v8.5 - Noobs

Good morning folks,

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IT''S FREAKIN'' FRIDAY!!!

I''m excitied about it being Friday today. For starters, we are getting the keys to our new place as soon as I can get the hell out of here. Secondly, I don''t have to come back to work until Monday. Isn''t that great??!!??

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I want to start the musing off today by talking about Noobs. First, a brief history on leet speak and what exactly the term Noob means. Below is a copy/paste of what certain people thing began the leet speak phenomenon:

Taken from http://www.docdroppers.org/wiki/index.php?title=A_history_of_31337sp34k

“Elite Speak” really took off with the onset of newsgroups. The net was growing, bandwidth was increasing (I was now up to a 900 or 1200 baud modem), and newsgroups (which came about the same time as email using a slightly different protocol) were becoming more popular. Newsgroups allowed people with common interests to have a central area to communicate with one another. In this medium, the same shorthand used in email was perpetuated and expanded. But an additional problem arose. The server administrators felt the need to control the content and censor speech that they found “questionable”. They would regularly filter the database to delete posts containing “objectionable material” just like the content filtering software of today.


What this meant was that you either got your messaged deleted by the administrators or you found loopholes to outsmart the filters. That is what hakkerz do. I get a lot of flak from n00bs who don’t understand why I say “Hakkerz” instead of “Hackers”. The reason is simple. Since “hacking” fell under the “objectionable material” category, we had to intentionally misspell the word to avoid getting kill-filed. OK, so they added “hakker” to their filter. But what about “H4ck3r”, “H4kk3r”,”Hax0r”, and so on? We kept adapting the language (and don’t think this is any less of a language than Ebonics) until the censors finally gave up. We could make every word adapt and change to avoid being blocked. It got to the point where we started intentionally misspelling words that didn’t even have the potential to be kill-filed. Words like “Kool” and “rokk” began to be added and it fit with the pattern of our other words while stilling maintaining meaning. Eventually, they realized that it was impossible to block a polymorphic language, and
they gave up.


The final transformation of the language was built purely on ego! That’s right, there is an aspect of simple ego involved of trying to look “kool”, and it came about mostly on IRC. Those of us who have been online for the genesis of the language communicated like we always had, using the methods mentioned above. It was mostly out of sheer habit. This led to inevitable questions from n00bie Hax0rs and non-hakkerz
alike asking why we “can’t spell” and asking what we were trying to say. Nubies picked up on the language, but they began to pervert it. Because we used words like “h4kk3r” which used both letters and numbers in it, it made the word appear to be in mIXeD CasE (because using a fixed font, numbers are generally bigger than letters). This caused many people to start using “mIx3d c4Se” just for the sake of making words look like the traditional “elite speak”. Quite frankly, it did look kind of kool (when not used to excess)!

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Basically, Elite Speak (aka leet speak) was created by people to avoid the power hungery administrators
on news groups. The noob in this story is someone who had no clue what was being said and asked what it meant. The word noob started about this time as the word Newbie which basically meant someone who was
new to the net scene. The word noob could have so many different applications, and I''ve seen is spelt a bunch of different ways and used in almost every situation.

The word Newbie is defined as (from dictionary.com): One that is new to something, especially a novice at using computer technology or the Internet.

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Of course, if you look up worlds like Noobie or Noob in the dictionary, you won''t find their meanings anywhere (unless you have one of those leet dictionaries I keep hearing about). The word Newbie itself is considered slang and is said to originate from the word ''New'' with a ''b'' as in freebie.

Leet speak can be quite difficult to understand to the Noobs and it is VERY damn annoying when someone types that way all the time. Leet speak was never meant to be used in every word in a sentance. Hopefully we all know this now. :)

{slurp}

Why talk about Noobs? Well, I wanted to tell a grand story about such a noob I encountered last night while playing World of Warcraft.

Our story begins in Southshore, a small fishing village nestled along the southern coast of Hillsbrad.

Ethala flew into Southshore apon the wings of a Gryphon. Tall for a gnome, Ethala spent many days and nights practicing in the arts of magery. Today, he would seek out a man known as Lieutenant Farren Orinelle who would assist him in getting in good with the King of Stormwind.

However, fate had other plans for our dear little Ethala. A fate known only by those who oversee him and look down apon him in a different light. A fate no Gnome should have to face on his own.

Ethala walked down the hill from the Gryphon master and made his way into town. The smell of smoke from open fires and cooking of meat filled the air. There were people everywhere running about always in a
hurry. Being a Gnome, Ethala was used to being stepped on or run over. After all, it isn''t easy being
two feet tall. Many human and night elves stared down at him, wondering what a gnome was doing this far south. Ignoring the gazes of those around him, Ethala came apon a large building with a sign out front which read "The Boar and the Apple Inn". Throwing caution into the wind, Ethala made his way through the doorway of the inn and began scanning the common room. The smell of smoke was strongest in here. Ethala eyed a couple serving girls who gave him a polite smile and hurried on to their customers. The bartender behind the bar gave a subtle nod to the newcomer and a man sitting at the bar glanced half over his shoulder to see who or what had grabbed the bar tender''s attention. It was then Ethala saw the embroidered strips on the man''s shirt. The Humans used these stripes to designate rank among the guards of Swormwind. In this particular case, the golden stripes designated this man as a Lieutenant. Immediatly
Ethala made his way over to the man and introduced himself. The man regarded Ethala for a moment wondering if he was sleeping or just way too drunk. The man looked about ready to pass out and Ethala was ready to jump out of the way in the event he did.

The man told Ethala about a problem he was sent here to do. Ethala could tell right away the man was scared out of his mind at the task. The man mumbled something about vicious murlocs and made angry clawing jestures with his hands. Without a second thought, Ethala decided he would help this man and take on
his task to destory the Murlocs along the coast. The man was grateful and told Ethala he would pay him
for his time.

Outside, Ethala took in a breath of fresh air. The smoke in the Inn was almost enough to make any Gnome dizzy; apparently the Humans didn''t mind. Ethala walked over to the huge dock at the south end of the
town. He turned to the west and saw what could only be described as a huge walking fish on the shoreline walking toward the town. Being a Gnome, you get used to others being bigger than you. However, when
you see a huge fish bigger than you walking down the beach, you get a tad bit worried.

Casting several wards of protection and shielding around him, Ethala stepped off the dock and into the warm soft sand on the beach. The Murloc hadn''t seen him yet so Ethala decided to take advantage of being unseen and get the first hit in. Conjuring his most powerful spell of fire and ice, Ethala flung a bolt of magic at the beast. The ball soared through the air as if seperating time from space and hit the Murloc from behind. Within a blink, the murloc was destoryed and all that remained was a few bits and pieces. The smell of the dead beast was overwhealming as it started to spread through the air. Then Ethala realized what was happening, the smell must have been a warning to the other Mulocs in the area. Immediatly several other murlocs began running toward him in a fury making a strange gurgeling noise from their mouths. Ethala reacted quickly and casted ice shards to hold the burly Murlocs in place. The ice
wouldn''t hold long on this warm beach so he set to work fast. Conjuring an old arcane spell he had learned as a child, Ethala began focusing on one of the murlocs and turned it into a sheep. He would sheer
this sheep later when the other two Murlocs were taken care of.

Ethala focused all his thought and energy on the remaining two Murlocs who were starting to break free from their icy shackles. Calling apon the wind and rain, Ethala made the air around the Murlocs very cold. As the rain started to fall from the sky it turned into to shards of sharp ice which cut and stabbed the two Murlocs as it fell. The Murlocs ran around in a state of confusion and fear eventually falling over dead from the wounds they took. Ethala was feeling spent, he had one more Murloc to take care off and his sheep spell would wear off soon. Using the very last of his energy, he flung on small bolt of
ice at the sheep. Unfortunately it wasn''t enought to kill the murloc as it changed back to it''s normal
form and began running down the beach toward Ethala. Thinking fast, Ethala reached into the pocket of his robe and produced a small bent piece of wood. To the untrained eye, this piece of wood was harmless, but in the hands of a trained Mage, this piece of wood was deadly. Focusing the very last of his energy into the stick, Ethala began flinging balls of fire at the Murloc. They were not huge ball of fire, but every bit helped. The Murloc started to hiss with rage as the balls of fire came in contact with him. The murloc was getting closer and wasn''t showing any signs of stopping. Ethala began to back up and
was about to turn and run when an arrow flew by his head and intersected the Murloc right between the eyes. The Murloc dropped dead where he stood and Ethala turned around to see a tall Night Elf standing behind him dropping his bow.

Ethala turned to the Night Elf and gave a small bow to thank him for his help. The Night Elf turned around with his back to Ethala and said, "np".

Ethala regarded this Elf very curiously, what had he meant when he said np? Asking what the Night Elf had meant, the Night Elf replied with, "OMG Noob!! LOL".

DISCONNECTED FROM SERVER

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My hands hurt and I need a smoke. :) So I''m going to tie this off and bid you all a fond farewell. I hope you all have a great weekend and we''ll see you back here on Monday (maybe Tuesday depending on how I feel after the move).

/bow

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Cheers,

Al