Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

Chapter 11: What Do I Need to Know About Internet Culture and Lore?

• What Do I Need to Know About Internet Culture and Lore?
  • 11.1. What's :-) mean?
  • 11.2. What does that acronym stand for?
  • 11.3. What's a flame? A flame war?
  • 11.4. What's the Jargon File?
  • 11.5. How can I fall in love over the Internet?
  • 11.6. I heard someone hooked a toaster to the Internet?! Really?
  • 11.7. I read somewhere that someone has connected their Coke machine to the Internet. Is that true?
  • 11.8. Well, that's cute, but I'm a coffee drinker myself. Is there a coffee pot on the Net?
  • 11.9. Wow, people sure hook weird things up to the Net. What other funky gadgets have been plugged in?
  • 11.10. That's cool! How do I put my refrigerator, television, porch lights, cat, whatever on the Internet?
  • 11.11. People on the Internet certainly are fond of the word foo as a sort of filler word. Where does the word foo come from?
  • 11.12. What was the Great Renaming?
  • 11.13. What's an obhack? An obquestion? An objoke?
  • 11.14. How many people on the Internet know you're a dog?
  • 11.15. Who posts more to the Internet's Usenet, women or men?
  • 11.16. How can I find out what someone on the Internet looks like?
  • 11.17. What is alt.best.of.internet?
  • 11.18. What Usenet groups should I read for more insight into the culture o' the Internet?
  • 11.19. What organizations exist that protect the Internet and its users?
    • Electronic Frontier Foundation
    • Internet Society
    • Center for Civic Networking
    • Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
    • National Public Telecomputing Network

The Internet is its own society--a world that shares a lot with the outside world (Real Life) but has a variety of unique elements: its own jargon, legends, and culture. Those elements are as important--perhaps more important--than the networking technology itself. A sampling of those elements is presented in this chapter.

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