GIGO
Garbage In, Garbage Out
One cannot venture far into the mysterious land of computers and “digital assistants” before one realizes that they have entered a land of acronyms; and that computer geeks speak these weird things like they are actual words. Let’s call this place “Techland”.
Spend any time in Techland, and you will find yourself surrounded by these acronyms, and hounded by them… and that you are expected to know all of them.
Frankly, I’m FUWA* (Fed Up With Acronyms) and I instinctively dislike them. I don’t trust them, and sometimes I think they’re there just to make me feel stupid. I’m sorry, Jack, but gooey¹ is what salt-water taffy is, and bye-ose² is not a real word. Yes, I don’t like geek acronyms one bit.
And they breed like cockroaches.
I am thinking of writing my Congressperson asking that they sponsor a Bill that would ban all acronyms (the BAA Bill). That’s how FUWA’ed I am. But I have been kind of too busy to actually do so yet. (At the moment, I’m trying to learn all the intricacies of HTML³ and CSS4 for a website ‘makeover’.)
But there’s one I like — “Gih-go” (or, “gee-go”, if said fast enough).
GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.
In Techland, GIGO refers to “the fact that computers will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical output. It was most popular in the early days of computing, but applies even more today, when powerful computers can spew out mountains of erroneous information in a short time.”
But.. I don’t much care how the computer geeks mean it. To me, that’s just a “well, duh.” I use it as an explanation of some of the human behavior I see. The “garbage in” is the messages we expose ourselves too.
Tip of the day: Reduce your garbage in.
1) There is very little on TV that will make you smarter, wiser, or better looking. Nor will it pay your bills for you. In fact, it is an idiot (making) box.
2) Some studies have suggested that classical music raises IQ points. I don’t think anyone has done a study on what Metal or Gansta Rap does.. But.
For sure, learning to read music and play an (new?) instrument will expand your mind.
3) You are not too old to go back to school. Take a course in painting, pottery, photography, landscaping, sculpting, creative writing, whatever. I bet you have a talent (a “gift”) you haven’t discovered yet !!!
4) You are important whether or not you drive a BMW or wear lots of bling bling. Why fall sucker to advertisements.. just because you’re bombarded with them?
5) Is there someone in your life constantly pointing out all your faults for you? Telling you you’re worthless and a big fat zero? That sounds like ‘garbage in’ to me..
“The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
~John Milton, Paradise Lost
Today’s free link(s):
Free Lifetime License for SUPERAntiSpyware Professional – 20 to Give Away
Download FREE Music – New Artists – New Music
* A Tech Paul original.
¹ GUI (Graphical User Interface), such as your desktop.
² BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), the BIOS is boot firmware, designed to be the first code run by a PC when powered on.
³ HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), is the predominant formatting language for web pages
4 CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML) from document presentation, like font, and background color.
Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
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Tech - for Everyone 
TechPaul,
When I was working IT (Information Technology) I can remember spending a great deal of time (at that time) trying to figure out or research the acronyms as they came out. Was very frustrating for me. To me it is just taking muddy water and making it muddier. It is no wonder people have a fear for computers…
Great article!
Rick
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Rick,
Every now and again I catch myself using one of those geek words, but I try really hard to avoid them… They just make people’s eye’s glaze over.
For those of you who bump into one, and want it translated, I sometimes use http://www.techdictionary.com/.
Thank you for your kind words.
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TechPaul,
Hmmm… TechDictionary… I like it!
Rick
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Interesting, though about classical music, I do not think it “raises” your IQ, but it raises your ability to direct your awareness as you are subconsciously trying to break it down into parts
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Kloplop321,
You may be right.. but it seems to me (my rusty memory) that they did some study of children (in the womb), playing classical to one set, and not to the other set, and the music set had an average 5 pts higher… hmmm.
Maybe my readers cans help out. I may be completely off base, and this is just an urban legend?
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IQ is not a set for life value. It is defined by mental age/real age times 100. It changes over time, All they did was provide organized stimulation which the mind of the unborn payed attention to.
I do not think small things like this have much effect, but the more stimulation the child has to ‘play’ with, the higher it may score due to remembering how to break down information and understand it. That is what it tested, how efficient and accurate one is at understanding information. Nothing chemically is changing in their brain to give them any advantage.
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Kloplop321,
Any IQ score isn’t as important as how you use the intelligence you have.
The point of the article is — so much of what we are exposed to is pure and unmitigated negative garbage, and that we can take steps to reduce that ‘garbage in’.
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[…] GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out – One cannot venture far into the mysterious land of computers and “digital assistants” before one realizes that they have entered a land of acronyms; and that computer geeks speak these weird things like they are actual words. Let’s call this place “Techland”. […]
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Kudos Paul for “almost” all you said in your blog. I agree, but classical music, well..it does a lot for me, more than the technology does.
Love/hate the technology… I guess I am hooked, people like you keep us going with it all.
gaia
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Thank you, Gaia. You’re very kind.
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For me? Please :)
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OnSam,
I am not sure what you are asking here.. but if it is in regard the SuperAntiSpyware Pro giveaway, I am sorry but that ended long ago.
(There is always the possibility of another drawing, and/or other giveaways, so check back here every so often!)
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