Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

14 Jul 2007, 8:09 a.m.

Sign Of The Times

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2007 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

When I was growing up, a lazy person writing a presentation would start off telling you about a key word. He'd use the dictionary definition or etymology (or better yet, a made-up etymology that sounded slightly plausible to amateurs). These days, the presenter tells you how many results you get if you search for the word or term on Google.