On Sat, 2003-11-29 at 12:48, Martin Stone Davis wrote:
Ian Clarke wrote:
> > 
> > What exactly is "unobtanium routing"?
> 
> Ubobtanium routing was first proposed by me as "Improving NGR" in:
> 
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.devel/7791

That's the article about whether you should have your chef cook up 
a will.  So far as a chef is concerned, a will is made of unobtanium,
so he gives it a very low priority, or even rejects the request.

> 
> Toad coined the term "Unobtanium" in IRC.  (That's the way to spell it, 
> right Toad?  It's the only one that googles.)
> 

* toad_ might call it Unobtanium Load Handling, in honour 
of an obvious (but obscure) cinematic metaphor :) ...  but 
it's largely m0davis's idea.


Regarding the spelling, I guess the word derives from a combination 
of "obtain" and "titanium," so unobtanium may be correct.  However,
today I saw the alternative spelling in the newspaper:

"They are going to be a stretch from a technology standpoint, but there
is no reason why they can't develop and deploy them. There is no
`unobtainium' in them," said Dennis Poulos, Northrop's Falcon program
manager in El Segundo, Calif. "Unobtainium" is an imaginary material
engineers jokingly invoke in presenting otherwise unobtainable solutions
to problems.

Another citation from Google News:

The 'unobtainium' factor

For Roger Launius, Chair of the Division of Space History at the
Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington,
D.C., OSP is like a dream machine from visions past.

"We have been down this road several times before with such programs as
the National Aerospace Plane and X-33 offering a promise for the future
of space access. Unfortunately, we tried to build those vehicles from
'unobtainium.' I certainly hope OSP proves to be a successful program
and leads to a replacement for the space shuttle," Launius said.

-- Ed Huff

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