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points by ssl-3 4 days ago | 0 comments
I'm not worried about it. It's just a word.

Regular folks often refer to any larger-than-phone, smaller-than-laptop device they see with a screen as an iPad, even if it's a hardwired Clover payment terminal running Android. The description is wrong, but it's easier to accept it than to correct it. I'm over it.

Regular folks can go ahead and call any nefariously-networked camera a Flock camera. This description is also wrong, but I'm over it as well.

[–] b00ty4breakfast 4 days ago
I'm not worried about genericized trademarks. We may end up getting rid of Flock the company without getting rid of what Flock is doing.
[–] ssl-3 4 days ago
What I'm trying to convey is this:

We may end up getting rid of Flock the company (ha, as if), but we'll always have [what people call] Flock cameras.

[–] dualvariable 3 days ago
Bayer Heroin
[–] ssl-3 3 days ago
Yeah. You get it. Heroin is bad.

We all know something about what it does, and that it is bad. Regular folks are often unaware at all that Heroin was once a product and trademark of Bayer, or that Bayer was the first to mass-produce the substance.

But we all know what is meant when someone mentions heroin. We know what is meant when someone talks about the iPad at the checkout counter at a restaurant, or says to get a Band-Aid from the cabinet or a box of Kleenex from the pantry. Beyond a certain age, at least, there's no issue with understanding what is being conveyed when a person Xeroxes a document.

We can understand these nouns even in the face of Clover payment terminals, Equate bandages, Puffs facial tissues, and Brother copiers.

We know (if we're paying attention at all) what a Flock camera is. It doesn't really matter that if it actually says Axiom on the box, instead; "Flock" doesn't serve to substantially diminish the understanding of what is being referred to.

In terms of spreading helpful information, "flock camera" is nice and easy. It communicates what needs to be communicated in a way that can be understood.

Besides, we don't have a good, concise, specific term for items like this. If we used the generic term, Automatic License Plate Reader (or ALPR), then that conversation would just make a normie's eyes glaze over and they'd stop listening.