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L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term
SlashChick writes "In an interesting twist on political correctness, L.A. County has banned the use of the terms 'Master/Slave' (commonly used to denote hard drive arrangements.) According to Snopes.com, 'someone within the County bureaucracy... had taken offense at "master/slave" references and complained to the board.' L.A. County now requires that vendors working with the county remove all 'master/slave' references. Incredible. Read the full story."
Funny that my first instinct was to check Snopes, and what do you know but that's the provided link. Shows how patently ridiculous this story seemed at first.
Hasn't this obsession with sanitizing speech become a total farce? What's next? Will we not be able to have male and female ends on our 1/4" audio cable for fear of offending the transgendered? How the hell am I supposed to shop for wires now?
To verify that this wasn't a hoax or an internal joke which mistakenly escaped to the wider world of the Internet, we called the Purchasing and Contract Services division for the County of Los Angeles, and they informed us that yes, they did issue this message, and yes, it was meant seriously. The representative we spoke with said that someone within the County bureaucracy -- a person who probably didn't understand computer terminology -- had taken offense at 'master/slave' references and complained to the board, whereupon the Internal Services Department was obligated to issue notification requesting that vendors refrain from using that terminology.
Okay, how about "Pimp/Bitch"? The guy who recommended this needs to be fired before his ideas continue to procreate.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
From: Dave Schroeder <das@doit.wisc.edu>
/00303043
d _ATA.htm
c onf_Jumpering.htm
Subject: Computer terminology
Date: November 24, 2003 12:27:14 PM CST
To: jsandoval@isd.co.la.ca.us
Cc: seconddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, thirddistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fourthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, fifthdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us, firstdistrict@bos.co.la.ca.us
Regarding the recent memo sent to a county vendor regarding "master/slave", it may interest you to know that this is, and has been for years, the accepted and only terminology that refers to the hierarchy of the most commonly used computer hard drive interface in the world, known as "IDE" or "ATA". It may also interest you to know one of the definitions of "master" and "slave" according to Merriam-Webster:
master - 3 a master mechanism or device
slave - 5 a device that is directly responsive to another
And from the definitive reference on the English language, Oxford University's Oxford English Dictionary:
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry
master - e. A component of a system which controls or regulates the operation of one or more of the system's other components. Cf. SLAVE n. 5b. See also master-slave, sense C. 6.
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00227171
slave - c. techn. Used to denote a subsidiary device, esp. one which is controlled by, or which follows accurately the movements of, another device.
master-slave a. (attrib.) (b) chiefly Electronics and Computing, designating or relating to a system in which one component controls the behaviour of one or more other components.
The names "master" and "slave" are codified in the official ANSI ATA-1 interface standard, X3.221-1994, titled "AT Attachment Interface for Disk Drives". You may be aware that ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is the largest standards body in the United States. It would seem odd that a county purchasing agency would want to throw out well established standard names created over years of cooperation and deliberation by scientists, engineers, and standards experts. Further, almost every hard disk currently in the possession of the county has the words "MASTER" and "SLAVE" printed directly on them. Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to destroy this labeling on each drive, spending thousands of manhours and voiding manufacturers' warranties in the process. Your next computing equipment bid will likely be an interesting one, since all hard drive manufacturers refer to their drives using the same terminology.
Insisting that vendors comply with the requirements in the memo makes the county look extremely, extremely foolish, and directly flies in the face of accepted, descriptive technical names for device interaction. You may also wish to caution your vendors about using the words "male" and "female" in the description of plumbing and electrical fixtures.
Regards,
Dave Schroeder
Los Angeles County native
cc: County Board
Ref:
ATA (ATA-1)
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/st
Single, Master and Slave Drives and Jumpering
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/
INCITS Technical Committee 13 (T13), responsible for X3.221-1994
http://www.t13.org/
So now we have to have dominant and submissive hard drives???
...they could always go all SCSI.
LA County has banned the use of the terms 'Master/Slave'
Is this the same LA County that has rampant police corruption and brutality problems?
The one in the state, California, that is facing a massive deficit?
Glad to know they have their priorities right.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
"I'm sorry, sir, but that is politically incorrect language."
"Uh, ok, um, lemme see. Can I please have a mouse adaptor where one end has pins sticking out and one end has holes to fill."
"You trying to be funny with me, boy?"
"Ugh, ok, never mind. Just give me a master/slave controller."
"That's it, I'm calling the police, pervert!"
"L.A. County Bans use of Master/Slave Term. ...
LA County now requires that vendors working with the county remove all 'master/slave' references."
Contrast this to the snopes article, which says: The County of Los Angeles has requested that equipment vendors avoid using the industry term "Master/Slave" in product descriptions and labelling.
There's a big difference between request and require. And banned? Hardly. I doubt anyone's going to get fined or sued over this.
Will L.A. County officials put their money where their mouths are and buy all new equipment to replace any that uses this offensive terminology? Or are they too niggardly?
Phredd - "I have found people tend to take you far less seriously once you start waving your genitals at them..."
Well, I ban the word "County" because "Count" is a title in an archaic nobility system that has no place in modern American culture. Take that, L.A. *****y!
At my first programming job, we shared an open office with the sales people. We started designing this large system with small group meetings in the common area of the office. We kept talking about "forking children" and "killing children" and our master process was called the "mother." Finally one of the more ditzy sale women came back and asked us to explain our disturbing terminology. She didn't think that "forking babies" was proper office talk. She was okay with it once we explained the terminology.
"I threw up my hands in disgust and wondered if it had been such a good idea to have eaten my hands in the first place."
This means that I would have no problem moving to L.A. But I think my hard drives would feel more at home in San Francisco.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Here in America, you label drives "Master/Slave" for correctness.
In Socialist California, the label correctness slaves master YOU!
I was just inspecting my IDE cables and I noticed that the connector denoted master is a light gray, while the slave connector is black. It seems that the people who designed this standard were part of a conspiracy to bring black slavery in the United States. I should have seen it all along.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule. -Randal, Clerks
I removed the slave jumper from my hard drive, then plugged it in to the connector directly adjacent to the mobo on the ribbon cable. You know, so it wasn't at the back of the bus anymore.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
I've joked about this a few times at work when the (military) instructors I work with discuss the latest in command directed PC nuttiness. They can't use the term cockpit, it's a flight deck. Neither can they say white board or black board. Those are now officially marker boards and chalk boards. I used to joke that we can't use master/slave anymore due to a NAACP lawsuit against the computer industry. Guess it ain't a joke anymore.
What I want to know is how sea horses wire up their audio systems. I mean, if they go down to radio shack and ask for a male-male cable, which one is it? The male or the female? Huh? Which one is it? For the love of all things good, will someone please tell me which one is it?????
(abusing your highly modded post)
1. "man" pages are now called "person" pages.
2. Similarly, "hangman" is now the "person_executed_by_an_oppressive_regime."
3. To avoid casting aspersions on our feline friends, the "cat" command is now merely "domestic_quadruped."
4. To date, there has only been a UNIX command for "yes" - reflecting the male belief that women always mean yes, even when they say no. To address this imbalance, System VI adds a "no" command, along with a "-f[orce]" option which will crash the entire system if the "no" is ignored.
5. The bias of the "mail" command is obvious, and it has been replaced by the more neutral "gendre" command.
6. The "touch" command has been removed from the standard distribution due to its inappropriate use by high-level managers.
7. "compress" has been replaced by the lightweight "feather" command. Thus, old information (such as that from Dead White European Males) should be archived via "tar" and "feather".
8. The "more" command reflects the materialistic philosophy of the Reagan era. System VI uses the environmentally preferable "less" command.
9. The biodegradable "KleeNeX" displaces the environmentally unfriendly "LaTeX".
1. SHELL COMMANDS To avoid unpleasant, medieval connotations, the "kill" command has been renamed "euthanise."
2. The "nice" command was historically used by privileged users to give themselves priority over unprivileged ones, by telling them to be "nice". In System VI, the "sue" command is used by unprivileged users to get for themselves the rights enjoyed by privileged ones.
3. "history" has been completely rewritten, and is now called "herstory."
4. "quota" can now specify minimum as well as maximum usage, and will be strictly enforced.
5. The "abort()" function is now called "choice()."
1. TERMINOLOGY From now on, "rich text" will be more accurately referred to as "exploitive capitalist text".
2. The term "daemons" is a Judeo-Christian pejorative. Such processes will now be known as "spiritual guides."
3. There will no longer be a invidious distinction between "dumb" and "smart" terminals. All terminals are equally valuable.
4. Traditionally, "normal video" (as opposed to "reverse video") was white on black. This implicitly condoned European colonialism, particularly with respect to people of African descent. UNIX System VI now uses "regressive video" to refer to white on black, while "progressive video" can be any color at all over a white background.
5. For far too long, power has been concentrated in the hands of "root" and his "wheel" oligarchy. We have instituted a dictatorship of the users. All system administration functions will be handled by the People's Committee for Democratically Organizing the System (PC-DOS).
6. No longer will it be permissible for files and processes to be "owned" by users. All files and processes will own themselves, and decided how (or whether) to respond to requests from users.
7. The X Window System will henceforth be known as the NC-17 Window System.
8. And finally, UNIX itself will be renamed "PC" - for Procreatively Challenged.
The San Francisco City Council recently passed Ordinance 2002-11-78b, which prohibits the sale or manufacture of pinouts and connectors that are exclusively "male" or "female".
Apparently, there were those who felt that having seperate male and female connectors was somehow discriminitory. In the words of Douglas Fillmore, spokesperson of a citizen's group that endorse that ordinance, "Technology, and our terminology that describes it does not only mirror life - it also helps guide it. By creating devices that can only be used in one method, to the exclusion of others, and to further use such value-laden terminology to describe them, sends a clear message that "there is only one accepted way to mate." This metaphor can be very injurous to groups we wish to show our support for."
So, go into a Radio Shack in San Fran and as for a male db25 pin connector. They'll sell you a connector that comes with a seperate mating collar, just incase you choose to mate it with another male. Or, if they're out of stock, they'll refer you to the Fry's Electronics in Oakland.
I'm just kidding. I hope no one believes this.
Tried two 15 minute water breaks. Didn't work. In fact, the second one turned into more of a smoking break.
Strangely, I didn't thin this was a farce, since I've lived through exactly this nonsense once before.
The year was 1993, and I was working as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in their High Flux Isotope Reactor. While I was there we got visited by the Secretary of Energy (Hazel O'Leary) and her "Science Advisor" Jim Hall (who later went on to chair the NTSB). The tour was notable for two reasons:
Much lunchtime discussion over the next week resulted in a variety of alternative terminologies, including "master/bitch", "pimp/hoe", and "indentured servant." The last of these actually made it into some drawings, and the Powers That Be were not amused.
So no, I'm not surprised. Not one bit.
Remember how the generic pronoun "he" was considered sexist, and now we're supposed to write the contraction "s/he" to mean "she or he"? Well, it's pretty clear that this discriminates against nongendered species as well as inorganic objects. Thus I propose the written contraction "s/h/it" to mean "she, he, or it." I'll contact the LA County supervisors right away with my proposal.
Courtesy of yesterday's opinionjournal.com Best of the Web Today (which also reported on the master/slave controversy):
Political correctness, like other totalitarian ideologies, demands absolute purity.
-- James Taranto
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Let's stop using that "Spanish" language in any public documents. This is a language that unfairly assigns a 'gender' to every noun.
Unless the Spanish speaking Mexican American population of Los Angeles county agree to replace the 'le' and 'la' with something more gender nutural, then all people working with, or receiving services will have to do so in the English language.
You sexist pigs.
The Internet is generally stupid
The team on this project was about half black and half white. I was having an animated discussion with another of the (white) programmers when a couple of the (black) programmers came in. They watched the discussion for a little while. I looked up at them, and one said, "Don't say slave."
"No?" I asked.
"Nuh uh," he replied, with just slightly too straight a face.
So I bet my career: I turned to the other (white) programmer and said, "Fine. So the Massah machine needs to hold record counts in the array so it can..." and everybody cracked up. We discussed terminology a bit, and decided to call the controlling box the "controller" and the indexing boxes the "indexers." About 70% of the folks actually using our application were black, we figured, and not too savvy on computer terminology, so fuck it: we caved, just to be on the polite side.
Moral: we all had a good laugh. Here in Atlanta proper, there are more white than blacks. In state government, there is plenty of minority representation. And we all get along pretty damned well---I was voted the second whitest white boy in the office by the (mostly black) administrative staff (and damn was the whitest white boy pissed).
I'm increasingly convinced that the people we're trying desperately not to piss off are not minorities, but liberal white jackasses who think they're under some sort of obligation to rescue all those poor defenseless minorities from oppressive words. Most actual black people can look after themselves, and, having better things to worry about, tend not to give a damn.
This is not my sandwich.
As is web weaver for god's sake. A good change? Ha. A master does not imply evil doings. A martial arts master or a master carpenter generally don't have slaves. Master implies that they the best at what they do. Yes, it also implies authority, but not cruel domination. Gah. People drive me insane. Some of these offended groups are probably the same ones that burn 'inappropriate books.' Pooh on them.
I'd rather have lived a hundred years ago. Except of course, for all my grumbling about rampant political correctness and other hogwash, I'd be much more pissed about the lack of women's suffrage, real racial inequality, and the other issues of the day. The moral? There isn't one really.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
a guy in a wheelchair who was sure I was making fun of him
Then he should really not be tought image processing on *nix.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Their job is to make sure the cops get paid and the street lights work. It is NOT to re-invent Think-Speak.
Tell me about it.
How about this, which happened to me in University. Note that I don't care about race, disability, sexual orientation - none of that is relevant to whether or not I like (or will hire) someone. But I *hate* political correctness and I avoid it at all costs.
Picture it. In the hallway, just after I missed a question on a math test, where I had to integrate a function of e * trig. (Otherwise, did okay on the test.) Chatting with classmates.
"Well, I think the problem is that I don't integrate very well."
Stranger in the hallway who overhears:
"Oh! That's *horrible*! You're a terrible person! No one chooses the color of their skin! You could have just as easily been born black, you know! It's people like you who keep society from progressing!"
So, in unison, we (all Engineers) looked at her and laughed. At her.
"You're *all* horrible people! This is university! Campus KKK! I'm reporting you to the dean!"
Suffering idiocy as well as I do, it was I who took up the task of dealing with her.
"I would invite you to report that to my dean, I'm sure he'll laugh at you at least as hard as I laughed at you. Let me guess, you're in an arts program, right? In my arts elective, the instructor started by asking our entire class if we had our purple crayons. Things only went downhill from there."
[Indignant gasps from the chick... who was wearing wooden sandals in late October.]
I continued, "...Now, seeing as how *you're* the ignorant one..."
Screaming now, "How *DARE* you call me ignorant! You're the one who said you didn't like to integrate!" People were stopping to see this woman lose it on me. This hallway connected two science buildings, an engineering building and one arts building, so most of them were starting to laugh at her, too.
"You're *ALL* in on this! What's wrong with you people?" She was getting worked up to tears, all the angst of a comfortable middle-class childhood showing.
A big black guy who had been watching and kind of laughing from the beginning told her that he hated to integrate too, then walked away, leaving her stunned.
Me again: "Now, seeing as how you're the ignorant one, integration is a mathematical process for finding the area under a curve. It's from a branch of mathematics called calculus. Your wooden sandals and amazing ability to jump to unfounded conclusions have only served to reaffirm my belief that calculus is the distinction between a degree and toilet paper. You, honeybunch, are an idiot."
And with that, we left. I think she was having a stress attack when we walked away.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Since we're using scriptures, here's a great resource for uptight people who are offended by anything. Why not celebrate Christmas.... er, non-denominational holiday period with the Politically Correct version of the Birth of Christ.
Here's an excerpt to wet your appetite:
Sure enough, the three wise men rode up.
The crowd gasped, "They're all male!" And "Not very multicultural!"
"Balthasar here is black," said one of the Magi.
"Yes, but how many of you are gay or disabled?" someone shouted. A committee was quickly formed to find an impoverished lesbian wise-person among the halt and lame of Bethlehem.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
True in formal writing or speech... for now. Check back in a century and I'd bet you'll see the singular "they" accepted. It's easier than formulating a new, concise, elegant approach to "he/she". And rant all you want, but the world is never going back to the default "he".
Nor, IMHO, should it. Language evolves and no language does it better than English. The language expresses the needs of the culture -- if the culture as a whole (or even in large part) decides the old way is inadequate, the language will change accordingly.
Or, to put it succintly, the only languages spoken "perfectly" are dead ones.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
She was the patron just in line ahead of me. When she got to the register she demanded: "You will put out vegetarian pizzas, right? I'm a vegetarian and I do not eat meat" -- but loves cheese, I thought -- " and I refuse to kill a defenseless animal for my nutrition."
The cashier informed her that the store always provided vegetarian pizzas on its buffets for people who, for one reason or another, preferred them.
What happened next was purely by reflex and was not pre-meditated.
I said: "You will put out meat pizzas, right? I am a carnivore and I believe it is unethical to kill and eat defenseless little plants which are rooted in the ground and are unable to put up any fight at all against human harvestors. Animals at least have a chance to escape or mount a defense."
And there was much laughter and rejoicing.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I was at a local dinner with my vegiterian girl friend at the time and I ended up ordering a hamburger while she got a grilled cheese sandwich. I then had to sit through a 10 minute lecture on how meat is processed and killed and that I was a horrible person for eating meat.
So I then told her "Do you know how cheese is made? They inject cows with so much hormones that their udders get so big that they can't even walk. Their legs break and they just lay in one spot for the rest of their lives giving milk for your cheese sandwich."
That was the best meal ever. I not only got to eat my hamburger but I also got to eat her grilled cheese sandwich.
Thing were never the same after that....
Outdoor storage sheds and pet kennels