TECH'NO'PAL'SY n. s as z. to use a machine without reading a manual or even thinking.
When technology continues to be as half-well designed as it is, a certain about of nouse; intuition or rough intelligence is required of the user for the working thereof. If not that, it needs the read of the manual. Where is it? Those with technopalsy may throw it in the bin.
Persons with technopalsy are to be found mostly staring at a piece of technology in puzzlement. Not all such stares are signs of a full-blown affliction.
This most indicative symptom of TP is shown by a conclusive test. The test is based on the fact that many gismos [ibid] have hidden key presses to reset the device or put it into maintenance mode or go where it shouldn't. To the most ordinary geek-type person, these key presses are hard if not impossible to find without a manual.
But the confirmed technopalsied will find the correct key combination within a few minute's use of a device. Hence a Windows PC will be 'accidentally' made to start in safe mode; or it will lock-up trying to download a large file; a digital clock will hop between date-view and time-view; a television will retune itself and seek new channels; an ipod's software will crash; a coffee machine will discharge coffee pretty much everywhere.
Definition from Roger's Dictionary of the English Language, 2005.
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