On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 04:48:28PM -0500, Edward J. Huff wrote: > 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.
More mundane, and a closer metaphor: In the movie The Core, a team of scientists and astronauts have to travel into the earth's molten core in order to save the world. The ship they travel in is made of a substance called Unobtanium, which gets stronger as more pressure is applied. Hence the metaphor: as load goes up, we make what we accept more and more specialized. Overload pressure strengthens specialization. Any opinions on the merit or lack thereof of the above movie are totally offtopic and should be sent privately, therefore I will not make one here. > > -- Ed Huff > > _______________________________________________ > Devl mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl -- Matthew J Toseland - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
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