Comment by jancsika
7 years ago
> These are bad inside jokes, embarrassing markers of an insular culture that never anticipated having to explain itself in a court of law.
I love this sentence.
Edit: context-- lawyer talking about GNU, judge asks what GNU stands for, lawyer tells him, judge responds, "That doesn't make sense." A judge who himself codes.
I think there is additional important context which is that this is the opinion of the author not the judge. For such a good piece otherwise the author is a bit up their own ass stating this so matter of factly.
Alsup's words:
> I did not know this recursive feature of the definition. Once it was explained to me, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s kind of cute.'
Pfft, I think it’s cute, not embarrassing. (But to be clear for anyone reading, the first paragraph you quoted is the article author’s opinion, not a quote from Judge Alsup.)
Because all the doublethink acronyms like PATRIOT & SPEECH act are so much more meaningful
Those are bad acronyms because they hide poorly written law which-- at least with the PATRIOT act-- time has shown has been abused to extend well past what its original (conservative) author intended or imagined.
GNU is a bad acronym IMO because it is anti-social to use an inside joke for the name of an operating system whose raison d'être is to be shared with the public.
"Hello, I'm Neu. What's your name?"
"My name is This-is-not-my-name."
I feel like Neu should just move on and socialize with other folks, but maybe that's just me.
I think you put too much importance into the name. Yahoo is not exactly superior name, neither is Google wich sounds like baby-speak. Amazon is kinda unrefined too - ih, you called your company "amazing" and added a clever pun, how cute. And FaceBook? Eugh. Etc etc. Turns out nobody cares.