Weeknotes 2022 W36: Naming

This week, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I keep the bedroom windows open (Fenster auf Kipp), and around 5 AM the noise begins to grow. Early on, it’s mostly the birds which already wake me up, and later the motorized traffic joins the noise and makes it hard to fall asleep again.

I’ve also been staying up later than usual. Because I like to get up fairly early (usually just after 8 AM, even on weekends), all of this adds up to, well, far too little sleep lately.

At least I’m staying up late because staying up late is fun!

Here’s a pet peeve of mine: people incorrectly abbreviating words, in a way that changes the meaning entirely. Two examples I’ve heard at work:

• “bug fix” abbreviated to “bug” (e.g., I finished a new bug)
• “regression test” abbreviated to “regression” (e.g., I finished the regression)

This isn’t a new problem. Back when the iPod and other MP3 players were popular, in Belgium people would abbreviate “MP3 player” to just “MP3,” which ended up being quite confusing when one claims to have thousands of MP3s. (That’s abbreviating “MP3 file” to “MP3,” which is probably not correct either.)

It’s not the biggest of problems. It does add some overhead to communication though, because words no longer mean what they used to mean, and you’ve got to do some second-guessing.

Speaking of communication issues: naming things is hard. At my employer, one particular product has four different names:

• The name of the repository
• The name specified in the README file
• The name that people use when talking about the project
• The official name of the project

All those four names are different. This even confuses the team maintaining the product. I might have to point some people to my naming principles.

It’s got some Through the Looking Glass vibes:

• The name of the repository is called Haddocks’ Eyes
• The name of the repository The Aged Aged Man
• The repository is called Ways And Means
• The repository is A-sitting On A Gate

Let’s talk entertainment!

• I binge-watched Westworld season 4. It’s as intense as the previous seasons (unsurprisingly). Though… it feels a bit too much more-of-the-same. (The title sequence, however, gives me chills every single time.)

• I picked up the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series. It’s good so far.

• After ignoring The X-Files for a while, I resumed with the season 5 episode Bad Blood, which is one of the best episodes so far.

• My Wordle streak is going strong. That is my not-playing streak, mind you, which I have not broken for many weeks. This is my winning strategy.

Links:

• The image you can’t submit to journals anymore (BobbyBroccoli)

• …And Then 1700 People Died. (Joe Scott): I didn’t know Diet Coke + Mentos could be this terrifying.

• Quality Is Systemic (Jacob Kaplan-Moss)

• Same Energy (Visual Search Engine): Oh wow, this looks incredibly useful. It also has an option to limit searches to Creative Commons content.

• Should You Delete Your Patreon Account After They Laid Off Their Entire Security Team? (Soatok)