Metaforer for teknologi

Gordon Carlson har gjennom mailinglisten til Association of Internet Researchers utarbeidet en liste over teknologimetaforer. Metaforer bruker vi som kjent når vi skal låne egenskaper fra ett fenomen og bruke det til å beskrive noe annet, som da amerikanerne drev «kirurgisk krigføring» i midt-østen.

Her er i alle fall listen, for dem som måtte være interessert.

active and inactive

bandwidth

blog – web log??

blogosphere

breadcrumbs

brick and mortar

broadband

broken record (not digital but still a technology metaphor) bulletin boards calculating (as in a person is cold and calculating) chat «rooms»

chatting

citizen of the internet – netizen

click

cloud (storage and computing)

cyberspace

dashboard

database

deckware

desktop

dial a touch phone

dial up internet access

dialog boxes

directory

domain

drop a packet

email

extranet

files

filing system

firewall

flame

flaming

folders

forum

forward (as in to forward an email)

frames

garbage can

garbage in, garbage out

gateway

grinding (used in gaming to get lots of a resource) harvesting hit homepage hotspot hub inbox information superhighway instant messaging intranet link lurking menu mining, especially data mining mouse navigation open (as in a file or email) outbox owning someone (as in to defeat someone in a game, not unique to technology basis for pwned) palette portal programmed or hardwired people protocol

quad (a couple people mentioned this but I don’t know why it is a metaphor, any help?)

recycle bin

reply

reserving a «seat» for an online course

run

search engine

server

shopping carts/basket

slides in powerpoint

spam

speed dial (Opera browser)

spyware

surfing

tabs

tag

tap (as in a line or phone which is no longer literal) terminal the computer going to «sleep»

the whole concept of a virtual open house tree trojan horse trolling virus windows wiping out a team of players (gaming, not unique to technology) world wide web worm