Field-specific terms for "We don't know".
August 26, 2022 12:42 AM Subscribe
Diseases can be idiopathic. Archaeological artefacts can be for ritual purposes*. What are some other technical-sounding terms from other fields that means "we're really not sure"?
Also open to labels that mean "none of the above/weird category-defying outlier" etc so long as they have the same vibe of being an admission of defeat or a label of last resort. "UFO" for example.
*I don't mean to slander archaeologists. I'm aware that plenty of archaeological artefacts with very specific, well-evidenced ritual purposes. But I greatly enjoy the joke that it's also the fallback assumption if there's no better theory.
Also open to labels that mean "none of the above/weird category-defying outlier" etc so long as they have the same vibe of being an admission of defeat or a label of last resort. "UFO" for example.
*I don't mean to slander archaeologists. I'm aware that plenty of archaeological artefacts with very specific, well-evidenced ritual purposes. But I greatly enjoy the joke that it's also the fallback assumption if there's no better theory.
i had a computer science professor who used to joke that the answer to any CS interview question is either "recursion" or "it depends"
we do be saying "it depends" a lot
posted by joshuaconner at 1:01 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
we do be saying "it depends" a lot
posted by joshuaconner at 1:01 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Best answer: Bird watchers have the term LBJ for any of the many Little Brown Jobs (birds) they might see.
More of a joke, and it's not English, but a Langsipad Boom is fancy sounding Afrikaans name for a type tree that actually means "Next to the road tree".
posted by Zumbador at 2:14 AM on August 26, 2022 [15 favorites]
More of a joke, and it's not English, but a Langsipad Boom is fancy sounding Afrikaans name for a type tree that actually means "Next to the road tree".
posted by Zumbador at 2:14 AM on August 26, 2022 [15 favorites]
"Not significant" and "equivocal" are big ones in my parts of the scientific world (referring to hypothesis testing that doesn't reach specific measures of statistical significance).
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:48 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 2:48 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
"for historical reasons" -- This is a computer science / programming term for "probably someone thought it was a good idea a long time ago, I don't know" or "it would take too long to explain". (jargon.txt)
posted by richb at 2:52 AM on August 26, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by richb at 2:52 AM on August 26, 2022 [17 favorites]
Best answer: Incertae sedis [of uncertain seat] is the term used for for biological groups where their relationship with the rest of creation is up for grabs. synonym: problematica. One example is Gluteus minimis.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:55 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:55 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
I read once that geologists use the term 'FRGOK.' Funny Rock, God Only Knows.
In engineering we use the term 'Field To Fit.' In other words, we don't know exactly where this goes or how to install or build it.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 2:56 AM on August 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
In engineering we use the term 'Field To Fit.' In other words, we don't know exactly where this goes or how to install or build it.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 2:56 AM on August 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Best answer: We (geologists) often use 'FLR' - funny looking rock. Apparently that comes from medical doctors saying 'FLK' - funny looking kid? In geology we would also often either 'lump' or 'split' things - if you're a lumper, you lump everything together, for example, you might say "ah, looks Jurassic in age", which would span hundreds of millions of years. Or if you're a splitter, you'd get more specific/precise. I also like 'geofanstasy' for very arm-waving ideas. Good question!
posted by sedimentary_deer at 3:14 AM on August 26, 2022
posted by sedimentary_deer at 3:14 AM on August 26, 2022
There's hapax legomenon, which refers to a word appearing only once in a corpus. If the corpus you're dealing with is is all of the documentation you have for a language and the word isn't clearly related to any others, it can be difficult to figure out the meaning.
Isolate languages are those with no known related languages.
posted by damayanti at 3:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Isolate languages are those with no known related languages.
posted by damayanti at 3:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
In math and compsci I've seen (as a joke) "left as an exercise for the reader".
posted by mmoncur at 3:53 AM on August 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by mmoncur at 3:53 AM on August 26, 2022 [14 favorites]
In machine learning, a 'black box model' is a way of saying "we have no idea how this model works, but it works"
posted by snusmumrik at 4:07 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by snusmumrik at 4:07 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Slightly different shade of meaning, but "for historical reasons" in computer science brought to mind the term "legacy," as in "legacy code" or "legacy content." Both tend to be a bit of a euphemistic way of saying "This stuff is old and we don't quite know what it does or it seems to be different in structure than newer stuff and we're not going to deal with plumbing its depths or updating or reproducing it. It is out of scope and here be dragons."
posted by limeonaire at 4:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by limeonaire at 4:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Mushroom hunters have the hard-to-identify LBMs: little brown mushrooms. May be tasty and safe, may kill you, may make you see god.
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 4:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 4:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
My dad used "Leverite" for unidentified rocks that were not worth collecting. As in, "Leave 'er right there."
posted by evilmomlady at 4:24 AM on August 26, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by evilmomlady at 4:24 AM on August 26, 2022 [18 favorites]
In engineering we use the term 'Field To Fit.' In other words, we don't know exactly where this goes or how to install or build it.
In the US, we typically use the term "verify in field" or VIF, which can take on a couple different contexts, usually dealing with modifications to existing buildings. Like, "we know we need a beam spanning between these walls, but we were only out there with a measuring tape and that's not really good enough for determining the length of a steel beam"; or "we think we need something in this area, but we really have no idea how that area is built because it's covered up with finish material - figure it out once the finish material comes off".
posted by LionIndex at 4:37 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
In the US, we typically use the term "verify in field" or VIF, which can take on a couple different contexts, usually dealing with modifications to existing buildings. Like, "we know we need a beam spanning between these walls, but we were only out there with a measuring tape and that's not really good enough for determining the length of a steel beam"; or "we think we need something in this area, but we really have no idea how that area is built because it's covered up with finish material - figure it out once the finish material comes off".
posted by LionIndex at 4:37 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
"To be determined" often shortened to TBD.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:38 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by SemiSalt at 4:38 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
The system I work on includes a stellar navigation component, which is essentially a little telescope and a camera to look at stars and update our position information. This method works because we've already determined the orbits of thousands of celestial objects to a high degree of accuracy, so we know what we're pointing at when we open the shutter. Sometimes other stuff gets in the way, and we get a hit that we weren't planning on or isn't in the ephemeris. Those are Unidentified Flying Objects.
(I am not trying to convince anyone that there are space aliens, we use the term UFO in the most literal sense - it's something in space that we did not identify. Usually debris or some small asteroid or something that no one's bothered to look at.)
posted by backseatpilot at 4:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
(I am not trying to convince anyone that there are space aliens, we use the term UFO in the most literal sense - it's something in space that we did not identify. Usually debris or some small asteroid or something that no one's bothered to look at.)
posted by backseatpilot at 4:40 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Etymology: substrate
Phonology: euphony
Morphology: free variation
Syntax: particle
Chomskyan theories: performance
posted by zompist at 4:43 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Phonology: euphony
Morphology: free variation
Syntax: particle
Chomskyan theories: performance
posted by zompist at 4:43 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also in maths - "conjecture" for statements you have reason to believe are true, but for which you don't have a proof (eg Goldbach's conjecture that every even number >2 is the sum of 2 primes).
There are also statements that provably can't be proved within a logical system - those are undecidable.
posted by crocomancer at 4:45 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
There are also statements that provably can't be proved within a logical system - those are undecidable.
posted by crocomancer at 4:45 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
"empirical" is used that way in my corner of physics/engineering. "Empirically observed" behavior is something we may not know how to predict but see in practice. "Emergent" can do this too - an emergent property of the system being something that wasn't in the parts and probably wasn't obvious from looking at the schematics...
posted by Lady Li at 5:11 AM on August 26, 2022
posted by Lady Li at 5:11 AM on August 26, 2022
In crossword puzzles, putting "Var." at the end of a clue sometimes means "this is a common variant spelling" but more often means "this word is totally spelled wrong but I need it like this to get the grid to work, & the odds are good that someone misspelled it this way at some point in history."
posted by miles per flower at 5:23 AM on August 26, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by miles per flower at 5:23 AM on August 26, 2022 [16 favorites]
Empirical diagnosis, when the symptoms match something you've seen before but the lab tests do not confirm. I saw a lot of 'empirically diagnosed' flu around November and December 2019 getting Tamiflu scripts; you can guess what that actually turned out to be.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 5:24 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Ardnamurchan at 5:24 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
Translation: There is no English equivalent for that term
posted by TheRaven at 5:43 AM on August 26, 2022
posted by TheRaven at 5:43 AM on August 26, 2022
In EMS when we encounter something on a patient's EKG that we can't identify it's an FLB (funny looking beat).
posted by wjm at 6:03 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by wjm at 6:03 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Does this count? A brief description in Latin to make it sound like it's something named and known.
Example: one woman with a persistent rash, who finally went to an out-of-state specialist and came back gratified that at least she knew what it was now. He told her she had pruritic erythema (translation: itchy red rash).
posted by wjm at 6:11 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
Example: one woman with a persistent rash, who finally went to an out-of-state specialist and came back gratified that at least she knew what it was now. He told her she had pruritic erythema (translation: itchy red rash).
posted by wjm at 6:11 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
In law we say something is "a case (or issue) of first impression", that it presents a novel issue, that it involves unsettled law, that there are no cases on point, or that all prior cases can be distinguished from this one.
NB: often the issue is only questionably new or unsettled, but one side would like to argue that this is a very special, totally new case so that they can get out from under legal precedent that would be bad for their side.
posted by jedicus at 6:16 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
NB: often the issue is only questionably new or unsettled, but one side would like to argue that this is a very special, totally new case so that they can get out from under legal precedent that would be bad for their side.
posted by jedicus at 6:16 AM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
In plant surveys and the like, you can use sp. or spp. when you know the genus but not the species. So you might list Carex spp. and Juncus sp., meaning we've got some sedges and we've got some kind of rush. Can be used if you're truly unable to identify the thing to species, but also in times of god I'm tired of this if I have to key out one more flipping sedge I'm going to scream.
posted by gueneverey at 6:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by gueneverey at 6:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [7 favorites]
I had a friend who was a tour guide for westerners in China many years ago. He told me how on occasion he would use "buzhidao" (Mandarin for "I don't know") as an adjective for things he didn't know when asked.
"Oh, that tree? It's a buzhidao tree."
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 6:45 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
"Oh, that tree? It's a buzhidao tree."
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 6:45 AM on August 26, 2022 [5 favorites]
In TV - “We’ll figure that out on the day” meaning on shoot day when the set, performers, cameras, and lighting are all together.
Or, “We’ll fix it in post”, meaning we can edit or do effects in the post-production phase, to hide a potential problem. Using digital effects to hide an error is hypothetically doable but usually prohibitively expensive, so it’s often said as a joke meaning “we don’t know how to solve that and we’re screwed”. It became a widespread joke after some news anchor guy went viral freaking out and screaming it.
Another one is “let’s sidebar that” meaning “you and I can have a meeting about that later so we can figure it out privately when we have more info and less onlookers.”
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:53 AM on August 26, 2022
Or, “We’ll fix it in post”, meaning we can edit or do effects in the post-production phase, to hide a potential problem. Using digital effects to hide an error is hypothetically doable but usually prohibitively expensive, so it’s often said as a joke meaning “we don’t know how to solve that and we’re screwed”. It became a widespread joke after some news anchor guy went viral freaking out and screaming it.
Another one is “let’s sidebar that” meaning “you and I can have a meeting about that later so we can figure it out privately when we have more info and less onlookers.”
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:53 AM on August 26, 2022
Our pediatrician once diagnosed my kid with "toddler's diarrhea", which basically meant "we don't know why she's pooping so much".
posted by madcaptenor at 7:07 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by madcaptenor at 7:07 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have seen in veterinary medical practice the label "ADR" applied when there's something wrong with a patient but it's not exactly clear what, "ADR" standing for "ain't doin' right".
posted by biogeo at 7:16 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 7:16 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
In computer networking we regularly use "black box" for individual devices and "cloud" for entire networks. Most of the time they’re used to simplify drawings, but they also are used when you really have no idea what is going on in that part of the system.
The physical gesture we use to describe network "clouds" literally involves waving our hands around, which pretty much says it all.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
The physical gesture we use to describe network "clouds" literally involves waving our hands around, which pretty much says it all.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [4 favorites]
Bird watchers have the term LBJ for any of the many Little Brown Jobs (birds) they might see.
The acronym I heard for this was LGBs (Little Gray Birds) (maybe because in the US, LBJ means the 36th president)
...and another I've heard from the medical field is TNTC (Too Numerous To Count)
posted by Rash at 8:23 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
The acronym I heard for this was LGBs (Little Gray Birds) (maybe because in the US, LBJ means the 36th president)
...and another I've heard from the medical field is TNTC (Too Numerous To Count)
posted by Rash at 8:23 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
Another software development one is "legacy", as in "legacy code", as in "nobody who still works here has any idea how this code works"
posted by ook at 9:01 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ook at 9:01 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
In journalism (and I guess editing/publishing more generally), TK means "to come" — it's an all-purpose filler for when you don't know what you're going to put in the article. Could be a quote you're waiting on, a fact you don't have time to look up, a note that there needs to be a caption for an image but nobody has written it yet...
posted by sparkling at 9:14 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by sparkling at 9:14 AM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
In math and compsci I've seen (as a joke) "left as an exercise for the reader".
In political science at least, when formal modelers / game theorists / etc want to assert that something is true without proving it, they'll say that the proof is trivial.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
In political science at least, when formal modelers / game theorists / etc want to assert that something is true without proving it, they'll say that the proof is trivial.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:15 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is maybe not quite in the same vein as what you're looking for, but in literary history you come across works of unknown or disputed authorship that were at one time attributed to famous writers or thinkers like Augustine or Bonaventure, but now are classified under the moniker "Pseudo-Augustine" or "Pseudo-Bonaventure."
posted by Dorinda at 9:29 AM on August 26, 2022
posted by Dorinda at 9:29 AM on August 26, 2022
In education, we throw around "non-specific learning disability" pretty often.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 10:43 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 10:43 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
TLAs [three letter acronyms] can give enough momentum to skate over awkward questioning of authority. PUO pyrexia of unknown origin [pubmed] is an example.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:28 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:28 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
In psychiatric diagnosis it's "NOS," short for "Not otherwise specified."
Eating disorder NOS means "having weird experiences with food that cause serious problems, but that don't meet the official criteria for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, etc."
Mood disorder NOS means "having weird mood states that cause serious problems, but that don't meet the official criteria for major depression, bipolar, etc."
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:55 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
Eating disorder NOS means "having weird experiences with food that cause serious problems, but that don't meet the official criteria for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, etc."
Mood disorder NOS means "having weird mood states that cause serious problems, but that don't meet the official criteria for major depression, bipolar, etc."
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:55 PM on August 26, 2022 [2 favorites]
When you take your car to a garage, the front office will give the mechanic a job sheet saying what needs to be done. Information about faults is often prefixed with "C/S" for "customer states...", which whilst literally true is also industry code for "we don't know what's wrong, this is what they told us but it sounds fishy, be suspicious".
posted by automatronic at 1:06 PM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by automatronic at 1:06 PM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
We are cautiously of the view that the claim is more likely than not to succeed, subject to contingencies concerning the facts and evidence of which we are not yet aware and the judge's conclusions concerning legal issue, as legal issue has been the subject of conflicting decisions.
AKA "we don't know", please pay my bills later and don't sue or report me.
posted by lookoutbelow at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022
AKA "we don't know", please pay my bills later and don't sue or report me.
posted by lookoutbelow at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
posted by protorp at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by protorp at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022 [3 favorites]
Economic classifications of things tend to include category descriptions like "NOS" (see above) or "NOC" (not otherwise classified"), as well as "and related x" and "all other".
For instance, the US standard occupational coding that classifies all workers into specific types of occupations has, (as a subset of arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations) a grouping called Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers, which is everybody who performs to entertain people. The subcategories here are:
27-2010 Actors, Producers and Directors
27-2020 Athletes, Coaches, Umpires and Related Workers (here the related workers include scouts, referees and other sports officials like a race starter)
27-2030 Dancers and Choreographers
27-2040 Musicians, Singers and Related Workers (here related workers are music directors, conductors, songwriters, composers)
27-2090 Miscellaneous Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers
and this last category represents everybody else; within it live DJs are broken out into a subcategory (radio DJs are classified elsewhere, along with other TV and radio announcers) and then there's a final subcategory of 27-2099 Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers, All Other which has the following example occupations: Clown, Comedian, Magician, Professional Poker Player . And of course, those are only examples of this group; there are professional chess players, and sideshow performers and quick change artists and acrobats and Disney princesses and so on.
There's always some weirdo outliers when you've classified 98% of something into well-defined categories that make sense, and these often get lumped together.
posted by Superilla at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022
For instance, the US standard occupational coding that classifies all workers into specific types of occupations has, (as a subset of arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations) a grouping called Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers, which is everybody who performs to entertain people. The subcategories here are:
27-2010 Actors, Producers and Directors
27-2020 Athletes, Coaches, Umpires and Related Workers (here the related workers include scouts, referees and other sports officials like a race starter)
27-2030 Dancers and Choreographers
27-2040 Musicians, Singers and Related Workers (here related workers are music directors, conductors, songwriters, composers)
27-2090 Miscellaneous Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers
and this last category represents everybody else; within it live DJs are broken out into a subcategory (radio DJs are classified elsewhere, along with other TV and radio announcers) and then there's a final subcategory of 27-2099 Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers, All Other which has the following example occupations: Clown, Comedian, Magician, Professional Poker Player . And of course, those are only examples of this group; there are professional chess players, and sideshow performers and quick change artists and acrobats and Disney princesses and so on.
There's always some weirdo outliers when you've classified 98% of something into well-defined categories that make sense, and these often get lumped together.
posted by Superilla at 1:14 PM on August 26, 2022
@wjm
I'm a monitor tech and monitor the ECG's of hospital patients, we too, use FLB.
posted by oldnumberseven at 11:05 PM on August 26, 2022
I'm a monitor tech and monitor the ECG's of hospital patients, we too, use FLB.
posted by oldnumberseven at 11:05 PM on August 26, 2022
The sequence of each person's DNA is unique* and the different versions of a gene are called variants. If a variant of a gene is known to be associated with worse health, that's a pathogenic variant; if it's known not to be, that's benign.
But if the variant is rare and hasn't been studied enough to be understood, that's a variant of uncertain significance, abbreviated VUS.
posted by What is E. T. short for? at 8:27 AM on August 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
But if the variant is rare and hasn't been studied enough to be understood, that's a variant of uncertain significance, abbreviated VUS.
posted by What is E. T. short for? at 8:27 AM on August 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
In accounting, you have “reconciliation discrepancies” to denote an expense amount(s), an income amount(s), or a combo of the two. It happens when you are trying to get a client’s accounting records to agree with their bank statements and technically means “I’ve been working on this for 4+ hours and I know some financial activity occurred but I can’t fucking find it and it’s time to move on”.
posted by dngrangl at 11:01 AM on August 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by dngrangl at 11:01 AM on August 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
LBJ (for birds) has become so frequently used that I recently had an argument / robust discussion with my wife who was under the impression that LBJ was actually a type of bird.
posted by McNulty at 7:07 PM on August 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by McNulty at 7:07 PM on August 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
In law we say something is "a case (or issue) of first impression", that it presents a novel issue, that it involves unsettled law, that there are no cases on point, or that all prior cases can be distinguished from this one.
We also say the answer will "depend on the specific facts and circumstances" or that the analysis will be "fact-specific" if asked to make a general statement on a topic (and it's always true, but people hate it when we won't just say yes or no).
posted by Pax at 6:59 AM on August 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
We also say the answer will "depend on the specific facts and circumstances" or that the analysis will be "fact-specific" if asked to make a general statement on a topic (and it's always true, but people hate it when we won't just say yes or no).
posted by Pax at 6:59 AM on August 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Why do animals do that? Instinct.
posted by mhoye at 7:13 AM on August 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mhoye at 7:13 AM on August 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is a computer science / programming term for "probably someone thought it was a good idea a long time ago, I don't know" or "it would take too long to explain".
It can also mean "we really, really just don't want to talk about it".
posted by mhoye at 7:16 AM on August 29, 2022
It can also mean "we really, really just don't want to talk about it".
posted by mhoye at 7:16 AM on August 29, 2022
When Word (or PowerPoint or some other Office program) is doing something weird that we can’t identify, so we just strip out the text and plop it in NotePad and then copy it back and now it works, we call it “gigging”.
From Goddamn It, (bill) Gates.
posted by Etrigan at 8:24 AM on August 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
From Goddamn It, (bill) Gates.
posted by Etrigan at 8:24 AM on August 29, 2022 [5 favorites]
In some programming languages a particular function may be described as "nondeterministic," meaning that you're not guaranteed to get the same result of the function every time you run it. I'm most familiar with this when dealing with Perl's hash data structure. If you try to access, say, the "first" element stored in a hash, you might not get the same element every time, even with the same elements added to the hash in the same order. If you need to access the data in a hash in a particular order, it's up to you to provide that sorting mechanism. Similarly, functions that depend on time series data should be prepared to handle situations where the time series gets out of whack, like all the clocks jumping back an hour in the fall.
Networked databases with "eventual consistency" can also be unpredictable in the very short term, if you query for a resource before any changes to that resource have propagated across the network. Again, the programmer working in this environment should be prepared to handle the errors that might happen as a result of this behavior.
posted by fedward at 10:11 AM on August 29, 2022
Networked databases with "eventual consistency" can also be unpredictable in the very short term, if you query for a resource before any changes to that resource have propagated across the network. Again, the programmer working in this environment should be prepared to handle the errors that might happen as a result of this behavior.
posted by fedward at 10:11 AM on August 29, 2022
Best answer: Along the lines of LBJ birds and LBM 'shrooms, in botany there is the DYC, a damned yellow composite, meaning it's yet another of the thousands of daisy-like all-yellow flowers.
posted by Quasirandom at 11:20 AM on August 29, 2022
posted by Quasirandom at 11:20 AM on August 29, 2022
Best answer: experimental psychology/cognitive neuroscience: "It's attention."
evolutionary psychology: "In the ancestral environment..."
posted by logicpunk at 1:23 PM on August 29, 2022
evolutionary psychology: "In the ancestral environment..."
posted by logicpunk at 1:23 PM on August 29, 2022
museums:
"unknown provenance" when you don't know where something came from
"n/d" = "no data," when you have no collections record of a thing
We also use "TK" when we don't have details for the Marketing folks yet
"unsubstantiated" = we haven't done the research yet, or we have and haven't found anything to support the story
posted by Miko at 3:45 PM on August 29, 2022
"unknown provenance" when you don't know where something came from
"n/d" = "no data," when you have no collections record of a thing
We also use "TK" when we don't have details for the Marketing folks yet
"unsubstantiated" = we haven't done the research yet, or we have and haven't found anything to support the story
posted by Miko at 3:45 PM on August 29, 2022
Software engineering: if you saw an issue happen once or sometimes, but you can't figure out what makes it happen or how to reproduce the problem, why, that's a transient error. If it's not quite an error, that's a transient anomaly.
If you're building something and you need to leave certain features out so that you can get the job done on time, and you really have no intention of doing them, these are v2 features or fast follows. They will certainly be added to the backlog to gather dust.
If you're doing a sales presentation and your software doesn't do what you are saying it should do, you are experiencing network issues. If the WHOLE SITE goes down and you are scrambling to fix the issue, you are likely experiencing issues with an upstream service provider.
One that I've heard many times as a joke, but never in actual straightforward usage, is PEBKAC: Problem exists between keyboard and chair.
posted by lostburner at 10:53 PM on August 30, 2022
If you're building something and you need to leave certain features out so that you can get the job done on time, and you really have no intention of doing them, these are v2 features or fast follows. They will certainly be added to the backlog to gather dust.
If you're doing a sales presentation and your software doesn't do what you are saying it should do, you are experiencing network issues. If the WHOLE SITE goes down and you are scrambling to fix the issue, you are likely experiencing issues with an upstream service provider.
One that I've heard many times as a joke, but never in actual straightforward usage, is PEBKAC: Problem exists between keyboard and chair.
posted by lostburner at 10:53 PM on August 30, 2022
Apparently that comes from medical doctors saying 'FLK' - funny looking kid?
I have heard from pediatricians I know that this is (maybe was?) a thing - a newborn that had medical complications that they didn't understand yet, a kid presenting with a symptom or problem whose appearance might be syndromic with the issue, etc. It seems deeply callous, but I can't pretend to understand the coping mechanisms that pediatric (or any) hospitalist physicians might have to develop.
posted by Pax at 5:24 PM on September 5, 2022
I have heard from pediatricians I know that this is (maybe was?) a thing - a newborn that had medical complications that they didn't understand yet, a kid presenting with a symptom or problem whose appearance might be syndromic with the issue, etc. It seems deeply callous, but I can't pretend to understand the coping mechanisms that pediatric (or any) hospitalist physicians might have to develop.
posted by Pax at 5:24 PM on September 5, 2022
FLK is much less of a thing now that genetic testing is a thing, but yes back in the 80s/90s when a child presented with a range of diagnoses and abnormal facies, but not enough to actually meet the clinical criteria for a syndrome, you’d wonder if they had a forme fruste, or were just a funny looking kid.
OP mentioned idiopathic upthread. I’m going to offer “spurious” for weird blood results that are fine on recheck. Maybe the first sample haemolysed, maybe it was somebody else’s sample, or maybe it was just a spurious result.
We also use “non-specific” quite a bit - non-specific chest pain is what you have when I’ve excluded everything serious and have now lost interest.
posted by tinkletown at 2:03 PM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
OP mentioned idiopathic upthread. I’m going to offer “spurious” for weird blood results that are fine on recheck. Maybe the first sample haemolysed, maybe it was somebody else’s sample, or maybe it was just a spurious result.
We also use “non-specific” quite a bit - non-specific chest pain is what you have when I’ve excluded everything serious and have now lost interest.
posted by tinkletown at 2:03 PM on September 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
My optometrist uses TMB.
"Why is my vision getting worse?"
"TMB"
"TMB?"
"Too Many Birthdays"
posted by terrapin at 10:22 AM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Why is my vision getting worse?"
"TMB"
"TMB?"
"Too Many Birthdays"
posted by terrapin at 10:22 AM on December 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by vacapinta at 12:50 AM on August 26, 2022 [12 favorites]