My dad used to refer to something he called “Scottish engineering”, which meant you start a project with good intentions but just end up swearing frequently and throwing everything in the fire lol
I mean, the Scots invented paved roads, tires, bicycles, steam engines, penicillin, postage stamps, television, radar, and universal standard time so they must have been doing something right.
A global industrial empire probably helps a bit for those things.
this is also hobby software development
This tracks, have you seen how many times I restart a React project?
“unplanned rapid disassembly” is one of my favorites
*Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, a RUD.
Sometimes referred to as a “hard start”
If it doesn’t work, force it; if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
This simple advice has saved me from countless analysis paralysis problems.
“Thermal shock” doesn’t necessarily mean it burned; it can also mean that it spontaneously shattered.
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“Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is when an assembly (i.e. made out of multiple parts) grenades itself.
I was thinking more of situations when a piece made from a single material breaks, like when an enshittified soda-lime Pyrex dish suddenly shatters because you were silly enough to try to use it like real borosilicate Pyrex was intended to be used.
My favorite one of these shows up in 3D printing. The most popular open source 3D print server gives you a head’s up if your printer’s firmware lacks “Thermal Runaway Protection”. If you click the learn more link, it patiently explains, “There aren’t preventative measures to stop your printer from accidentally catching itself on fire”.
(It’s fine, you usually just need to install a decent MOSFET in the cheaper printers.)
Octoprint?
Yup!
electrocuted
You mean shocked.
If you got electrocuted, you’d be dead.
I only learned this very recently! I guess it makes sense, it’s like electro-execution
Exactly!
I mean, if you look in dictionaries, you’ll see both definitions, but as I said to another user in this thread, dictionaries include a definition because it is common, not because it is accurate. Just look up the term “literal”; most common dictionaries define it as meaning either “literal” or “figurative”.
Words exist fundamentally to communicate something; if a term is defined so as to be ambiguous, it has failed in that purpose.
Look up the definition. It’s changed to include severe injury from electricity.
Prescriptivism vs descriptivism.
The technical definition is as I described above.
It’s only been expanded in common dictionaries because the dictionaries practice descriptivism, i.e. they reflect not what is the best definition, but how it’s most often used.
In other words, just because it’s in the dictionary doesn’t mean the word means that in a technical context; it just means that’s how it’s commonly meant when used in everyday parlance.
If I’m ever on life support, I want you to unplug me.
Then plug me back in because sometimes that works.
Isn’t that basically what a defibrillator does?
My personal favourite is “structural integrity failure”.
Applies to sandwiches as well as anything.
“I was watching. First it started falling over… then it fell over.”
Pure by ocular spectroscopy = it looked good enough
Pharma distillation = tossing the chemical and buying a new bottle from Sigma
Retro-retro-Cope rearrangement = no reaction happened, go home and cry
Something moves where it shouldn’t? Apply tapes.
Something doesn’t move where it should? Apply WD-40.
Don’t forget to add actual lubricant to the thing that should be moving.
“enclosure acting as dwelling without permit” : mouse got in and died bud.
“client billing issue,” “client legal issue,” and “safety compliance issue” are my personal favorites