Words
Terms I use, sometimes differently than others. A personal glossary.
- Hacker
- Someone who builds things. Not a criminal. The original meaning.
- Tinkering
- Building without a clear goal. Following curiosity. How the best things get made.
- Ship
- To release something. Better to ship imperfect than perfect never.
- Troll
- Someone whose reply reveals much more information about himself or herself than about the topic of the post.
- Meme
- An idea that evolves through culture.
- Amateur
- Someone who does it for love.
- Essay
- An essay is something you write to try to figure something out.
- Nerd
- Someone who cares more about the work than how they look doing it. Convention has less hold over them.
- Prototype
- The first thing you make to learn what the real thing should be.
- Signal
- Information that predicts reality better than chance.
- Heresy
- A now-tame word that once meant "this idea is too dangerous to examine." Every era has its own versions.
- Tact
- Not shutting up, but having a deft touch. The opposite of clumsy, not the opposite of honest.
- Flanuer
- A flâneur is someone who wanders a city slowly and aimlessly, choosing their path step by step to observe and absorb whatever they encounter.