Jargon Watch
Astroturf Campaign
- A fake grass-roots political campaign. Posited in RISKS Digest as a potential future problem in net-based "issue" campaigning, in which massive phony mailings are easier than ever.
Chamber Art
- Term coined by electronic music composer Morton Subotnick (creator of the CD-ROM art piece All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis) to refer to the intimate, one-on-one relationship that an artist can have with a viewer/ listener through computer-based art.
Death Star Villages
- Suburbs around New Jersey where many AT&T workers' families live. Makes reference to the AT&T logo, which employees have dubbed "The Death Star" (from the Star Wars films).
Kevorking (after Dr. Jack Kevorkian)
- To kill something. "Look, kevork that project and let's go out for a burger." Or "I read half the article, got bored, and kevorked it."
Rasterbator
- A compulsive digital manipulator. A Photoshop abuser.
Shovelware
- A CD-ROM title that contains mostly pre-existing material shoveled in to fill the 600 Mbytes of disk space. "Kitchen-sink title," has a similar, although somewhat less derogatory, meaning.
Telephone Number Salary
- A seven-digit salary (or project budget).
TOSsed Out
- Ejected from the chat rooms on America Online for violating its Terms of Service (TOS) agreement. The ejection-happy arbiters of taste who do the TOSsing are sometimes referred to as cybercops.
Tip o' the hat to: Ernie, Sharon Lynn Fisher, Eugene Mosier, Robert Rossney, John Shirley, and Bruce Sterling
