4/20/2005
The Unwashed Masses
So my friend, who is attending law school in the fall, had a paper to write about copyrights and maybe the DMCA and asked me for a topic or an opinion, knowing quite well I’m full of those. So I explained to her some of the stuff I’ve recently seen on /. with regards to the GPL.
So she began to Google and check out LexisNexis for some info. She then asked me What does GNU mean? and this is where things went down hill. So I explained that it means GNU’s Not Unix. To which she replied, Right, but what’s the G stand for? So I explained that this is recursion, to which I got a big HUH? What’s that mean? You mean to tell me the person who has read and actually uses the words from There’s a Word for It! : A Grandiloquent Guide to Life
Apparently yes. I then made the fatal flaw of writing the following out:
f(x):
f(x-1)
Which to any computer science person would be the simplest and stupidest recursion function. To which I was told that it doesn’t make sense because if you have 5 and you subtract 1 from it. You don’t have 5 anymore. You have 4. So that’s wrong. The only thing that provided any comfort to me at this point was my vast intellect. So I explained, no, you’re calling the function “f” and then it calls itself with he parameter “x-1″. To which the answer was How many legs does a dog have if you call it’s tail a leg? I answered 5. And I was told, wrong, it doesn’t make any sense to call a tail a leg. I could feel my brain coming out of my head.
So obviously the point of the GPL was lost and any opportunity I had to inform was gone. And as I was leaving, I could hear the question What’s OSS mean? I just ran harder.
Filed under: General
10 Responses to “The Unwashed Masses”
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April 20th, 2005 at 1:20 am
1) I know what the *word* recursive meant, but wasn’t sure what the *jargon* word recursive meant. I asked for an explanation. I suppose I should just be grateful he didn’t think I’ve never heard of corn because I asked what a kernel is.
2) During the “but what does the G stand for?” part of the discussion, I sort of understood, and asked if it could just as easily have been “QNU’s Not Unix.” To which he replied, “I hate you so much.” I assumed (evidently mistakenly) that I must have been wrong.
3) What I said regarding that function was: “But 5 doesn’t equal 6… Okay, fine, defining 5 as 6 doesn’t make it so.”
4) The quote is: “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” ~Abraham Lincoln
5) ENGLISH MAJOR. You expect me to understand functions at 2 in the morning? I’ll hit you with some Derrida at 6 a.m. and see how you like it.
My basic point– it’s like the great philosopher Lewis Black said. “There is only so much you can learn out of one bloodshot eye… Why are you teaching this at such an ungodly hour?! Are you *trying* to keep this stuff a secret?!?”
April 20th, 2005 at 1:41 am
Jenn
Can I have your number?
April 20th, 2005 at 1:49 am
hahah! Jenn has internet friends. Maybe that’s more than friends….
April 20th, 2005 at 1:52 am
While we’re at linking to PA, this is how I usually feel in conversations with Doug.
April 20th, 2005 at 2:42 am
Well, Jenn *is* a hot name. In fact, I’d go so far as to venture that any female name, spelled in a new way (sorry, but I always considered Jen with one “n” to be the traditional spelling–is this inaccurate?), is a hot name.
Anyway, I mentally translate “English major” to “artsy chick who sits around smoking up and reading poetry,” which is, of course, my dream.
Or something.
April 20th, 2005 at 3:11 am
First off, get a life people and stop trying to pick up chicks online!
with reference to the ‘article’ — I think sometimes us computer literal persons are too used to saying RTFM and getting impatient with people when they have perfectly valid questions (in their minds only perhaps).
Recursive acronyms (acronyms with expansions that refer to the acronym to be defined) are kind of a trademark of the computer brandname world so that’s all that needs to be said there. For example WINE [WINE Is Not a (CPU) Emulator]. And yes, she is correct, for all realistic purposes you could replace the G with say a Q (or any other letter for that matter) and it would still work as a recursive acronym…but then it wouldn’t be GNU, it would be QNU and thus not the same. For additional information: http://www.gnu.org/
OSS is ‘Open Source Software’ or basically any number of software applications that fall under a group of licenses that grant use of the software’s source code. Some example licenses are the GPL, LGPL, BSD license, CDDL, etc. For additional information: http://www.opensource.org/
April 20th, 2005 at 3:41 am
This story made me laugh for at least 5 minutes, really funny. Also, this reminds me of my attempt to explain the difference between f(x) and f’(x) to my law teacher.. It took me nearly two lessons. After that, we had maths. I should have invited her…
April 20th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
We had maths? Is that like numerical sex? WTF?
While I wasn’t aware I was being innovative with my name, I unfortunately don’t like poetry.
Thanks for the explanations– I’ll be sure to use those sites as sources.
May 14th, 2005 at 10:06 am
“Maths” is British for math.
July 5th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
G in GNU could stand for “G files” from the commodore 64. So “G files Not Unix” is where the MIT dude got the name from, read about Stallman’s GNU Manifesto. One other argument is that “G”eneral public license “N”ot “U”nix (where the recursive backronym would be “GPLNU”) The guy left MIT so he could give the world free programming archetecture. And I prefer to call math or maths Maf. I really like to do Maf. Come on guys give the girl the answer, we need more females interested in tech crap, makes workplace more interesting. Anyway, what does the second “n” in Jenn stand for it wouldn’t be like PIN, ATM, UPC and the RAS syndrome.