Vocabulary Time!

ajax, v.t.: Of a dynamic website, to cause a user to take an unintended action (esp. one difficult or impossible to undo) because the interface rearranged itself (e.g., by removing an item from a list) in delayed response to an earlier action, concurrently with the user's attempting to activate an interface element. Often used passively, as e.g. I just got ajaxed!

Before It Was Popular?

I remember when I heard about DieHard, the probabilistic memory-safety contrivance, at a talk at NEPLS; that was in 2005, so their PLDI paper wouldn't have existed yet.

And then today I see them get name-checked on hack-a-day — perhaps because they've taken to promoting it as a way to increase the security of the popular web browser Firefox.

Go figure.