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By Hortense
 As someone who has been moderating comments for over two years (and using the internet for about 17), I've seen a lot of internet slang fads come and go. But there are some phrases, it seems, that just won't die:
I'm not going to go so far as to say these phrases should be outright banned (mostly because that never works) nor am I going to deny using any of these phrases at one point or another (everyone has at some point, I'm sure), but lately it seems like it's getting harder and harder not to feel slightly irritated when coming across one of the following phrases, which seem to have overstayed their welcome by at least four years:
5. "DIAF/Die In A Fire." This is one of those expressions that people throw out in order to let everyone know just how much they HATE somebody, as dying in a fire is perhaps one of the worst possible ways to die. I really, really hate this expression. I've always hated this expression. How did this expression ever get popular? It's one of those things that is strictly internet-only: if you ever went to some random party and pointed to another human being and said, "That's Alan. I hope he dies in a fire," everyone would look at you like you were Patrick Bateman in a dress and then whisper, "That was a bit much, right?" as soon as you hopped off to pet a kitten or talk about American Idol or what have you. And even if you don't agree with my personal distaste for the phrase (and wish that I, too, would DIAF), you have to at least admit that the phrase is really, really tired. It's so old and overdone at this point that it's akin to saying "get bent" or "drop dead" or "stick a rubber hose up your nose" or what have you. I'm not telling you you can't hate people, internet. God knows I wouldn't take that away from you. But when your go-to attack phrase is as overused at this one, it probably needs to die, too, in whatever horrible way you can imagine it to.
4. FAIL: "Fail," as a concept, can be fun. Look at FailBlog! You can easily laugh at whatever dumb/funny stuff gets thrown up there, because it is, in fact, a failure of sorts, but one that finds success in being awful/unusual, and therefore actually ends up winning in some bizarro Bad News Bears kind of way. But "fail" has replaced "awesome" as the word that everyone needs to pull back on by roughly 9000%. Your inability to finish breakfast at the diner last week was not a "Pancake Fail." Your mascara getting in your hair is not a "Cosmetics Fail." Fail is catchy and easy to use, which makes it the -ista of internetisms, attached to everything to make it conversationally trendy. You don't have to give it up completely, but if you're using FAIL! to scold the government and FAIL! to mock your cat's inability to piss in the litter box and FAIL! to recall that time you ate a paper clip, the phrase itself kind of loses a bit of power, doesn't it?
3. "THIS." We have all done THIS. This! THIS THIS THIS! SO MUCH THIS! THIS!!!! THIS THIS! It's a more enthusiastic way to say, "Yes, I agree, you've completely captured my thoughts on this subject and expressed them in a way I couldn't quite express myself. Thank you, fellow internet user. You are correct, and I appreciate your input." And that's fine. I get that. It's a relief, sometimes, to see that someone has perfectly put together the thoughts that are floating around in your brain. But lately it seems that "THIS" has taken on a life of its own. People tend to get annoyed in forums when people pipe in with "me, too!" or "I totally agree!" but somehow, "THIS" gets a pass, because it's more definitive, and currently quite popular as an internet tool of expression. But "THIS" can actually be detrimental to a conversation, especially when the THIS! poster only posts that one word, and nothing else. Yeah, you agree, but why? For what reasons? Why is whatever this comment is so very THIS to you? Why can't it be THAT? It's one of those things that's fine in moderation, but used too often, the very emphasis it's supposed to provide—that whatever comment it follows is a definitive statement or the truth, end of story, thanks for playing, have a nice day—becomes watered down and meaningless.
2. TL; DR/ "Too long; didn't read." People are still doing this! In 2010! (They are also using too many exclamation points! And by they, I mean me! THIS! Epic Fail!) I have no idea why this still exists. If something on the internet is too long for you to read, I'm sorry. Life is hard. Go to Twitter.
1. "Wow...just, wow." NO, JUST NO. This is maybe the most annoying phrase in internet history. "Wow...just wow," is one of the laziest remarks you'll see in any comment section, because it requires no thought whatsoever while implying that the reader does, in fact, have several thoughts on whatever brought them to the brink of implied speechlessness. It is never "wow, just wow." That phrase holds a million reactions, all watered down into a cliche, and it's unfortunate, in that some of the best emotional reactions to seriously weird/insane/disturbing/amazing things on the internet could be written in place of this tired, tired, tired remark, and they aren't. If something has moved you to the point where you have no words, fine. But don't throw out three overused words to express it. If you're able to hit your keys, go beyond "wow, just wow," and explain why you're so amazed/horrified/blown away by whatever it is you just read/saw. Either that, or skip to another site and catch the latest trend that's suddenly bordering on overexposure by posting a picture of someone you want to have sex with alongside the caption "UNF," which the Urban Dictionary defines as the "Universal Noise of Fucking."
So there you have it. Like I said earlier, we've all done these things. We'll all, myself included, probably do these things again, millions of times. But I don't think it would hurt to consider, at the very least, pulling back on a few of these phrases, at least for a little while.
All requests to STFU, DIAF, tell me things are full of win, TL; DR, or a total fail, yell THIS! or paste a picture of a cat saying something funny can be posted in the comments below.
Here's Christian Bale. UNF, am I right? 
[Image via Natalie Dee.]
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May 31st, 2010 Top Stories
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Gawker Media, 210 Elizabeth Street, Floor 4, New York, NY 10012 Terms of use
 The news that AdultFriendFinder may become the first Internet porn venture to go public is the latest step in the unstoppable mainstreaming of porn. But porn is still the most "Not Safe" of "NSFW" material. Unless you work from home!
Oh, office drones, it's true: As you languish under neon lights in identical Aeron chairs, sneaking glances at naked ladies (or dudes!) during lunch break for fear of getting fired, many freelancers are hanging out in their "home offices" watching tons of Internet porn. That's what our, uh, freelancer friend says! But don't just take his word for it: We emailed the Freelancers Union—a non-profit organization providing health insurance to over 30,000 freelancers nationwide—and a spokesman responded:
I don't think that anyone from Freelancers Union would want to address this issue, although I think you have really stumbled onto something big. I can tell you, personally and unofficially, it is NOT only you.
Our friend will be very happy to hear this! Seriously, though: Much of the blame has to be attributed to the fact that a laptop, the freelancer's tool, inconveniently doubles as a never-ending fount of free porn. One freelance journalist, we will call him Roberto, said he chooses to procrastinate with porn as "it's literally easier because you are right in front of the computer ... I wouldn't be putting down a thesaurus to go find a girlie mag."
And freelancers' feast-or-famine work load produces those long stretches of concentrated aimlessness that are maybe best blunted with porn's mindless stimuli. Cartoonist David Rees, blogger and creator of the hilarious Bush-era strip "Get Your War On," told us in an email: "The bulk of my workday porn-looking occurred early in my career as a freelancer... I've always struggled with creating structure for my workday, and sometimes if there was nothing I had to get done, it was easiest to just waste the afternoon looking at naked titties." But then the Iraq war happened, Rees discovered Talking Points Memo and "from then on, most of my wrist injuries were sustained from hitting 'refresh' on that site, rather than from stroking it to porn."
Graduate students—who are basically freelancers of the mind—are also stirred by carnal impulses as they pore over their texts, though suitably more refined ones. One PhD candidate, "Amy" said, "I don't watch internet porn (prefer erotic fiction.)"
For freelancers, Internet porn is more than a simple timewaster to fill the bleak days where no assignments are forthcoming. The human obsession with porn is joined with a freelancers' singular quest to meet deadlines without a boss constantly goading them. Roberto told us, "As I get older, I get better at just staring at porn for like a minute, receiving a jolt of weird adrenaline and testosterone and then returning to work. Coffee just makes me shakey and listless." Very utilitarian! "I do think I use it both for procrastination and motivation," Amy said. "There are times when I will definitely use it to blot out my responsibilities, and other times when I will sort of hold it out like a wonderful carrot before a stubborn horse. It is a weird feeling—promising myself erotic fiction if I can finish this paragraph about the history of secularization in France."
Don't get the wrong idea: The freelancer's life is no 24/7 FREE PIZZA AND PORN PARTY. Just as in the real world, Internet porn is a vice freelancers believe should be tolerated but not fully embraced. One successful magazine writer told us, "I can report with a mixture of prudish pride and libertine shame that I am not a particularly noteworthy consumer of Internet pornography."
Yes, the ability to watch Internet porn while pretending to be "working" is as much the freelancer's curse as it is the symbol of their ultimate freedom. Rees said, "In my head internet porn = depression, and I'm not as depressed as I used to be (thank you Dr. Benjamin, a great therapist and thank you my wife for the dialectical behavior therapy workbook), so I kinda look back at the afternoon hours I wasted on that stuff as melancholy and embarrassing and, thankfully, distant." And Roberto said he had developed porn "rules," including "the trying to keep it below once a day rule" and "trying to avoid the half-hour mark."
A certain Gawker weekend editor might have best summed up many freelancers' ambivalent, but powerful, relationship with Internet porn when he said via AIM: "i mean, it's like if you had a bunch of heroin sitting around your apartment and you had nothing to do but work that kinda had to get done but, you know, kinda didn't. You might fuck with the heroin."
Send an email to Adrian Chen, the author of this post, at nqevna@tnjxre.pbz
moc.rekwag@nairda.
09.09.09
Scrap interception clause in ‘Spy bill’, urges Lister
By: BRIGITTE WEIDLICH
THE chapter of the controversial Communications Bill that deals with the interception of telecommunications like phone calls, e-mail, electronic banking and Internet usage should be totally scrapped because it opens the door to abuse, the Editor of The Namibian newspaper, Gwen Lister, urged at a public hearing yesterday.
“Any interception, invasion of privacy as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in Chapter Three of the Namibian Constitution, should only be allowed in the most exceptional case like possible terrorist activities, money-laundering and financial cyber-crime,” Lister told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and Security of the National Council.
“The Bill has to ensure that arbitrary interception can be avoided – abuse (of interception) cannot be passed into law,” she argued.
The Communications Bill, in its current form, does not spell out in detail when communications will be intercepted, she added.
“Is interception happening now and since 1990? In July this year Deputy Justice Minister Utoni Nujoma replied to a question from the opposition in Parliament that not a single interception warrant was issued to the Namibia Central Intelligence Service (NCIS) from January 2008 to the end of may 2009. Whether this means there was no interception – and if there was, therefore, illegal interception is up to Government to answer.”
The conference room fell silent and all attention was drawn to the petite editor as she suddenly held up a copy of a mail interception order issued against her by the South African apartheid government in December 1984.
“Many of us old enough to remember came from the draconian apartheid era where our rights were trampled underfoot and we fought against that erosion of rights and more specifically for a free society,” she said.
Lister told the committee that in December 1984 she quickly wanted to fetch her mail, but found the mailbox totally full and – since she had to rush off somewhere else – decided to pick it up a bit later.
“To my surprise half an hour later, when I returned, my mailbox was empty. I reported the matter to the Postmaster. Some days later I checked my mailbox again and found a big envelope in it addressed to the Postmaster. Inside was my mail and another envelope with ‘Top Secret’ stamped all over it. In that very envelope was an interception order signed by Lieutenant General Zietsman of the (apartheid) security police in Pretoria, South Africa.”
Lister quoted from the order which allowed six months of interception of her mail from December 3 1984 to June 2 1985.
The reason given was that she allegedly was in “regular contact with prominent Swapo leaders, who wanted to overthrow the dispensation in the country to replace it with a Marxist government”, and that she allegedly was furthering the aims and objectives of Swapo.
When she shared this with other reporters and a local newspaper carried a news story on the interception order, Lister continued, she was arrested and kept in detention for two weeks for allegedly having put “secret information” into the public domain.
“Eventually they had to drop the charges,” Lister told the Committee.
“What happened then can happen tomorrow, and thus the entire Chapter on interception in the Communications Bill should be scrapped.”
Lister added that Clause 70 of the Bill states that “the President must establish” interception centres and the wording should rather be changed to “may establish”.
She asked for more detail on Clause 73(1), which stipulates that telecommunications service providers must obtain “prescribed information” from all customers.
“What information is needed? That should be defined clearly,” Lister said.
“The Bill is riddled with problems,” she concluded.
Sackey Shangala, a special advisor to the Justice Ministry, also appeared before the committee and said that the Information Ministry did not take much advice from the Justice Ministry when the Bill was drafted.
“The Bill was only delivered to us a month ago and after the outcry in the media [about the interception clause], the Information Ministry turned to us for help,” Shangala said frankly.
The hearing will continue today. Sessions are open to the public.
brigitte@namibian.com.na
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