Nanodaemons

by George Saoulidis

  http://www.mythographystudios.com/join-the-mythographers/

  Glossary

  Glossary of terms

  If it’s not here, just google it.

  Daemons: Programs that run in the background silently. They perform action without user interaction. A daemon is a controlling entity for some specific process, like keeping a temperature constant for example. As our devices become more and more interconnected, daemons will command over many aspects of our lives, deciding what emails are important to us, pushing notifications to our devices, ordering milk when it runs out etc. Their name has nothing to do with Christianity’s demons, in ancient Greece a daemon was something like a guardian spirit (like the Roman genius) and it literally means “expert” or “wise.”

  Eudaemonia: Is the state of being helped or protected by a kindly spirit.

  ACK: From ACKnowledge. It’s how programs say “got it.”

  Personal Area Network (PAN): The network created by all of the wirelessly linked electronic devices carried on (or within) a person. The smartphone is usually the primary hub of this network.

  fingerd: finger is a program you can use to find information about computer users. It usually lists the login name, the full name, and possibly other details about the user you are fingering. In our case, he’s a sexually oblivious daemon entity.

  httpd: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) daemon (web server).

  parrotd: Controlling daemon with parallel starting of services and other features, used by many distributions. Resides in the smartphone operating system. Called parrot because of the metaphorical image it conjures of sitting on the user’s shoulder, taking care of his needs.

  Rfid: Short range chip that can be implanted into humans, pets or simply added into products for cataloguing. With an rfid scanner you can read a standard piece of information off of it. In humans, can give access to a place just like a swipe card.

  Air intake: Your nose.

  Init: Initialise computer command, that starts up a process.

  QR code: A two-dimensional form of barcode, that usually links up to an internet address. To the bane of graphic designers everywhere, they have resurfaced as an anchor to connect a printed object to its related virtual process in augmented reality.

  Augmented Reality: Not the same as Virtual Reality. It is digital information superimposed over the real world. Accessed by glasses or ocular implants.

  Shared Augmented Reality (Veil): An interconnected weave of public information, allowing the cross-correlation of physical people and objects in the digital world. In practical terms, you can glance at a person and see their public social media profile, or glance at a bus stop and see bus fares and routes.

  Fork: Computer command that copies a process into two identical ones, clones.

  Tor: Onion router network, uses encryption for secure data transfer.

  Script Kiddies: Derogatory term used for wannabe hackers who use readily available exploit code instead of writing their own.

  Kill -9: Linux command that kills/ends a process.

  Dev/null: A Linux place for digital oblivion.

  404: Website error code. Page not found.