A Babel Fish Substitute for Sci-Fi Readers

Do you ever get confused by the flying torrents of jargon in Dune or in the writings of Charles Stross? (His recent novel Accelerando had me befuddled for the first hundred pages until he started to explain his ideas in greater detail.) Some authors seem to make a point of mentioning theoretical technologies unfamiliar to present-day folk unequipped with a Babel Fish. (That's a genericized neologism of "neurolinguistic translator.")

Anyway, for those of us who need to claim authoritative knowledge in the field of fictional science, here are some words sci-fi readers should know, courtesy of the blog Geekend.