Urban Dictionary is a Great Resource

I think I just made up a new word: Creationasst, and it's less poetic variant, Creationass.

I love words, love learning a new word - especially a neologism (a newly created word). And I enjoy making words up too.

When you hear a new buzz word that has virally entered into the mass media, do you ever wonder who was the first person to come up with it?; I sure do.

Many years later, I can often recall exactly the first time and the circumstances of when I heard a new word for the first time. Take for instance "chump change"; in 1991 a Colonel in the USAF used that word in a conversation. I thought it quite clever and it got filed away in the neurons. But I'd bet he wasn't the person who made it up. Who was it?

And who made up the word MILF??? Many believe it originated in the movie "American Pie", but others claim it predates it. When I first saw the word MILF in print and didn't know what it meant, good ole' Urban Dictionary didn't let me down.

Whenever you come across a newly minted word in a magazine or movie, please post it to http://www.urbandictionary.com/ -- especially if it's creative or funny! That way when I come across a new slang word that won't be in any standard dictionary, I can find out what it means and be the first one in my circle of friends to use it.

Plus a lot the entries there are funny as hell. Funny.. and sad... and true..

Someone wrote me their son was spending too much time playing WoW and it was negatively affecting his life.

WTF was WoW???

I'd never heard of it before, so I punched it in to Urban Dictionary. At the top of the list was a sober definition. But besides some no-nonsense definitions, there were others that were both funny and seemed to be spot on: "WoW: Crack, in CD-ROM form. "

World of Warcrack.

Another astute observation posted to UD:

7.
wow

World of Warcraft. An online game played by far too many people. Not only does it engulf the player, and become their life, but it takes over the lives of those around them. The player will often forget to eat and drink and will rarely leave the house. They will feature less and less in their friends' lives as all they can do is talk about the game. Their life revolves around it and it soon becomes all they have as friends don't want to be around them anymore.

And the all seemingly too true:

world of warcraft
2873 up, 417 down
crack, in CD-ROM form.
World of Warcraft player: listen, man, i'll do anything, ANYTHING for just one more month of play! i'm serious, man, here, take my sister, take my penis, take my house, just don't take my level 56 troll rogue! Guy: who the fuck are you anyway?

I've made a few contributions to Urban Dictionary, and some definitions I had actually made up myself.

One of my UD contributions was:
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hypothesis
9 up, 9 down
A guess made by someone with a PhD.

In common usage, the words hypothesis, model, theory, and law have different interpretations and are at times used without precision, but in science they have very exact meanings. A hypothesis is a limited statement regarding the cause and effect in a specific situation, which can be tested by experimentation and observation or by statistical analysis of the probabilities from the data obtained.

It's not just a guess, it's a hypothesis.
model theory guess paradigm deduction by Bill Gronos Jul 11, 2006 email it 0 comments

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But in one instance the Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in. To my shock and horror, my joke definition got quoted on the Web by some Goddamned Creationist -- and he even credited me for it!!!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080126161627AAemaka

Hey, 15 nanoseconds of fame never hurts, but PLEASE don't let anyone think I believe that crap!

It didn't take me long to figure out how that the Creationasst found my joke definition. (hey!, I just made that word up. I'd better go publish it in UD, so I get credit for being clever, plus it will stake out my personal point of view... )

Yup, just Googled both Creationasst and Creationss and there are zero hits -- SO IS MOI THE FIRST GUY TO THINK THAT ONE UP?

We'll never know for sure, but publishing it on Urban Dictionary will document my primacy in publishing it anyway...

Yup, it's not in Urban Dictionary yet, so it's mine now!...

...And another blow struck for reason!

My other Urban Dictionary submissions. Some I made up, most I purloined. All the Texas Hold'em words came from a magazine article. I've only played the game once.

17.
Like cookies in a Keebler factory
1. Something extremely common, ordinary, mundane, or insipid. Mass produced. 2. Referring to people that mindlessly...
Oct 26, 2006
16.
lambos
Car doors that open scissor style, also called gull wing doors. The name comes from Lambourghini cars that have this...
Jul 24, 2006
15.
FloorPlay
Dancing in an erotic manner where the intent is to get your partner sexually stimulated, perhaps to the point of orga...
Aug 21, 2006
14.
hypothesis
A guess made by someone with a PhD. In common usage, the words hypothesis, model, theory, and law have different...
Jul 11, 2006
13.
expir-russian roulette
(transmogrification of expiration)A game of chance where one covers or ignores the expiration date on any refrigerate...
Jul 2, 2006
12.
pants candy
(derivation self explanatory) The female sexual organ.
Jul 2, 2006
11.
tapping the aquarium
Advising a terrible poker player how to play better. Also known as "Waking the fish"
Jun 27, 2006
10.
Gay Waiter
In poker, having a queen and a three for hole cards, i.e. a queen with a "tray".
Jun 27, 2006
9.
fish and chips
A bad poker player who's on a lucky streak.
Jun 27, 2006
8.
railbird
A female poker groupie. Could also apply to other gambling games where spectators stand around the table.
Jun 27, 2006
7.
ballerinas
(Poker term): Pair of deuces for hole cards, i.e. two 2's - tutus.
Jun 27, 2006
6.
ace rag
(Texas Hold'em Poker term): Ace with a weak kicker.
Jun 27, 2006
5.
heir mattress
Nickname for Paris Hilton.
Jun 11, 2006
4.
que buena estas
A Spanish expression that when spoken to a woman literally means "how good you are", but is slang for "how sexy you a...
Jan 22, 2006
3.
tuanys
A greeting or exclamation used in Costa Rica with no specific definition, but means something equivalent to "ain't it...
Jan 22, 2006

2.
McCartinize
To become lame so gradually that no one notices that you now suck. Paul McCartney used as a verb. This definition w...
Jan 5, 2006
1.
heir matress
Nickname for Paris Hilton.

Jan 5, 2006

Easy, $1 Low-Tech Way to Increase Your Internet Connection Speed By 68%

This is original Bill Gronos material and could be very useful to you.

Today I increased my home cable company Internet connection speed 68% to 37431.2 Kbps, using nothing more than a $1 cable and a beer bottle filled with water.

37.4 Mb/sec -- that's 668 times a 56K dial-up and 124 times a typical DSL connection! -- for $1 and w/o having to make any changes to my PC settings??? And that it was super-easy?

I've NEVER seen a faster speed test result and I've measured lots of connections, including those at two universities. It is 80% of the speed of a full T3 connection! (T3: 44736 kbps)

Today I needed to download a 900MB file while in my home (MS Visual Studio Express 2008, plus all the stinking updates and patches for it), via WIFI, and needed to get the fastest connection possible. Repeat, via WIFI -- and passing through two brick walls!

I use a cheapo ($10 after rebate) USB WIFI adaptor for my desktop PC that looks like a thumb drive, with no external antenna. I went to a $1 store and got a 4' USB extender cable and attached the adaptor to it. Then I filled a 40oz beer bottle with water (for weight to keep the adaptor and cable steady), attached the adaptor/cable extension to the bottle with a rubber band and started aiming it in three dimensions while watching the WIFI strength meter app on my PC screen.

In the optimum position, I now had -64db signal strength, whereas I only had -79db -- and often worse -- before, when the adaptor was plugged directly into the USB port (these signal strengths are negative values, so lower is stronger).

For you non-techies, this was a gigantic 32 times increase in the signal strength (db - decibels - is a logarithmic scale, just like earthquakes are measured; calculation: 10 ^ {(79-64)/10} = 10^(1.5) = 31.6 times as strong.)

The below speed test screenshot is from a test run at the CNET website, http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html

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At this test site you enter your area code, run the test, and it tells you what providers can give you a faster connection.

NOTE THAT THE "FASTER PROVIDERS" COLUMN IS EMPTY, BECAUSE THIS IS IT!, there is no faster connection in Oklahoma City, 405 area code - AND THIS IS VIA WIFI!

The point I want to make is that you should fiddle with your desktop or laptop PC position even if it's a pain in the ass, as even a 3 db increase in signal strength means TWICE the signal strength. (OK, OK - for you nitpickers it's 1.995262315 times as strong: twice as strong would be a 3.01029996 db increase,)

Try aiming your laptop's direction and moving it several feet. Even if you have to drag your desktop PC's tower a few feet, place it on a stack of books, or align it a few degrees, it will be worth it. Stronger signal means less interference from your neighbor's WIFI router and 2.4GHz cordless phone, giving you far fewer dropped bit packets that your router would have to resend.

Below is a T(n) ref table. I do not have my own T3 connection, just a cable company Internet connection.

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T1, T1c, T2, T3, T4

T(n) Quick Overview
Some Electrical Characteristics for Tn
Cabling
co-directional
Mark
3.0 Vdc
Space
0 Vdc +/- 0.30 Vdc
Pulse width
648 ns +/- 15 ns
Encoding
AMI (bipolar) and B8ZS
Speed
T1: 1544 kbps +/- 50 ppm

T1c: 3152 kbps +/- 50 ppm

T2: 6312 kbps +/- 50 ppm

T3: 44736 kbps +/- 50 ppm

T4: 274760 kbps +/- 50 ppm