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September 26, 2005

Defining technical

"Technical" comes from greek τεχνικοs, adjective coming from the noun τέχνη, which means "art, craft, skill"; originally the art, craft or skill of the τεκτων, the carpenter, more generally the builder. That is why the primary definition of "technical" you find in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) refers to "special and usually practical knowledge especially of a mechanical [like the builder's] or scientific subject".
You can also use the term "technical" to oppose human and its complexity. "This is the technical definition of technical" is an example of means to say you are sticking to the stric or legal (if you refer to law) definition. You do not want to involve connotation (the denotation only) or any kind of human thinking that would take you too far from the plain task of defining. Similarly, A technical way to do sth follows a well-defined set of instructions, and a machine could do it as well in the absolute. Indeed, "technical" is very close to, if not part of the world of machines.

At HP France, union conflicts go through weblogs as well

Last week, Jean-Paul Vouiller, a CFTC (French union) union activist called Hewlett-Packard's employees for using weblogs as a means to coordinate their action and give their opinions on the current HP's scheduled lay-off program. You probably know that very recently, short after IBM's massive series of lay-offs in Europe, HP laid off 14,000 people in Europe, whose 1,240 from France. The blog, more than a means of pressure, has become a strong and powerful union tool.