Computer terms deemed 'racist'

[Firelance]

It seems that calling your HDDs 'Master' and 'Slave' is racist:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/11/26/master.term.reut/index.html

[discuss]

[ShamrockMan]

Whatt??? Now I have to call them 'lord' and 'serf'??
This has gotten out of hand. In a technical way, it realy is a master/slave relationship.

[reki]

pffft.. next thing you know, we will have PETA complaining about the use of mice or women's groups objecting to floppy & hard disks.

[Retroboy]

Stupid.

I repeat.

Stupid.

If someone in my office were offended by this term, I'd be very displeased with their inability to come to Rome and be like the Romans are.

-- Retro

[El Russo]

More appropriate terms would surely be "slob" and "housewife"?

[The Collector]

Blah, the status quo is fine. I don't feel racist attitudes every time Master/Slave comes up...

[Starfisher]

This is simply further proof that people in general are merely cattle to be led to the slaughter. Unite my nerdly bretheren, and we chall cleanse the land of the stupid.

[TheGeneral]

I like the last paragraph the most.


In June, the Los Angeles city council unanimously passed a law requiring that any companies doing business with the city disclose profits they may have made from slavery in the 19th Century. In 2000, the council supported federal legislation seeking reparations for descendants of slaves.


Lol. Looks like CNN is taking things out of context yet again.

TheGeneral

[mrmin123]

i think the next generation might just as well be racist...

i go to a school full of asians, and we make fun of caucasians with no fear.

i really wouldn't be surprised that if when my generation grows up to become leaders of the world, there'll be race problems... (if civilization makes it that far, at least)

[Ash]

"master" and "slave" are terms of slavery
not racial slavery

and slavery, last time I checked, isn't outlawed in the U.S. Constitution

maybe I should check again?

[El Russo]

Surely it's racist to directly identify slavery as having a primarily racial component? You don't have to be white to be a master and you certainly don't have to be black to be a slave. Most dictionaries don't even mention the issue of colour and some even have a computer related definition.

[Bri_Dog]

I posted that at SB earlier....bunch of crap eh?

Hmmm....PC PCs?

[Russian Ninja]

They are just technical terms that are quite mild in comparison to some other terms that could be used...

Once again people are wasting time with senseless issues that are largely irrelevent in any grand scheme of things compared to more serious issues, like Trafficing. That's the real slavery these days, and yet most people pretend it doesn't exist.

[AgentSmithy]

We're no longer racist towards blacks, Jews, what have you. We're racist towards middle aged white men. It's total bullshit. Some guy starts bitching about how he's offended by some obscure reference, and somewhere else, another guy loses his 1st amendment rights. And that guy is always a middle aged white male.

[Shin]

As I said in IRC, the keyboard keys "s", "l", "a", "v" and "e" need to be removed as they spell out an offensive term.

Shoes we step on shouldn't be black.

We shouldn't eat hot dogs because the implications are barbaric.

And we will start eating Oversized Chicken-like Birds instead of Turkey.

Lastly, we can no longer call things like these retarded.

Let's just ban the entire human race so that oversensitive idiots don't get offended by someone using the word "the" in an inappropriate manner.

[molo]

shin is B&.

[Bnonn]

I'm sorry; Shin is what?

[reki]

banned b(and)

[Retroboy]

Shin is fune. Who cares if he applies underarm deodorant?

-- R@ro

[Aurek]

We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment components that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature," Sandoval said in the memo, which was distributed last week and made available to Reuters.

:rant:
:ninja: Im going to get the person who issued that memo and Im going to set them on fire and then launch MIRV's at them until I am shure there is not one molecule of their being left in the world. Then Im am going to find brutally slaughter every one who is related to them in any way in an attempt to cleanse the human race of such idiocy

[Dimension]

fools

[ionfish]

See, if the Master drive was called the "white drive", and the Slave drive was called the "black drive", then I could see how people might have a problem with it.

As it is, evidently certain individuals with a pedantic turn of mind are wasting their time and everybody else's debating what is essentially a failure to comprehend the semantics of the English language, taking a common context as the full meaning of the words. Don't we have ditches we can get these people to dig instead?

[mrmin123]

shin rox my box... and sox... and cox..

[littlegreencube]

I rox your cox.

[Mnementh]

Fucking stupid humans.

[CCTSMaster]

f**king insane. i just read about this on a norwegian hardware site. LOL'ed quite some time...
another thing they forgot to outlaw:
there's a Trance band that's named "Sensation",
who made "sensation white editon CD*" and
"sensation black edition CD*, where * is cd one or two.
sooo. the white ed. is bright/happy trance, while the black ed. is rather dark. real dark, by comparision.
so, White and Black? why isn't they outlawed as well?
why not just remove both words, and replace them with "real bright" and "real dark"?

insane.

-CCTSMaster

[Silmaril]

Where does it stop?

"You can't cal it a black coffee sir. Its a coffee without milk."

"WTF?!?. the Coffee is Fucking black! look at it! What colour is it? ITS BLACK!!!

I mean are we going to have to rename the colours just Because it offens some sensitive idiot who can't understand even the simplest of ideas?

[jpaugh78]

Master/Slave are also terms used in the S&M community.....so maybe later another person will complain about it because it is sexually explicit :)

[Martian]

http://www.ianai.net/jokes/forumpix/whocares.jpg

[LoCo]

Originally posted by ionfish
See, if the Master drive was called the "white drive", and the Slave drive was called the "black drive", then I could see how people might have a problem with it.

Even then, wtf does it have to do with people?

We are talking about a term used to define which is the main drive ... We could call it Pig and Banana and get the same effect. And I garentee that no matter what you call it, there will be some idiot out there that will somehow find it offencive.

If you go around looking for things that offend, you will find that everything offends.

[Handarazuur]

Political correctness is Hell.

[MeepZero]

I heard there was a cafe waitress that got a lawsuit on her for calling her customers "honey" and "shugar", ya know in that kinda southern accent, steryotypical diner waitress

[blackjack]

Ugh. Stupid people.

I do know how to fix it all, though: just rename the master drive to the "man" drive and the slave drive to the "woman" drive and all will be solved.

[SvK]

Originally posted by Asheshi
and slavery, last time I checked, isn't outlawed in the U.S. Constitution
maybe I should check again?

Originally posted by the Constitution of the Unites States
Amendment XIII
(1865)
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[El Russo]

I didn't know the Constitution was a member of our boards...

[The Collector]

"...except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted"

Interesting.

[TacticalVirus]

Originally posted by blackjack
I do know how to fix it all, though: just rename the master drive to the "man" drive and the slave drive to the "woman" drive and all will be solved.

they already had Motherboard switched to Mainboards, so I don't think that'd work....

[ShamrockMan]

Just mention them as 'Boss' and 'Employee' to the common folk. Then we wouldn't get sued for using the terms 'master' and 'slave'. And for the programers out there, don't mention ANYTHING else about the terms/jargon used in the computin world.

[Elif Tymes]

I still call mine a MotherBoard..

Won't SATA take care of all this anyway?

[The Collector]

Male and Female connectors.

Someone will utter sexist.

Male will become "Copper protrusion ends"
Female will become "Copper instrusion ends" or something odd like that.

When did people care before? o.o

[General Nuke Em]

Well, its California. What do you expect. :S

[EmteeMoe]

Exactly what I was going to say!

[Tintinrulz]

That just as ludiscrous as those people who say Winnie the Pooh promotes obesity and Eeyoore (the donkey) promotes early depression!

[ionfish]

My old history teacher used to call me Eeyore. Probably not without justification.

[bitz]

it's pretty ovbious the new pc labels should be pimp and bitch. duh.

[The Collector]

Let's be sexist rather then racist? o.o;

[Jao Ensatsu Ken]

yup

[Darkfyre]

HUMANS!!

I swear most of the population has less intelligence than the average insect! Who bloody well cares, politions have too much time on their hands if they're discussing this sort of crap!

Darkfyre

[Alliance]

erm... this would never happen out-side of america. and I know its a stigma, but americans seem to sue about every little peice of shit.

[Darkfyre]

Want a bet? Why is it everyone wants to jump on the racist/sexist/whateverist bandwagon? It is a complete waste of time!!

It's a word, words mean what you want them to, depending on context. Why do people get so irrate over some triffle like skin-colour or gender or religion? I mean who really gives a monkeys?

Darkfyre

[Handarazuur]

I wouldn't say that. Monkeys could apply to mechanics, acrobats and the French. Don't use that word.

:D

[Bonnet]

LOL @ Hand

Now, why is it that if you are a christaen white its open game on you, but anything else and the slightest utterance is totally offensive?

Also, WTF, get a dictionary los angles,

[SquidDNA]

I don't know, I set everything to "cable select" anyway.

I advise folks to stop bickering before they start. Take it to PM if you have problems with each other, but it doesn't really interest the rest of us.

[Tygre]

...except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted...Not as bad as it sounds. I think in most states we use the euphemism "community service".

[cdt19950925]

Here's my take: That "unidentified employee" who noticed the master / slave labels probably thought he/she could make a few quick dollars because of it. Maybe they had grand visions of suing the company because of its "racism". Money can sure make people do stupid things.

"Hey! I have a GREAT idea! I'll try really hard to get myself offended by something... anything, really... I know! The white line on the side of the road! Why is the "white" line leading me to my destination? Why not a black line or a brown line? Racist highways!!! I'm suing the world!"

That "special" employee wanted the dollars, and he/she didn't want to earn them, either.

[Russian Ninja]

One thing I've got to say to these people is that they took their bloody merry time to finally realise that the computer industry was using these terms, never mind the fact that they have been in use for quite some time.