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Alphabet's Jigsaw Wants To Explain Tech Jargon To You, Launches Sideways Dictionary (cnet.com)
It might sound obvious, but the thing about tech is that sometimes it can get really, well, technical. From a report on CNET: So Alphabet wants to help make nitty-gritty tech jargon simpler to explain to the masses. On Tuesday, Jigsaw, a tech incubator owned by Google's parent company, launched a website called the Sideways Dictionary that takes jargon and puts it into terms normal people would understand. Jigsaw partnered with the Washington Post to build the tool.
What's that?
@peetm
Blank page
Kind of. You're presented with a blank page, it then takes 4 or 5 seconds to load the text "Sideways Dictionary" at the bottom of the page. Not wildly impressed.
Content seems to be largely snippets worthy of BadAnalogyGuy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This is what happens when you have too much money.
Ambrose Bierce has prior art.
Anyone else thought about The Jargon File?
It is not that at all.
This tool provides only a bunch of analogies for tech jargon, but many are not good.
An API to a turnstile??? Not really at all useful to most people. The "Cinderella" one for 2-factor authentication is better, but still leaves off the most critical requirement that the 2 factors be of different nature. Generally this means two of: Something you know (password), something you have (token), or something you are (biometrics)
I keep seeing claims for 2-factor that are only having more than one of "something you know" which is not real 2-factor. (Cindrella's slipper is, though.)
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
I have to give technical explanations to business types regularly and in my experience a poor analogy that gives the wrong impression of a technical concept is worse than useless. I've found in my career is if you can express why it is valuable for someone to understand a technical term or concept, they are more than capable of understanding it. People usually don't understand all this technical jargon not because it's hard, but because they can't be bothered.
I would call these analogies flawed at best. For example, there is one that says Agile Development is like Punk Rock: instead of learning your instruments you learn three chords and get on with it. If someone explained Agile like that to me I would ban it from our office (while in reality it is an excellent methodology for some types of development).
This dictionary thing may actually be useful.
Can anyone tell me if it defines the term "moz://a"?
I saw that term recently, but I'm not sure what it means.
At first I thought it might be a URL using a cool new protocol, but I've never heard of the "moz" protocol and the hostname of just "a" seems really unusual. That hostname doesn't even resolve for me!
So maybe it isn't a URL. Should I ignore the strange characters? I'm not sure what a "Moz a" is, though.
Should I read it as "Moza"? I don't know what that is, either, but it reminds me of mozzarella cheese.
That's the best that I can come up with. It must refer to some kind of cheese. But maybe this new dictionary will confirm that I'm right?
I'd try this new dictionary site for myself, but all that site shows is a blank white page, even after waiting a while. Maybe it's an HTML 6 page, but I'm only using an HTML 5 browser?
I went there looking for a geekanese to normie dictionary, instead I find an Urban Dictionary analogy list. I was going to share this with my users, as for now, I think I'll pass.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
internet: we already have this, its called wikipedia, and simple wikipedia. its much more complete and open.
Alphabet: ah yes well but did you know this version came with a name that was determined by a focus group, and is funded by a team of people who think caviar tastes different on Yachts than it does on private jets?
internet: but we dont need this...
Alphabet: Thats what we thought about yacht caviar but that turned out spectacular even though its almost the same as resort caviar.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And when it does load, I can hardly read what's on the page, aside from the blue "Please Explain." The text that says "write here" is barely visible, too small and way too light. Light gray on white is not exactly conducive to a good UI.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Christ on a bike that's embarrassing. Wonder how much it cost?
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
Too much javascript interfering with scrolling and animations. Makes the user experience clunky and annoying. Looks like another Google-cum-Alphabet project destined for the dustbin.
Doesn't work in Chrome with uBlock and Privacy Badger. Disabled uBlock, could see definitions but could not log in. Gave up.
Does not load at all on IE10. My work PC won't install IE11 for some reason.
I have not seen a site this shitty for a while. Normally something at least kinda works.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
can it do car analogies?
Crowd-sourced with Reddit-style voting. Unlike Urban Dictionary, I assume they have some way of reviewing and taking overriding action. This also means that Boaty McBoatface-style answers will be caught.
The blinking cursor is readable enough. Explanatory text in full size and color is taken to mean literally text to most dumb end users, and they'll keep clicking next to it and hitting backspace. The search suggestions are only that - suggestions. You don't strictly need to see them either.
In real-world use, this site will presumably be linked to by article body text to define jargon in the article, so the search UI is very secondary.
HTTP also "seals" the message inside the protocol's encapsulation
The encapsulation for an HTTP message is the bounds of physical paper (which grows in size to fit the contents, of course). It's not hidden from view at all.
HTTPS is not even just a lined envelope. It's more like writing in secret code - the message itself is still plainly visible.
Blank page, login link at the bottom. They don't like ad blockers so much?
Well, they already say that IP packets are like postcards, so once you encrypt, you logically can't use IP anymore. Perfectly non-confusing explanations!
Ezekiel 23:20
technical language to the point where technical people now have a hard time understanding their own work. Now corporations can get on the game too and commercialize the language.
At this point it's more a joke than anything else... I like the ransomware.
"It’s like taking a hostage. As the name suggests, it’s a form of kidnapping, where your data is taken hostage (often using a virus) and a ransom demand follows. In the more sophisticated cases, even Liam Neeson can’t help you."
Minor correction ... The CONTENT is in plain view but the message is not visible without knowing the magic word. (OMFG .... Now I'm doing it!)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Which would come over time from the community adding/refining explanations and voting them up and down till the best ones are at the top. Very limited so far. And the quality of many of the analogies is pretty weak. WPA for example. You don't really walk away knowing what WPA is, but you definitely know that a bunch of people have a bone to pick with it as if someone wanting to know what it means automatically means that person is looking for a SINGLE way to secure themselves on the internet. But that would improve over time.
This site: http://foldoc.org/
Here's a wiki entry about it.
"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun." -- Ecclesiastes 1:9
Goes twice for technology.
Meanwhile Wikipedia (and related services including Wiktionary) get a lot more views, doesn't require JS to use, and works with a lot more browsers (including textual browsers). I'm also not impressed by the Washington Post "partnership". WAPO has been a source of "fake news" Russophobic hysteria lately: the Russians reportedly attacking the US electrical grid via a Vermont electrical facility (a story they still haven't retracted), and using the PropOrNot website as a viable source when we don't know who is behind what that site claims is propaganda and the terms of being considered propaganda there are so broad many more sources could have been included.
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