This is a racial slur, because it associates individual personalities and traits with a skin color.

It is both positive and negative:
(1) Adaptive: flexible, able to switch to a different strategy in a new environment.
(2) Gaussian: (named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, a mathematician) vaguely implies above-average mathematical abilities or intelligence.
(3) Noise: (pejorative) nuisance, something to be ignored. A neutral synonym would be "dissenting opinion". However, in some social settings, being a dissenting voice imparts a sense of snobbishness.

Not to be confused with Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN), which is a mathematical concept deeply rooted in digital signal processing and probability theory. The correct interpretation of the four words of AWGN are:

(1) Additive (not to be misspelled addictive) means addition (the sum of two numbers).

(2) White means (i) consisting of all frequencies (ii) uncorrelated. This meaning stems from the physical phenomemon that a white light is formed from a mixture of monochromatic lights of various frequencies.

(3) Gaussian refers to the Gaussian Distribution, also known as a Normal Distribution, a concept in probability.
As used in bumper stickers, tshirt. Misuse of "Adaptive White Gaussian Noise" may result in disciplinary actions from school.
by emergent chaos March 29, 2009
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