Josh the Aspie’s Blog

A myth that I have heard making the rounds lately is that if you find “Natural Flavoring” on a product, that this product is actually a brand name of an artificial one. After looking into it I’ve found that this is most likely a case of information decay.

The long and short of it, is that “Natural Flavor” or “Natural Flavors” represents flavors that the USDA considers to be natural - which may not be all that natural after all.

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H4×0r — also called Haxor, leet speak, and 1337 sp34k, among other variations — is a slang word which is used to represent a kind of letter replacement code frequently used on the internet.

In this code, letters are replaced by numbers and other special characters in order to make the characters look more or less like the host language (usually English). This was originally done to throw off non-techies and try to hold secret conversations without actually having to learn another language. In order to further the confusion people purposefully or idiomatically mis-spell words, often inheriting idioms from net speak. Unfortunately, like with net speak, most of the time the spelling skills in question are poor anyway.

The non-standardized nature of the replacement means that inevitably, to be understandable to other users of H4×0r, the replacement code had to look enough like English that anyone could figure it out given time and a touch of practice. This seriously diluted it’s value to the point that no serious techies use it any more.

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Net speak, sometimes spelled netspeak, is a sub-dialect of English which uses replacements for words or syllables and abbreviations in order to speed the typing of common phrases or words. This is nearly indecipherable to those not used to the abbreviations and codes, but when used sparingly the meaning can usually be inferred from the surrounding context, and is simply a component of casual online conversation between netizens - citizens of the internet.

Like many things, however, it is best used in moderation, occasionally sprinkled into one’s speech. If used to frequently other netizens will not take the user of net speak seriously, and may shun them as being childish and unintelligent.

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“Camp”, also known as “Camp Value” or “Campyness” is a relatively wide spread slang term relating to the entertainment industry that a large number of people apparently don’t understand. While for members of other generations, this is almost to be expected, I have recently found a rash of my friends that don’t understand. For those of you out there that don’t know what Camp means, I’ll define it here, and then give some examples.
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Yesterday I spent my day getting trained by the Red Cross. In exchange for nine hours of my time, and a few hours worth of pay, I learned skills that may help me to save the rest of one of my family members lives. I’d recommend that anyone out there who can, take the class.

The full version of the class is for First Aid, Adult CPR+AED and Child/Infant CPR.

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HDCP

1. Officially: High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
2. A form of DRM invented by Digital Content protection LLC, a subsidiary of Intel.
3. Technology used to block people from displaying “HDCP” protected digital content on media described as being insecure. The technology will either completely block, or blur the content, unless all devices in the chain are equipped with HDCP technology. It is purportedly designed as a form of “copy protection” but has wound up becoming a form of “access prevention.”

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DCMA is another abbreviation that I’ve used, and received blank looks about. I’ll be giving what it officially stands for, as well as my definition.

DCMA

1. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998
2. The Defrauding Misappropriation Copyright Act of 1998
3. A law passed by congress in 1998, which restricts and inhibits the creation of new ideas and technology by causing copyright law to cover derivative works as well as the original work. The law also criminalizing the unauthorized accessing or copying of materials who’s use or ability to copy has been restricted through any technological means.

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A lot of people I’ve talked to recently are unaware of what DRM is, so I’ll try to fill you all in with what it stands for officially, my definition of the term, and do a basic discussion of the reasons for it’s existence, and the problems with it.

DRM

1. Digital Rights Management
2. A term used to describe any form of technology which is designed to restrict the use, access, or alteration of any form of data or content. This technology is desired primarily by those who create content, and wish to control how that content is used even after they sell a copy of said content. For example, a system of DVD or CD encryption designed to prevent people from ripping their DVD or CD, and then listening to the music they bought on an MP3 player, or watch it on their computer.

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For those that don’t know, there is a running gag among computer engineers that when a chip goes bad and lets out smoke, the reason the chip no longer works is because “you let the magic blue smoke out.”

In a related note, earlier today I was moving some boxes out of storage with my friends, when we noticed a burning smell, like burning plastic. We tried to find the cause, but did not. Moments later while they were getting some more boxes, and I was working to finish up a book shelf to put some books we brought up into, one of the air conditioning vents in my apartment suddenly started billowing smoke.
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Recently, there has been a large amount of media coverage about an immigration bill that was before the house and senate. Many in the main stream media (such as television) have praised the bill, while many in the blogosphere, and in talk radio have blasted the bill. The bill had both Bipartisan support and opposition.

With all of the problems surrounding immigration, and the views on it, it’s no wonder that there is so much talk about it recently.
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