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 propensity for humans to favor suggestions from automated decision-making systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct. Examples of automation bias range from urgent matters like flying a plane on automatic pilot to such mundane matters as the use of spell-checking programs.

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.

Adage named after British technology journalist Ian Betteridge that states "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.'" The concept points out the tendency of media to use sensational or misleading headlines to attract readers.

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 software development principle that adding more resources to a project actually makes it take more rather than less.

Adding new code to handle each special case as it is recognized.

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.

A theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread.

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.

Software design principle that states that clients should not be forced to depend on interfaces they do not use, and that interfaces should be designed to be cohesive and specific to the needs of clients.

A design principle in which custom-written portions of a computer program receive the flow of control from a generic framework. In traditional programming, the custom code that expresses the purpose of the program calls into reusable libraries to take care of generic tasks, but with inversion of control, it is the framework that calls into the custom, or task-specific, code. In shorthand, it's a type of "don't call us, we'll call you."

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 happen to have firsthand knowledge." The perception that media reports can often contain inaccuracies, especially when you personally know the details of the story being covered. The law underscores the importance of critical thinking and skepticism when consuming news and information from the media.

Computer programming whose structure consists of too many layers of stacking.

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

Software design principle that states that objects of a superclass should be able to be replaced with objects of a subclass without affecting the correctness or functionality 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 18 months.

The discovery by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation, but low-level sensorimotor skills require 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.

Spending resources making a project more robust and complex than is needed.

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 belief that an innovation should be adopted by whole society without the need of its alteration. The innovation's "champion" has such strong bias in favor of the innovation, that he/she may not see its limitations or weaknesses and continues to promote it nonetheless.

Trying to approach a solution by successively modifying the code and seeing what works.

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

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 technology has the opposite effect of the purpose for which it was created. Examples include cancer treatments that induce new forms of cancer, or automated security systems that flood response centers with false alarms, thereby reducing the effectiveness of actual security.

The practice in computer programming to force oneself to read their code, line-by-line, to an inanimate rubber duck in order to better understand and debug the code.

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.

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.

Adding multiple features or modifications to a system in a single change.

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 notion that software applications and more broadly, technological society, are part of a broader economic and cultural shift that are not limited to software domains itself but are taking over large facets of the traditional economy — i.e. automation, self-driving cars, commerce, etc.

The development of emotional attachment with machines, robots or software agents.

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 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'.

Software projects in which new requirements are specified in bug reports.

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.

Fictional machine or device that has been used as a humorous technical term to parody technical jargon and obscure terminology in various fields.

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.