What's a tech term you hate?

[Bombastinator]

My memory is peculiarities of quasars are one of the things that make grand unified theory less strong than it could be.  Dark matter is another iirc.  The problem is they’re both so poorly understood that it’s more of a quibble than anything else.  Also stuff has been falling in favor of grand unified theory lately. Leaves the door open a crack that grand unified theory may be the Newtonian physics of the 22nd century.  Hard to know of course.

[tikker]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

My memory is peculiarities of quasars are one of the things that make grand unified theory less strong than it could be.  Dark matter is another iirc.  The problem is they’re both so poorly understood that it’s more of a quibble than anything else.  Also stuff has been falling in favor of grand unified theory lately. Leaves the door open a crack that grand unified theory may be the Newtonian physics of the 22nd century.  Hard to know of course.

In the context of quasars you are probably thinking of the grand unification theory, which has nothing to do with the grand unified theory. The grand unification theory, simply said, poses that quasars, radio galaxies and the whole zoo of AGN we have defined are all fundamentally the same thing viewed under different angles and/or at different stages of their evolution. This is indeed still under debate.

 

The grand unified theory is particle physics and poses there is a single unifying force the strong, weak and nuclear force stem from or merge into at some point. Similar ideas, completely different fields.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, tikker said:

In the context of quasars you are probably thinking of the grand unification theory, which has nothing to do with the grand unified theory. The grand unification theory, simply said, poses that quasars, radio galaxies and the whole zoo of AGN we have defined are all fundamentally the same thing viewed under different angles and/or at different stages of their evolution. This is indeed still under debate.

 

The grand unified theory is particle physics and poses there is a single unifying force they stem from or merge into at some point. Similar ideas, completely different fields.

Could be.  I didn’t even know there were two.  Definitely the kind of thing I would be likely to confuse and/or conflate

[Bombastinator]

On 5/8/2021 at 8:42 AM, Beerzerker said:

That's because a "Battle Station" sounds more like a bencher's rig.
You know, ready to go to war with any and all others....

THIS is a true battle station - In this pic the action had just ended so she was retired from battle....
For now.


 

Pivots on how the word “battle” is being used. Also in a removed context the various definitions of battle station.   There is the Star Wars definition of space station meant for battle” vs “non moving equipment used for battle”

so two problems.  There are train stations and workstations, and they are not a whole lot alike from most perspectives.  Battle station does sort of work if the right perspectives are chosen, but not if they aren’t. “Gamestation” would work better but that was already trademarked for use on a very substantially lower performing console, causing a problem.  The “gamestation” was never what it trademarked itself as.

[Bombastinator]

On 5/8/2021 at 5:28 AM, LogicalDrm said:

Yeah, that means its one of those terms that people don't really understand. Same with all questions about what performance hardware that hasn't been released will give. Or how demanding games will be in next 5 years. Do these people think if anyone on random tech forum would know, they would tell? Thats guaranteed billionaire idea.

Naw.  Depends on how non fuzzy the prediction is.  Crystal clear? Sure. Vague and fuzzy isn’t though. It’s not even worth much at all.  Lots of those around.  This seems to be the famous level of confidence “proof” vs “resistant” debate, where one side defines “proof” as100% resistant. When 100% is not achieved (notice there’s no ‘if’ there) an object labeled “proof” against whatever, is accused of having a false label. For a while there were waterproof to X pressure watches and then they went away to be labeled as ‘tested to be functionally water free at X depth’ while being the exact same thing. 
The term “futureproof” only works if infinity is not even considered an option. Once that starts getting shoehorned in of course it’s going to break.  The question at that point though is who is the party at fault?  The utterer or the shoehorner?  In 2018 the standard “futureproof” build was an 8/16 cpu with greater total speed than a 2700x, and more video card than a 5700x.  The idea being that the video game consoles had what amounted to 2700xs and 5700xes and they defined what was being written for games so any machine that could muster more power than that would be able to play what they did until a new console came out which was estimated to be about 8 years.  In the interim more was learned about the consoles and the formula got added to and varied a bit. Did people take it for more than that?  Apparently.  They were wrong though.  The trick in the original theoretical quote seems to me to be the ‘all’ all is infinite.

 

The causal error seems to be the “ ‘proof’ means 100% resistant” thing.  Zero and infinity are special numbers which odd things can be done with, and rarely reached in practice. “Pure” gold is 99.999%gold.  Not 100% gold. 

[InstantNewt]

On 11/16/2021 at 9:12 AM, Mel0nMan said:

Not quite a "term" but I hate when companies put LEDs under tubes

Said designers should be fired out of a cannon into the sun. I already hate how literally everything has to have a bright LED status indicator now, especially a light that shows when something is off.

 

On topic, "LED lights" irks me. LED bulb is fine since it's describing the bulb itself, but "Light Emitting Diode Light" is redundant.

[dilpickle]

I hate how RMA has become a verb. You can just say Return It.

 

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, dilpickle said:

I hate how RMA has become a verb. You can just say Return It.

 

It’s a particular kind of return though.  Most returns eventually result in RMA, but it depends on who does it.

[Rex Hite]

Veearem

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Rex Hite said:

Veearem

What's wrong with VRM? Literally just means "voltage regulator module"...

[rrats]

Upscaling

[pythonmegapixel]

 

2 hours ago, rrats said:

Upscaling

 

2 hours ago, Rex Hite said:

Veearem

People need to stop just posting words here without explaining what problem they have with them..

[rrats]

People use the term upscaling for all the super-resolution for all the super-resolution work, despite the fact that it refers to any photo/video resizing

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, rrats said:

People use the term upscaling for all the super-resolution for all the super-resolution work, despite the fact that it refers to any photo/video resizing

This one would need more definition perhaps.  Also, that “any” might have supposed to have been an “only”  Ihateautocorrect. 

I at least Would need examples of where it is used that it does not actually apply.  What is not upscaling that people refer to as upscaling?  Just to get my head around what you are talking about.

[rrats]

Upscaling is pretty much enlarging the pixels. In recent times people started misusing the term. They would refer to super-resolution software made to use algorithms and machine learning by using that term.

[rrats]

It causes quite a bit of confusion in most conversations

[Bombastinator]

27 minutes ago, rrats said:

It causes quite a bit of confusion in most conversations

Ah. I think I understand what you mean.  The sort of thing DLSS or even FSR does is not that.  Pixels are not simply duplicated.  So what is the term for when it is not that?

[rrats]

8 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Pixels are not simply duplicated.

Very fast super-resolution.

[Shoopman]

Came here to say calling 1440p 2K, but that's literally the first response.

 

Explanation for anyone curious:

Spoiler

"2K" is just 1080p. 4K is named as such because there are roughly 4000 (3840 actually) horizontal pixels on the display. 1K = 1000, so 4K = 4000. 1080p has 1920 horizontal pixels (about 2000, exactly half of 3840), hence 2K. By the same naming scheme, 1440p would be called 2.5K because it has 2560 horizontal pixels but please for the love of god don't call it that. Why are 1080p/1440p named after their vertical pixels and 4K named after horizontal? Marketing probably. For those wondering why 4K doesn't actually have 4000 pixels, well, it does, but not for you. Originally, 4K was used in the film/cinema industry with 4096 horizontal pixels (with the same 2160 vertical pixels). This was reduced to 3840x2160 for consumers in order to fit with the already well-established 16:9 TV aspect ratio. So "true" 4K is used pretty much exclusively for film, while "consumer" 4K, more accurately known as Ultra HD/UHD or Quad HD (because it is exactly 4 times the pixels of a 1080p display), is what you will find on consumer TVs and monitors.

 

Second place is probably calling your rig a "battle station". Nothing wrong with being proud of your build, but come on. We're playing video games, not fighting a foreign power.

[pythonmegapixel]

2 minutes ago, Shoopman said:

Second place is probably calling your rig a "battle station". Nothing wrong with being proud of your build, but come on. We're playing video games, not fighting a foreign power.

Third place, calling your computer a "rig" :)

[Shoopman]

14 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Third place, calling your computer a "rig"

I know you're (probably) mostly kidding, but I think rig is a pretty good generic term to use when describing a high performance PC, especially to those outside the PC community. "This is my gaming/editing/whatever rig" suggests both that your PC is beefier than most, and also that you had some hand in creating it by building/overclocking/modding/etc.

 

It is a bit silly though, since the word rig implies at least a moderate amount of jank, which most of the time is quite far from the truth.

 

Mostly I just like it because it has the least number of letters and syllables.

[da na]

Just now, Shoopman said:

I know you're (probably) mostly kidding, but I think rig is a pretty good generic term to use when describing a high performance PC, especially to those outside the PC community. "This is my gaming/editing/whatever rig" suggests both that your PC is beefier than most, and also that you had some hand in creating it by building/overclocking/modding/etc.

 

It is a bit silly though, since the word rig implies at least a moderate amount of jank, which most of the time is quite far from the truth.

 

Mostly I just like it because it has the least number of letters and syllables.

I prefer to tell people that this is my "personal computing device optimized for demanding CAD workflows"

/s

[Bombastinator]

38 minutes ago, rrats said:

Very fast super-resolution.

So people are saying upscaling when they should be saying very fast super resolution (VFSR?)

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

So people are saying upscaling when they should be saying very fast super resolution (VFSR?)

Next gen upscaling, UVFSR?

[Bombastinator]

Just now, IkeaGnome said:

Next gen upscaling, UVFSR?

I can see that inflation problem happening.  Has been a problem in the past with other things.