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Why? "Axolotl" at least has seriously pronunciation issues so I am glad it is not used "user-side".

by aw3c2 11y ago

ge0rg 11y ago
But it had a significantly better signal-to-noise (SCNR) ratio when looking for specifications, code and docs. The original "axolotl" term comes from a completely different domain, so it was easy to distinguish and filter for. "Signal" in IT usually means UNIX inter-process communication.
tptacek 11y ago
For my part: because "Axolotl" is one of the most widely name-dropped terms in hipster cryptography, and because it's been adopted by other projects, and because it's distinctive, and because they basically own the term. In a stroke, everyone doing secure key ratchets would have been using their product. It's also just a cool name.
- aw3c2 11y ago
  Thanks and I agree about that!
- garrettr_ 11y ago
  I always liked "Axolotol" because axolotols are a type of salamander with the amazing ability to regenerate parts of their bodies (including their brains!), and the Axolotol protocol, like OTR, is "self-healing", meaning it's capable of recovering from a compromised session key (https://whispersystems.org/blog/advanced-ratcheting/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/advanced-ratcheting/).
  - vmasto 11y ago
    And you're spelling it wrong which pretty much validates the renaming.
  - david-given 11y ago
    Axolotls are also cool because they're not really a species in their own right --- they're actually just the juvenile form of a salamander. But they can breed while in their juvenile form! It's as if tadpoles could lay eggs without having to turn into frogs first. In fact, axolotls only metamorphose into salamanders if triggered by the external environment. If you don't stimulate them in the right way, they stay axolotls. For a long time they were thought of as two different types of creature completely. There's a story of one of the very early researchers looking at his vivarium one day and discovering that it was now full of salamanders rather than the axolotls he was expecting. I would love to have heard the conversation...
    - seivan 11y ago
      Basically like a Pokemon.
- DigitalJack 11y ago
  I thought it was a misspelling of axlotl from dune, so I had to google it. Frank Herbert must have taken his inspiration from the salamander as well, given what the axlotl tanks were for.
jacobolus 11y ago
Because words coming from Nahuatl are cool! (coyotl, mesquitl, tomatl, ahuacatl, etc.) See more from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_from_indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Words_from_Nahuatl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_from_ind... They’re distinctively spelled, don’t collide with existing search terms, often have available domains, etc. Most importantly, they anticipated the web 2.0 trend of ending words with two consonants in a row. ;) Finally, just look at this guy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AxolotlBE.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AxolotlB...
- derefr 11y ago
  Linguistic tangent: the common suffix on those words is interesting. Is it required for Nahuatl nouns, like the Latin -t suffix? I notice that not all the other example words on the linked page-section have it, but a large majority do.
  - ar-jan 11y ago
    t͡ɬ is a phoneme in Nahuatl [0] (Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [1] if you care to hear it), which explains why many Nahuatl words have sequences of "tl". I don't know if there's a specific reason why these words end with that sound (it doesn't have to be a suffix). Edit: yes, it's a suffix (for Classical Nahuatl): "Non-possessed nouns take a suffix called the absolutive. This suffix takes the form -tl after vowels (ā-tl, "water") and -tli after consonants [...]" ([2]). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl#Phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl#Phonology 1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_aff... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    > Is it required for Nahuatl nouns, like the Latin -t suffix? I don't understand what you're thinking of here? Here are some Latin nouns, all in nominative case: nauta (first declension) puer (second) gladius (second) malum (second) lex (third) limen (third) tempus (third) virtus (third) civitas (third) cornu (fourth) manus (fourth) res (fifth) I gave the nominative case, but in fact none of those nouns has any form ending in -t. The only -t suffix I know of in Latin is for third-person singular verbs.
mc32 11y ago
Kids would love that name because they know it as that cool looking salamander with gills (or whatever they are).
- tptacek 11y ago
  Confirming this: my daughter was thrilled that there was something in my field actually called "axolotl".

Why? "Axolotl" at least has seriously pronunciation issues so I am glad it is not used "user-side".

by aw3c2 11y ago

Why? "Axolotl" at least has seriously pronunciation issues so I am glad it is not used "user-side".

ge0rg 11y ago

But it had a significantly better signal-to-noise (SCNR) ratio when looking for specifications, code and docs. The original "axolotl" term comes from a completely different domain, so it was easy to distinguish and filter for. "Signal" in IT usually means UNIX inter-process communication.

tptacek 11y ago

For my part: because "Axolotl" is one of the most widely name-dropped terms in hipster cryptography, and because it's been adopted by other projects, and because it's distinctive, and because they basically own the term. In a stroke, everyone doing secure key ratchets would have been using their product. It's also just a cool name.

aw3c2 11y ago
Thanks and I agree about that!
garrettr_ 11y ago
I always liked "Axolotol" because axolotols are a type of salamander with the amazing ability to regenerate parts of their bodies (including their brains!), and the Axolotol protocol, like OTR, is "self-healing", meaning it's capable of recovering from a compromised session key (https://whispersystems.org/blog/advanced-ratcheting/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/advanced-ratcheting/).
- vmasto 11y ago
  And you're spelling it wrong which pretty much validates the renaming.
- david-given 11y ago
  Axolotls are also cool because they're not really a species in their own right --- they're actually just the juvenile form of a salamander. But they can breed while in their juvenile form! It's as if tadpoles could lay eggs without having to turn into frogs first. In fact, axolotls only metamorphose into salamanders if triggered by the external environment. If you don't stimulate them in the right way, they stay axolotls. For a long time they were thought of as two different types of creature completely. There's a story of one of the very early researchers looking at his vivarium one day and discovering that it was now full of salamanders rather than the axolotls he was expecting. I would love to have heard the conversation...
  - seivan 11y ago
    Basically like a Pokemon.
DigitalJack 11y ago
I thought it was a misspelling of axlotl from dune, so I had to google it. Frank Herbert must have taken his inspiration from the salamander as well, given what the axlotl tanks were for.

jacobolus 11y ago

Because words coming from Nahuatl are cool! (coyotl, mesquitl, tomatl, ahuacatl, etc.) See more from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_from_indigenous_languages_of_the_Americas#Words_from_Nahuatl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_from_ind... They’re distinctively spelled, don’t collide with existing search terms, often have available domains, etc. Most importantly, they anticipated the web 2.0 trend of ending words with two consonants in a row. ;) Finally, just look at this guy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AxolotlBE.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AxolotlB...

derefr 11y ago
Linguistic tangent: the common suffix on those words is interesting. Is it required for Nahuatl nouns, like the Latin -t suffix? I notice that not all the other example words on the linked page-section have it, but a large majority do.
- ar-jan 11y ago
  t͡ɬ is a phoneme in Nahuatl [0] (Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate [1] if you care to hear it), which explains why many Nahuatl words have sequences of "tl". I don't know if there's a specific reason why these words end with that sound (it doesn't have to be a suffix). Edit: yes, it's a suffix (for Classical Nahuatl): "Non-possessed nouns take a suffix called the absolutive. This suffix takes the form -tl after vowels (ā-tl, "water") and -tli after consonants [...]" ([2]). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl#Phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl#Phonology 1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_affricate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_aff... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > Is it required for Nahuatl nouns, like the Latin -t suffix? I don't understand what you're thinking of here? Here are some Latin nouns, all in nominative case: nauta (first declension) puer (second) gladius (second) malum (second) lex (third) limen (third) tempus (third) virtus (third) civitas (third) cornu (fourth) manus (fourth) res (fifth) I gave the nominative case, but in fact none of those nouns has any form ending in -t. The only -t suffix I know of in Latin is for third-person singular verbs.

mc32 11y ago

Kids would love that name because they know it as that cool looking salamander with gills (or whatever they are).

tptacek 11y ago
Confirming this: my daughter was thrilled that there was something in my field actually called "axolotl".