notable denoters

• Advanced Persistent Threat (infosec n.): In cybersecurity, the worst foe. These people are 'Advanced' relative to a script kiddie or a skilled troll. Better funded, more patient, able and willing to try several different avenues of attack. A state actor (or a corporate black operator in a cyberpunk book). They will get in: the question is if you notice, and how much damage they do when they do.

  A conventional hacker or criminal isn't interested in any particular target. He wants a thousand credit card numbers for fraud, or to break into an account and turn it into a zombie, or whatever. Security against this sort of attacker is relative; as long as you're more secure than almost everyone else, the attackers will go after other people, not you. An APT is different; it's an attacker who -- for whatever reason -- wants to attack you. Against this sort of attacker, the absolute level of your security is what's important. It doesn't matter how secure you are compared to your peers; all that matters is whether you're secure enough to keep him out.



• polycule (n.): polyamorous molecule. Just a cute word for any poly relationship structure.


• metamour (n.): Your partner's partner.


• permtractor (UK n.): permanent contractor: someone who works at a company for an extended period of time without being an employee. For tax reasons, or avoiding granting employee rights. The Revenoo apparently classes it as "disguised employment".


• SLOP (n.): self-selected listener opinion poll. Perhaps the lowest grade of survey evidence, but rhetorically powerful because we are idiots.


• PTO (corporate n.): Paid Time Off; HR system which does not distinguish holidays, sick leave, and "personal days". Sounds good, but obvious perversities crop up one uniform cap applied to all: if you get ill after a long holiday, you have to work through it?


• cotton ceiling (n.): putative exclusion of trans women from high status places in women's lib. Apparently has been presented very foolishly: the original post seemed to shame lesbians for not having sex with trans women. (But, if we had to throw out every concept that was ever used stupidly...)


• force de frappe (Fr. n.): Strike force: the French nuclear deterrent. Once involved serious land launch capability: but who would want to be next to a Pluton or a Hades?


• acheteur (Fr n.): Buyer. But it could be anything, just so long as it was grand, high in gravitas and dignite.


• sqeuclidean (adj. or n.): The squared Euclidean (space). Easier to implement on computers.