory evidence is available and correct.

Used in reliability engineering, it describes a particular form of the hazard function (a type of failure) comprising three distinct parts — the first part is a decreasing failure rate known as early failures, the second a constant failure rate, known as random failures, and the third is an increasing failure rate, known as wear-out failures.

An adage holding that any news headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word "no" — because if the answer were yes, the publisher would have stated it as fact.

In software, refers to a system with no recognizable structure or lacks a coherent architecture.

A system or device whose inner workings are opaque and whose internal workings can only be guessed at through its inputs and outputs.

The concept of technologies that are still untested or unstable and at the frontier of scientific and engineering development.

Construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, as opposed to strictly purpose-fabricated and planned.

The observation that adding more people to a late software project makes it even later, because new team members need ramp-up time and increase communication overhead.

A programming practice of handling each new edge case by adding special-case code rather than rethinking the underlying design. Quick to write, painful to maintain.

Copying (and modifying) existing code rather than creating custom-fit solutions — can be used as a positive or negative.

The longest unbroken chain of sequential tasks or activities where delays along that path directly affect the overall completion time of the more general objective.

"The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer." The observation that people are quicker to correct a wrong answer than to answer a question.

Software design principle that advocates for high-level modules to depend on abstractions, rather than on low-level modules, to allow for flexibility, maintainability, and scalability of the system.

In software, the process of dividing software development work into distinct phases to improve design and project management. Current methodologies include agile, waterfall, prototyping, iterative and incremental development, spiral development, rapid application development, and extreme programming.

The theory explaining how new ideas and technologies spread through a population — from early adopters to the mainstream to the laggards.

The act of staying in one's car or hesitating to enter one's destination even after arriving due to being engrossed in a podcast or radio story and wanting to reach a stopping point.

In computer programming, the practice of 'catching' an error message before it can be shown to the user and either showing nothing or showing a meaningless message.

A phenomenon where software developers fail to use proper software development principles when creating tools — often to facilitate the software development process itself.

The notion that users get less exposure to conflicting viewpoints and are isolated intellectually in their own informational bubble, particularly on social media platforms.

In aviation, a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface.

The observed Internet phenomenon where if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.

The tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by using Internet search engines such as Google.

In computing, the challenge in determining just from code and an input, whether the program will actually finish (halt), or continue to run forever.

Embedding data directly into the source code of a system, whereas 'soft code' embeds data in external locations or configuration files. These two coding practices have tradeoffs of time to develop, scaling, and sustainability.

A perceptual theory of mass communication that refers to the tendency for individuals with a strong pre-existing attitude on an issue to perceive media coverage as biased against their side and in favor of their antagonists' point of view.

The practice, in electronics, of designing the input impedance of an electrical load or the output impedance of its corresponding signal source to maximize the power transfer or minimize signal reflection from the load.

A system built within an existing platform (due to constraints, preferences, etc.) that has become so complex that it has become a poor replica of an existing platform.

The insistence that the ultimate meaning of an expression must be consistent with the intention of the person from whom the communication originated. For example, a work of fiction that is widely received as a blatant allegory must necessarily not be regarded as such if the author intended it not to be so.

A software design rule holding that no client should be forced to depend on methods it does not use — large interfaces should be split into smaller, more specific ones so each client only knows about what it needs.

A software design principle where a framework calls your code, rather than your code calling the framework. Often summarized as "don't call us, we'll call you."

The observation that improvements in the efficiency of resource use often lead to increased total consumption of that resource rather than decreased consumption. As efficiency lowers the effective cost per unit, demand rises enough to offset or exceed the original savings.

Contrast with the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), JOMO is the experience of relief, delight, and lack of anxiety associated with \*not\* participating in every and all activities that in particular are captured and shared via social media.

"Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true — except for that rare story of which you have firsthand knowledge." A wry reminder that media accuracy looks different from the inside.

Software with too many layers of abstraction stacked on top of each other, making it difficult to understand or modify any single piece.

Retaining undesirable code because removing it is too expensive or has unpredictable consequences.

A software design principle holding that objects of a superclass should be replaceable with objects of a subclass without altering the correctness of the program.

Implementing presumably unlikely input scenarios, such as comparisons with very specific strings, to mask functionality.

The form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.

A product that has been targeted to be built with just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development and no more.

The observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years — an empirical trend that has held for decades and driven exponential growth in computing power.

An observation in artificial intelligence research that high-level reasoning requires relatively little computation, while low-level sensorimotor skills like perception and mobility demand enormous computational resources.

Separate pieces of information, that by themselves have limited usability, become important and/or revealing when combined. Of particular importance in digital confidentiality and privacy.

The adage, often in computer programming, that the first 90 percent of the code in a project accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time, and the remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. In other words, the tendency to underestimate the amount of time to complete a project when it is "nearly done".

The tendency for organizations towards reinventing the wheel rather than adopting and adapting an existing, adequate solution.

The tendency for performance to initially improve when new technology is instituted, not because of any actual improvement in learning or achievement, but in response to increased interest in the new technology.

Programming mistake that occurs when a programmer incorrectly references or iterates through an array or loop, resulting in the code either skipping over or repeating one element.

Software design principle that states that software entities should be open for extension but closed for modification, meaning that they should be designed in a way that allows for easy addition of new functionality without changing the existing code.

Building something far more complex or robust than the situation requires. The extra effort adds cost and rigidity without meaningful benefit.

A policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.

The notion from computer science that one should not spend an inordinate amount of time trying to optimize or refactor code prior to understanding where it becomes clear where the bottlenecks and slowdowns are going to be.

The assumption that all innovations are inherently beneficial and should be rapidly adopted by everyone in a social system, often ignoring potential disadvantages, risks, or the need for modification.

Trying random changes to code until something works, without understanding why. Sometimes called "trial and error debugging" — effective by accident, fragile by nature.

The red pill and its opposite, the blue pill, are a popular cultural meme, a metaphor representing the choice between knowledge, freedom, uncertainty and the brutal truths of reality (red pill), and then security, happiness, beauty, and the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue pill).

When a technology produces the opposite effect of its intended purpose, such as antibiotics that breed resistant bacteria or security systems that generate so many false alarms they reduce actual vigilance.

A debugging method in software development where a programmer explains their code line-by-line to an inanimate object, such as a rubber duck, to identify errors through the process of articulation.

In Western Kenya, it means "to spread", and refers to marketing slogans for mobile connectivity, as well as to refer to the way money slips away, drip by drip, as friends and family ask for favors.

A non-empty computer program which takes no input and produces a copy of its own source code as its only output.

Software engineering principle that emphasizes the importance of dividing a system or application into distinct and modular components, with each component addressing a specific concern or aspect of the system.

A code smell where a single change requires making many small edits scattered across multiple files or modules. A sign of poor separation of concerns.

Software design principle that states that a class or module should have only one reason to change, and should be responsible for only one aspect or feature of the system it represents.

Demonstrating features or characteristics in a disingenuously glossy or finished state as if they were already implemented.

The idea that software companies are disrupting and transforming entire industries beyond traditional tech, reshaping the broader economy and culture.

The tendency to form emotional attachments to machines, robots, or software — caring for digital things as if they were alive.

The adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups. The first group are called ‘innovators', followed by ‘early adopters', 'early majority' and 'late majority', and finally ‘laggards'.

A (usually unintentional) software practice where new requirements emerge through bug reports rather than upfront planning. The testers end up defining the product.

The idea that the invention of artificial intelligence will trigger runaway technological developments, that compounds on itself, which would result in unpredictable changes to human civilization.

The notion that people perceive that mass media messages have a greater effect on others than on themselves.

In computer security, a threat is a possible danger that might exploit a vulnerability to breach security and therefore cause possible harm.

A fictional machine described in dense, authoritative-sounding nonsense, used as a long-running engineering in-joke to parody impenetrable technical jargon.

A test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

The increasing unease one experience as an entity approaches realistic humanoid characteristics or appearance, where the more realist (but still subtly not human) the entity appears, the greater unease or cold feelings are felt, where if the entity is decidedly not humanoid then we experience little unease.

A product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled.