NetGen, nominal, and other jargon

[James A. Landau]

Newsweek, February 24, 2003 pages 56f "Microsoft Gets A Clue From Its Kiddie
Corps" by Steven Levy

This article uses a term I am not familiar with, "NetGen",
<begin quote>...for young people, the Internet is like oxygen, and the 13-24
set "are on instant messenger before theier morning coffee."  To serve that
crowd---the "NetGen"...<end quote> (page 56 column 1 2nd paragraph, the term
is used several other times in the article).

The article also uses several other jargon terms that I suspect are
unfamiliar to the general public and to the majority of Internet users:
   broadband (p 56 col 1)
   beta version (p 56 col 1)
   Klez virus (p 57 col 3)
   peer-to-peer (p 57 col 3)
and some terms that are not technical jargon but are also unlikely to be
universally recognized:
   when Willy Wonka met Charlies (p 57 col 2)
   fandom (p 57 col 3)
   took a page out of MTV's "The Real World" (p 56 col 1)
   drops trou and cuts the cheese (p 56 col 2)---this one baffles me

The article on pp 58f uses the term "telco" ("telephone company") (p 58 col 1
para 2)

Do you now have to be a computer techie to read Newsweek?

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Somebody recently cited the aerospace usage of "nominal" to mean "normal
within a narrow range."  This term came up in a committee meeting today.
Somebody proposed the wording "during nominal software testing".  I asked for
the definition of "nominal".  The recording secretary thereupon changed the
phrase to "normal software testing" and everybody was happy.

            - James A. Landau
              software engineer
              FAA Technical Center (ACB-510/BCI)
              Atlantic City Int'l Airport NJ 08405 USA