A couple versions ago Trillian (my IM client) integrated with Wikipedia. Basically it underlines words that are defined in Wikipedia and you can hover over them to see the definition. “Wow,” I thought, “How useless!” I appreciated the idea but mostly found it annoying but hadn’t had time figure out how to turn it off.
The other day I was IM’ing with somebody from a younger, much cooler, generation and they were typing things like TTFN and LOL. I had no idea what they were saying but Trillian underlined them and all I had to do was hover over the words and Wikipedia would tell me what the heck these abbrevious meant. Three thoughts:
1. I feel old
2. There is a fighting chance I might be able to communicate with my children
3. w00t!
You know it’s going to be a rough day when you wake up and realize that, not only are you a dork, but you are an *old* dork. :-) Welcome to your 30s!
P.S. I had a similar challenge a few weeks ago, and actually went to check out babelfish to see if they had a l33t - to - english translator. No dice. Someone should add it, though!
(It’s comment day for Nate)
Did you know that Google has done a version of their search interface in l33t speak? Check out http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/.
I’m not even in my 30’s (spring chicken) and I didn’t know what w00t meant - of course google did, and he said this:
“3. w00t
acronym used in online gaming as an expression of triumph. stands for ‘we own the other team’. the zeros are put in because nerds are attempting to take over the world with binary. also they think it looks cool
‘haha, we fragged their asses, w00t!’”
Maybe we are cool for not knowing, huh?
Oh, I knew w00t, but it’s because I hang out with the geekiest people imaginable. (No I don’t include myself in their group, even though I clearly am. Please do not touch the self-esteem, it’s thinner than soap film.)
http://www.urbandictionary.com is also a good resource for learning about things that respectable resources won’t list. That’s how we deflowered Jeremy, who up to that point didn’t know what Tossing Salad was. The Interaction Designers can be a rough crowd.