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So You Think You’re Hip...
A Hitchhiker’s Quiz to the (Internet) Universe

By Jacqui Kramer

DATELINE/May 20, 2010. WASHINGTON: The exponential growth in demand for access to the Internet has led President Bill Gates to order all new users to pass a government-approved quiz before being allowed onto the Net. The test, the SIT (Sum Internet Test) will concentrate on terminology popularized by the president’s cabinet (many former “hackers”) in their youthful years on the Internet. The terms are thought to be traceable back to 1994 and earlier.

Universe Today, the only newspaper to survive the great CNN uprising of 2000, has managed to acquire an early peek at the test. All terms are real and have been confirmed to have appeared in an underground “Hacker’s dictionary” distributed via an archaic on-line pay service. Good luck, and may the Net be with you.

1) AT&T’s logo is also known as:

(a) The Big Blue Marble
(b) The Death Star
(c) Michelle, Ma Bell
(d) All of the above

2) A project of minimal priority is referred to as:

(a) IBM-ing
(b) AGNA (“Ah geez, not again”)
(c) Dogwash
(d) All of the above

3) “Chad” refers to:

(a) That country you missed on the geography test
(b) The kid you cheated off of on that test
(c) The perforated edge strips on printer paper
(d) All of the above

4) Hackers refer to Macintoshes as:

(a) Macintoys
(b) Macintrashes
(c) Beige toasters
(d) All of the above

5) “Great Wall” refers to:

(a) Another geography test term (Gosh, this quiz is hard!)
(b) Taking a mass trip to a Chinese restaurant
(c) The on-line barrier between a hacker and his prey
(d) All of the Above

6) The proper way to correct someone, using mock rude lingo, is:

(a) Bzzzt, sorry dude.
(b) Bzzzt, thank you for playing.
(c) Bzzzt, wrong.
(d) All of the above

7) A “treekiller” is:

(a) A lumberjack
(b) A printer
(c) Not politically correct and therefore outlawed in the U.S.
(d) All of the above

8) “YABA” stands for:

(a) Yo! AnyBody Around?
(b) Young, Ambitious, Bad Animals
(c) Yet Another Bad Acronym
(d) All of the above

9) A “Veeblefester” is:

(a) A virus set loose on the Net in 1994
(b) A marketing or advertising person
(c) A cretin who makes unwanted advances on-line
(d) All of the above

10) The art of cracking the phone lines is:

(a) illegal
(b) phreaking
(c) hacking
(d) All of the above

11) “Raster burn” refers to:

(a) Someone totally pale; opposite of sunburned
(b) What happens to your eyes after too many hours in front of the computer
(c) The art of telling someone off; also known as “flaming”
(d) All of the above

12) Price increases are referred to on the Net as:

(a) IBM Discount’
(b) AT&T Discount
(c) MacDiscount
(d) All of the above

13) “Copious Free Time” is...

(a) The devil’s workshop
(b) Time scheduled for a project that will take more time than you will ever have
(c) Something that can’t be printed in a family newsletter
(d) All of the above

Scores:

11 - 13: Surf’s up dude! How’s the water in cyberspace?
8 - 10: Hey, we all have our bad days. Access approved, grudgingly.
5 - 7: Guess you weren’t around in the Nineties, huh? Denied.
0 - 6: Boy, the Sixties were good to you, weren’t they? Back to the Stone’d Age.


And the Oscar goes to....
Oops! Wrong quiz show. The answers are:
1) b.
2) c.
3) c (and possibly a & b, depending on your school experiences)
4) d.
5) a & b
6) c
7) b
8) c
9) b
10) a & b
11) b
12) a
13) b

©1994 Jacqui Kramer. Reprinted from the Candy Apple, newsletter of the South Jersey Apple/Mac Users Group.

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This article may be reprinted in newsletters published by non-profit user groups, provided an issue of the newsletter in which the article appears is sent to:

Jacqui Kramer
16-B Harvard Ave.
Collingswood, NJ 08108

General feedback may be sent via e-mail to JacquiK@aol.com

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