All Cybers Are Beautiful

When your Cyber-Physical Systems are loosely coupled and sticky backed.

You know how it is, sometimes a vogueish new term comes along for a thing that’s already well established, and you have to slowly adjust to the fact that “we don’t call it that any more”.

Consider “AI”, which is ✨ mysterious and magical ✨ and can mean whatever you want it to. Now contrast with actual machine learning techniques like convolution, backpropagation, transformers and diffusion.

But we’re here to talk about The Cyber.

“Cyber” is to infosec what “AI” is to backpropagation - a veritable smorgasbord of fluff and flannel which doesn’t require you to actually know anything about the subject area. You too can be an expert, all you need are opinions! No thoughts, only vibes.

And this leads to nonsense like Cyber-Physical Systems, Cyber Command and fast tracking Cyber Warriors through a Cyber Pipeline. All the Cybers, all the time!

Excuse me, perhaps I could interest you in a Cyber Beverage in these trying times?

Photo of a water bottle with a CYBER sticker diagonally across it, under what looks like it could be a Furry Pride sticker. In the background are some screens displaying orange glowy cat robots, some Linux session windows and a photo of a sign which reads All Cookies Are Beautiful. Yes, stickers aren’t just for laptops.

Yep, if we Cyber All The Things, then anything can be Cyber. If we want it badly enough.

Two Cyber photos. One shows an aluminium flight case with a diagonal X shape marked out using sticky tape which is yellow and printed with the word CYBER. To the right is a piece of fabric featuring the 'lucky cat', sometimes called the beckoning cat or maneki-neko. The second photo shows a green truck which has a number of magnetic words on the side, a bit like giant fridge magnets. The words have been arranged to spell out phrases like 'Braindead Are CYBER', 'All Cats Are Broken', 'Are Bacteria All Beloved' and 'All Cops Are Beautiful'.

Another two Cyber photos. One shows a bike trailer next to a geodesic dome tent. The trailer has a sign on the back which reads 'CYBER TRAILER' and is filled with camping paraphenalia and a suspiciously familiar suitcase. In between the trailer and the tent is a camping table with a lettuce plant on it, and a mug which reads Too Much Information (TMI). The other photo simply shows a wooden door, doorframe and handle. Someone has added a sticker to the door which reads 'SPIDER'. Wait, that's not very CYBER?

If this seems disrespectful for what is, after all, a Serious and Important Topic, it may be enlightening to learn more about the history of cyber from the Greek word κυβερνήτης (kubernetes - yes, really!) through to Stafford Beer and Project Cybersyn and the point in the Internet’s 1990s Cambrian Explosion period when Cyber was effectively shorthand for cybersex.

And now perhaps you’ll be tempted to Cyber A Few Things yourself? The lovely people at cyber.equipment have your back!

Get your own CYBER equipment

PS Alternatively, you might like to make your own Spider^H^H^HCyber designs using the public domain OCR-A font ?