• @MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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    445 months ago

    My dad used to refer to something he called “Scottish engineering”, which meant you start a project with good intentions but just end up swearing frequently and throwing everything in the fire lol

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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      335 months ago

      I mean, the Scots invented paved roads, tires, bicycles, steam engines, penicillin, postage stamps, television, radar, and universal standard time so they must have been doing something right.

  • @grue@lemmy.world
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    275 months ago

    “Thermal shock” doesn’t necessarily mean it burned; it can also mean that it spontaneously shattered.

      • @grue@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        “Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is when an assembly (i.e. made out of multiple parts) grenades itself.

        I was thinking more of situations when a piece made from a single material breaks, like when an enshittified soda-lime Pyrex dish suddenly shatters because you were silly enough to try to use it like real borosilicate Pyrex was intended to be used.

  • @FlatFootFox@lemmy.world
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    235 months ago

    My favorite one of these shows up in 3D printing. The most popular open source 3D print server gives you a head’s up if your printer’s firmware lacks “Thermal Runaway Protection”. If you click the learn more link, it patiently explains, “There aren’t preventative measures to stop your printer from accidentally catching itself on fire”.

    (It’s fine, you usually just need to install a decent MOSFET in the cheaper printers.)

      • Exactly!

        I mean, if you look in dictionaries, you’ll see both definitions, but as I said to another user in this thread, dictionaries include a definition because it is common, not because it is accurate. Just look up the term “literal”; most common dictionaries define it as meaning either “literal” or “figurative”.

        Words exist fundamentally to communicate something; if a term is defined so as to be ambiguous, it has failed in that purpose.

      • Prescriptivism vs descriptivism.

        The technical definition is as I described above.

        It’s only been expanded in common dictionaries because the dictionaries practice descriptivism, i.e. they reflect not what is the best definition, but how it’s most often used.

        In other words, just because it’s in the dictionary doesn’t mean the word means that in a technical context; it just means that’s how it’s commonly meant when used in everyday parlance.

    • Malgas
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      55 months ago

      I’m pretty fond of “unscheduled lithobraking” (it crashed).

  • @ooklamok@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If I’m ever on life support, I want you to unplug me.

    Then plug me back in because sometimes that works.

  • @ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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    135 months ago

    Pure by ocular spectroscopy = it looked good enough

    Pharma distillation = tossing the chemical and buying a new bottle from Sigma

    Retro-retro-Cope rearrangement = no reaction happened, go home and cry

  • @Glaive0@beehaw.org
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    125 months ago

    I use “Observational Maintenance” all the time:

    When you ask someone to look at a problem and it’s fixed by the time they do.

    A friend showed me an issue they’d been having for over a YEAR. I did almost NOTHING and it was working by the time I looked at it.

    More often than not it’s me that looks dumb, though.p

  • @JillyB@beehaw.org
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    105 months ago

    I heard the three basic rules from somewhere:

    1. Always use the right tool for the job
    2. A hammer is always the right tool
    3. Every tool is a hammer