Saruman: "OMG, I aven't finished my base defense yet! >.<"

Guy posted about The Lord of Rings: Two Towers in Leet Speak today. I had a great time reading it, since the whole leet speak phenomena is a particularly funny and endearing (in a nerdy way) part of the the computer nerd and gamer culture. Anyway, there were some leet terms in the story that I didn't recognize, which led me off on a trip around the internet catching up on it all.

My main source for this stuff was Wikipedia which is a gem of an internet resource. It's an online, user contributed encyclopedia. This means that random internet users write and update articles for it. You may think this is scary, since the only oversight of all of this is other users. But it works surprisingly well. Give it a try instead of google next time you're trying to find encyclopedia style information.

Anyway, one of the wikipedia articles I read pointed me an article whose very existence caused me to laugh out loud at my desk. Microsoft, my estemed employer, recently published it for parents who are confused by this crazy leet speak their kids are using as they run around and play computer games online. The levels of irony and ridiculousness in this whole thing are complex and many. Without ado, visit:

A parent's primer to computer slang.

That one's for you Guy. I knew you'd love it.

Side Note: In the article they mention that '$' can often be substituted for 'S' but curiously don't mention the ubiquitous spelling of Microsoft as Micro$oft. Wonder why that is? :)

Side Note - The Sequel: If for some unknown reason you want to know more about this whole thing then the Microsoft article can teach you start with the Wikipedia article on Leet. The Microsoft article (unsurprisingly) reads like the school principal trying to explain this newfangled rock and roll stuff to some stodgy parents while the Wikipedia article feels much more natural, has more information, and links in it to *tons* of information. Have fun, and then marvel and the depths of modern computer nerdiness.

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