One does not simply walk into Mordor. One has to build a spacecraft because even the eagles can’t fly there.
I looked it up and yep it’s all true.
I looked you up and you’re legit.
I tried to look you up but I’ll do it tomorrow
Achoo is mostly bullshit but yeah. There’s only one source for it from 2012 it looks like.
I don’t know whats worse: Scientists naming everything unpronounceable unspellable Latin, naming things after people, or naming things jokes. Just name it what it fucking does in a language someone actually uses jerks.
scientists work their asses off, its nice to have a little fun and make the endless hours all worth it.
People are really awful at naming things.
Some German nerd thought it was cool while they discovered some new receptor so they called it “toll” (German for cool/awesome). Computer science is full of names that are kind of funny if you already know the particular area but are total gibberish if you’re trying learn it. We’re not even good at naming humans. The default is to either pick one of the names that’s common in your culture. When people deviate from that you get a huge number of “special” names.
We need to put this in the hands of experts. I’m gonna propose a new field, “nameology”. Those folks will do a bunch of research into names that make sense. How do we best name things so they completely and unambiguously label them in a way that’s easy to remember and use? Then they can run around and give non stupid names to all the things.
Hmm, I think we should start referring to the toll-like receptors as the awesome-ish receptors.
Another example: there’s a fruit-fly gene named decapentaplegic (which has to do with forming the 15 imaginal discs during embryonic development). When they discovered another gene that interfered with it, but only when inherited from the mother, they named that one “mothers against decapentaplegic”.
Nah, it’s good and helps people remember things. Easier than the arbitrary name of the discoverer
i was going to say that english was a mistake, but you convinced me
english IS a mistake, but not for the puns
Meanwhile, in immunology:
“Can we have fun names?”
“NO! Now shut up and keep isolating proteins and cell markers!”
The stupid terminology in immunology made me hate it so much, even though the actual mechanics are fascinating. At some point my brain just reached saturation with all the CD proteins. Enough is enough!!!
Not exactly the same but I remember starting my software engineering course and having to remote into the university servers to write code. All the servers were named after Red Dwarf characters. Being a career changer, as soon as I saw the server names I had this calming feeling that I’d finally found my people and everything was going to be ok.
My dad was never at university, but he was a unix admin for ages. his naming conventions for clusters?
Star Wars characters.
Red Dwarf Characters.
Star trek characters.
Asimov’s robots.
and apparently, his annoying bosses. (For the troublesome clusters.)I’ve heard it’s a “pets vs cattle” thing. When you have a small fleet of distinct servers, you name them. When you have a thousand interchangeable boxes, you give them systematic IDs.
Or you scale up to a franchise with a large enough cast. I wonder if anyone uses One Piece character names for servers?
To anyone reading this and not getting it. When your pet gets sick you take care of it (named special servers/other machines). When a cow in the feed lot gets sick you…replace it.
It kind of also depends on how you interact with them- some clusters are interacted with by admin as a single entity; those got names even if they technically represented lots of rackspace; or the hardware that’s running specific groupings of services.
Like a databases. (Darth Vader was reserved for databases that logged and tracked errors… aka other systems that were, uh, rebellions.)
You give systematic id’s to completely interchangable things. You give unique names to unique things.
If you name a formal thing (like a physical computer) by its function you have failed at naming. And are probably a manager who doesn’t see that one day you’ll need many things of almost the same function and to tell them apart. Or that one thing will have many functions.
There’s always NMR scientists. Proton-Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy.
Also one paper that was talking about copper nanotubes (NT). So it was shortened to CuNT. I think that paper may have been oblivious to it though?
Maybe they were Australian.
These are hilarious. I NEED MORE!
Same lol
there’s also a protein involved in visual signals in the brain named Pikachurin,
there’s a wasp in austrialia named Aha ha,
(again, chatgpt sourcing… but I did check to make sure they’re real… lols)
there is a species of mushrooms named Spongiforma Squarepantsii.
there is a beetle named Agra vation
a spider named Apopyllus now
apparently, a sea slug Yoda purpurata. (but I don’t see the resemblance.)
and a waterbug named Ytu Brutus,
(compliments to ChatGPT…lol)
C++ is just the next iteration of C. C# is just another layer of iteration on top of C++. Flags are simple indicators for programs, usually set by a controlling human/system, semaphores are flags that communicate between processes.
C++ is just the next iteration of C.
This is somewhat clever when you know that the ‘++’ operator is the post-increment operator in C.
C# is just another layer of iteration on top of C++.
…except there is no ‘#’ operator in C or C++, so any interesting self-referential pattern breaks down here. The ‘#’ comes from musical notation, where a ‘#’ (sharp) note is played a semitone higher — and was chosen more for marketing purposes rather than scientists having an inside joke.
You could have also mentioned ‘D’, which is another “next iteration of C” independent of C++.
The # looks like two “++” stacked on top of one another
Exactly
The C programming language also descends from the B programming language (though B’s lineage unfortunately goes to BCPL, not A)
pretty sure there’s a D language, and i know there’s R but that’s not super related, obviously.
i’m just waiting for the ø programming language
R is a wonderful programming language in the eyes of people who are bad at programming. And that’s not disparaging it, it’s just used by scientists and engineers more than programmers because nothing makes an anova take less work
R is partly based on S.
except there is no ‘#’ operator in C or C++, so any interesting self-referential pattern breaks down here
# is two layers of ++, so the pattern is there. Whether that was originally intended or coincidence is another matter, but it works well enough that I suspect it was considered when picking names.
That feels like a significant reach — and every online reference I was able to find only talks about using ‘#’ in the musical notation sense, hence why the name of the language is pronounced “C-sharp”.
It’s a nybble…
Nope.
Yes. Two nibbles make a bite. Two nybbles make a byte.
Now I want to become a scientist so I can name something after a pun.
I got bits and bytes mixed up for a minute, and was trying to figure out how the heck you halve a boolean
So, you’re like super-ancestor to the famous Spaceman? 😱
That’s me!
And you’re right because the commenter couldn’t spell nybble.
You never met my ex. She was the queen of half-truths.
There’s a type of bacteria that infects caterpillars and produces a toxin that makes them lose all rigidity. The toxin is called MCF.
MCF stand for Makes Caterpillars Floppy
oh man you really don’t want a flaccid caterpillar, total mood killer
Yeah, if the mood called for that wavy, reach-for-the-sky dance that caterpillars do. On the other hand, if the mood called for a thick, rigid caterpillar, throbbing with pent-up intention, you might want to reconsider the parties you attend.
That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.
