15 definitions by tariqk
Originating from video games, it stands for non-player character. It has a double-edged meaning:
To the person using the term, they are advertising that they have a better sense of perspective and understanding to the world than other people in society.
To everyone listening to that person use that term unironically, they know that the person has a massive empathy deficit and is at best woefully emotionally under-developed, and at worst a raging sociopath.
To the person using the term, they are advertising that they have a better sense of perspective and understanding to the world than other people in society.
To everyone listening to that person use that term unironically, they know that the person has a massive empathy deficit and is at best woefully emotionally under-developed, and at worst a raging sociopath.
“What about this dude, Josh Smith?”
“Yeah… I had a quick conversation with him for a few minutes, and he used ‘NPC’ unironically.”
“Oof, that's bad. Maybe he's young?”
“He also referred to women as ‘females’.”
“Oh, no. Okay, bin him. At the very least we'll save on the sexual harassment lawsuits.”
“Yeah… I had a quick conversation with him for a few minutes, and he used ‘NPC’ unironically.”
“Oof, that's bad. Maybe he's young?”
“He also referred to women as ‘females’.”
“Oh, no. Okay, bin him. At the very least we'll save on the sexual harassment lawsuits.”
by tariqk November 28, 2022
Figuring out something quickly by just using estimates to the closest power of ten, because sometimes you just want to know if the thing you're doing is worth or is gonna cost ten bucks, a hundred, or a cool grand.
Named after Fermi Estimation, a trick used by Enrico Fermi to wow his fellow nerds at parties by estimating shit without knowing 100% everything about the problem, sometimes without even writing shit down. You're not going to get exact numbers, but you're gonna get close enough.
Most notably, dude estimated the power of a fucking nuclear bomb by just dropping papers as the bomb went off and measuring how far the shockwave moved that shit — and he was only off by a bit.
Named after Fermi Estimation, a trick used by Enrico Fermi to wow his fellow nerds at parties by estimating shit without knowing 100% everything about the problem, sometimes without even writing shit down. You're not going to get exact numbers, but you're gonna get close enough.
Most notably, dude estimated the power of a fucking nuclear bomb by just dropping papers as the bomb went off and measuring how far the shockwave moved that shit — and he was only off by a bit.
Okay, so we don't know what the price of the stuff is — fuck it, just assume it's ten bucks, fermi it and we'll call the guy when he wakes up, we just need to know if this gonna make us big bucks or to just forget about it.
by tariqk July 13, 2022
A condition that affects folks who become CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CSOs, and other kinds of C-Suite officers, where their skill levels in common, every day tasks (and sometimes their morality and empathy) become severely impaired, as the sudden rush of power, stress and sometimes crushing sense of responsibility (hahahahah, okay, just kidding, it's copious amounts of alcohol and drugs like cocaine) start damaging the parts of the brain involved in figuring out consequences and making estimates, because planning around consequences and making accurate estimates are for the little people and hoi polloi.
Yes, I know he's an ACCA-certified accountant, and you just saw him flub trying to figure out how much tip he was supposed to pay, but you gotta understand… he got promoted to CFO six months ago, and what you're seeing is C-Suite Brain Damage in action.
by tariqk December 12, 2018
Describes a mythical age, where a plague didn't ravage the world, the Internet and news weren't full of nutters, no one was setting the planet on fire for stupid, ugly, JPEGs, and everything made sense (circa: before 2016).
by tariqk March 8, 2022
The problem when you own a space that if you let certain groups of people in, such as, in this example, Nazis, you'll literally drive everyone else away from your space, so that what started off as a normal, ordinary space will become, essentially, a Nazi bar.
It's not only Nazis — it can be fascists, white supremacists, meth-heads, PUAs, cryptocurrency fanboys — some groups will be so odious to others that they will drive everyone else from your space, so the only solution that you can enact is to ensure that they don't come to your place, even if they're nice and polite and "follow your rules", because while they might, their friends won't, those friends have a history of driving away other people from other spaces.
It's not only Nazis — it can be fascists, white supremacists, meth-heads, PUAs, cryptocurrency fanboys — some groups will be so odious to others that they will drive everyone else from your space, so the only solution that you can enact is to ensure that they don't come to your place, even if they're nice and polite and "follow your rules", because while they might, their friends won't, those friends have a history of driving away other people from other spaces.
Yeah, he kicked you out of the Discord, but he has the Nazi Bar Problem to deal with — he can't just let you in, you and your friends would drive away his other server members.
by tariqk December 6, 2021
Political compass meme term for people who identify with the bottom left corner of the political compass (the "ibertarian-left”), who often proudly tell everyone within earshot that Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Gertrude Stein and Karl Marx are in “their” team, but often ignoring the fact that Mahatma Gandhi was an anti-Semitic proto-Hindutva fundamentalist with weird ideas about women who got killed by another proto-Hindutva fundamentalist for not being fundamentalist enough, Nelson Mandela barely lasted a Presidential term because he was too left for his (arguably, kleptocratic neoliberal) compatriots after being in jail for over 30 years, Gertrude Stein was a cryto-TERF, and no one's been able to effectively implement Karl Marx's ideas for the 140+ years since he died.
In short, political non-entities whose only argument for their “ideology” is that they don't have, by sheer coincidence, genocidal maniacs on their corner of the political compass, mostly because the bar is so low that it excludes coercive state action from their list of acceptable policies.
They have Kropotkin though. Kropotkin's cool.
But still not enough to base an entire political identity on.
In short, political non-entities whose only argument for their “ideology” is that they don't have, by sheer coincidence, genocidal maniacs on their corner of the political compass, mostly because the bar is so low that it excludes coercive state action from their list of acceptable policies.
They have Kropotkin though. Kropotkin's cool.
But still not enough to base an entire political identity on.
Telling me to support your policy proposal “because I'm a libleft uwu” is a terrible idea, Stuart, saying that is the oatmeal of political statements, it just means that you're against coercive state action against anyone, not that you're against with exploitation or structural discrimination, or that your brain is grounded in, you know, actual material circumstances.
by tariqk December 6, 2021
Like “reinventing the wheel”, but for techbros.
More precisely, it is to spend an incredible amount of money, time and mental effort to finally come to a solution that was actually figured out decades or even centuries ago.
Bonus points if you end up making yet another app using the blockchain, so that in order for you to use it, you need to put your SSN on a distributed public ledger so that it can get pwned by Russian hackers.
More precisely, it is to spend an incredible amount of money, time and mental effort to finally come to a solution that was actually figured out decades or even centuries ago.
Bonus points if you end up making yet another app using the blockchain, so that in order for you to use it, you need to put your SSN on a distributed public ledger so that it can get pwned by Russian hackers.
“Ok, pitch it.”
“Ok so like basically we get people to pool their money together into one thing and then invest that thing into Bitcoin and use the profits from that investment to pay everyone involved once a month, and then when someone dies their portion of the investment goes to the other participants.”
“…you just described a tontine.”
“A what?”
“A tontine. The thing you're describing. It's been around since the 17th century. Are you reinventing the bus again?”
“No way, man! This one's different, this one uses JIT-compiled vue.js and blockchain smart contracts to keep track of the system!”
“Brilliant. Here's a million dollars, we're gonna be rich!”
“Ok so like basically we get people to pool their money together into one thing and then invest that thing into Bitcoin and use the profits from that investment to pay everyone involved once a month, and then when someone dies their portion of the investment goes to the other participants.”
“…you just described a tontine.”
“A what?”
“A tontine. The thing you're describing. It's been around since the 17th century. Are you reinventing the bus again?”
“No way, man! This one's different, this one uses JIT-compiled vue.js and blockchain smart contracts to keep track of the system!”
“Brilliant. Here's a million dollars, we're gonna be rich!”
by tariqk November 22, 2022