4 ms·

I kinda hate it that any company can just decide start using these commonly used words as their brandnames. Like Meta, or Alphabet. Wtf man. Now everytime some

I kinda hate it that any company can just decide start using these commonly used words as their brandnames. Like Meta, or Alphabet. Wtf man. Now everytime somebody says "That's so Meta" or talks about meta they are going to be reminded of this company probably. Or is it because Metamphetamines begin with Meta ? Is it like digital crack ? They already have Instagram, for that instant gram of social media gratification.

wincy 5y ago
I mean in that case at least it's methamphetamines not metamphetamines. What's really dumb is that it's become strangely trivial for a trademark to be preserved. Everyone says "just use a Kleenex" but somehow saying "use Kleenex brand facial tissue" is what lawyers pretend everyone says.
- chrismcb 5y ago
  It is hard to preserve a trademark You have to differently fight it. Your post a good example. The first one is killing the Kleenex trademark that is why the lawyers say to use the other statement. We have a ton of words that used to be trademarked. Elevator, escalator, zipper to name a few.
wk_end 5y ago
there's no such thing as "metamphetamines". Presumably the word you're looking for is "methamphetamine", which doesn't begin with "meta". Although I suppose both "methamphetamine" and "meta" do begin with "met", but then, so do "metropolitan" and "meteorological", amongst a few others. Also, FWIW: methamphetamine isn't crack. Crack is a form of cocaine. Methamphetamine is what's commonly referred to as "speed".
- belval 5y ago
  Since we're being pedantic, meth is not speed. Speed is a street name for amphetamines which aren't quite the same thing.
- saberience 5y ago
  Since we're being annoyingly pedantic, I would like to correct you and say "Metamfetamine" is a valid and used synonym for "Metamphetamine." https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methamphetamine https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methamphetamine
- Mandatum 5y ago
  > methamphetamine isn't crack. Other parts of the world started calling whatever drug was wreaking havoc in their country crack in the mid-2000s, likely as a result from hearing about "crack" from US pop culture. As such, meth is now called crack in Australia and New Zealand. Crack cocaine doesn't exist there.
noah_buddy 5y ago
Our modern conception of IP, trademarks, and the like, only makes sense through the lens of gatekeepers maximizing monetary investment and not any sense of commons. The system is designed to be this way.
zeckalpha 5y ago
1. It is Meth-, not Met-amphetamines. 2. Your handle may fit the same pattern of appropriation you are complaining about… indigenous is spelled differently and unlike Meta/Alphabet, describes a set of people.
- petre 5y ago
  1. Depends on the language. In most languages it's different variations of metamfetamin. "In organic chemistry, meta indicates the positions of substituents in aromatic cyclic compounds." Although I'd rather associate the company formally known as facebook with metastasis.
  - tsol 5y ago
    Doesn't the meth in methamphetamine regret to the methyl group that it contains?
    - petre 5y ago
      Probably, meta-something is usually delimited by a dash and quite rarely used.
- inDigiNeous 5y ago
  Yeah you caught me there. If it was easier to change the username on hacker news I would have done that already. But what gets is me these companies can trademark and fight anybody who tries to use that commonly used term, I cannot fight anybody as an individual even though my username would have been Meta in all the social media platforms before Facebook decided to own this name.
nightfly 5y ago
Apple
- bamboozled 5y ago
  It's funny because during everyday life the company Apple doesn't interfere with my use of the word apple at all?
  - Mirioron 5y ago
    It does for me: Apple gets automatically capitalized by my phone when swyping. That's about it though.
    - codetrotter 5y ago
      I ate an apple. My favorite fruit is apple. I have an apple in my backpack. The teacher has an apple on her desk. I saw an Apple. I picked up an Apple. I threw the Apple away. I mean the Apple fruit. Hehe, the autocorrect was smart enough to understand some places where it shouldn’t capitalize the word “Apple”, but it mistakingly capitalized the word for a lot of sentences as well. In all of the sentences in the paragraph above I wanted the lowercase variant. I am typing this on an Apple iPhone.
      - Mirioron 5y ago
        I ate an Apple. My favorite fruit is an Apple. I have an Apple in my backpack. The teacher has an Apple of her desk. I saw an Apple. I picked up an Apple. I the the Apple away. I mean the Apple fruit. This is Swype on my android phone.
  - alberth 5y ago
    The parent might be referring to the dispute between The Beatles (Apple Corp) and Apple Computer (which later became Apple Inc.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
  - 5y ago
pazimzadeh 5y ago
Facebook is metastasizing (spreading out because you have exhausted the local energy supply and need to spread out to stay alive.
gkoberger 5y ago
I get your point, but... nobody is going to call it Meta, much like nobody calls it Alphabet. They pick names like that for that reason, I think... they're generic and bland and make it really hard to get riled up about. "Meta is evil" doesn't have the same ring to it, ya know? (Not to add fuel to the fire, but Block is another recent example of this.)

wincy 5y ago

I mean in that case at least it's methamphetamines not metamphetamines. What's really dumb is that it's become strangely trivial for a trademark to be preserved. Everyone says "just use a Kleenex" but somehow saying "use Kleenex brand facial tissue" is what lawyers pretend everyone says.

chrismcb 5y ago
It is hard to preserve a trademark You have to differently fight it. Your post a good example. The first one is killing the Kleenex trademark that is why the lawyers say to use the other statement. We have a ton of words that used to be trademarked. Elevator, escalator, zipper to name a few.

wk_end 5y ago

there's no such thing as "metamphetamines". Presumably the word you're looking for is "methamphetamine", which doesn't begin with "meta". Although I suppose both "methamphetamine" and "meta" do begin with "met", but then, so do "metropolitan" and "meteorological", amongst a few others. Also, FWIW: methamphetamine isn't crack. Crack is a form of cocaine. Methamphetamine is what's commonly referred to as "speed".

belval 5y ago
Since we're being pedantic, meth is not speed. Speed is a street name for amphetamines which aren't quite the same thing.
saberience 5y ago
Since we're being annoyingly pedantic, I would like to correct you and say "Metamfetamine" is a valid and used synonym for "Metamphetamine." https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methamphetamine https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Methamphetamine
Mandatum 5y ago
> methamphetamine isn't crack. Other parts of the world started calling whatever drug was wreaking havoc in their country crack in the mid-2000s, likely as a result from hearing about "crack" from US pop culture. As such, meth is now called crack in Australia and New Zealand. Crack cocaine doesn't exist there.

noah_buddy 5y ago

Our modern conception of IP, trademarks, and the like, only makes sense through the lens of gatekeepers maximizing monetary investment and not any sense of commons. The system is designed to be this way.

zeckalpha 5y ago

1. It is Meth-, not Met-amphetamines. 2. Your handle may fit the same pattern of appropriation you are complaining about… indigenous is spelled differently and unlike Meta/Alphabet, describes a set of people.

petre 5y ago
1. Depends on the language. In most languages it's different variations of metamfetamin. "In organic chemistry, meta indicates the positions of substituents in aromatic cyclic compounds." Although I'd rather associate the company formally known as facebook with metastasis.
- tsol 5y ago
  Doesn't the meth in methamphetamine regret to the methyl group that it contains?
  - petre 5y ago
    Probably, meta-something is usually delimited by a dash and quite rarely used.
inDigiNeous 5y ago
Yeah you caught me there. If it was easier to change the username on hacker news I would have done that already. But what gets is me these companies can trademark and fight anybody who tries to use that commonly used term, I cannot fight anybody as an individual even though my username would have been Meta in all the social media platforms before Facebook decided to own this name.

nightfly 5y ago

Apple

bamboozled 5y ago
It's funny because during everyday life the company Apple doesn't interfere with my use of the word apple at all?
- Mirioron 5y ago
  It does for me: Apple gets automatically capitalized by my phone when swyping. That's about it though.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    I ate an apple. My favorite fruit is apple. I have an apple in my backpack. The teacher has an apple on her desk. I saw an Apple. I picked up an Apple. I threw the Apple away. I mean the Apple fruit. Hehe, the autocorrect was smart enough to understand some places where it shouldn’t capitalize the word “Apple”, but it mistakingly capitalized the word for a lot of sentences as well. In all of the sentences in the paragraph above I wanted the lowercase variant. I am typing this on an Apple iPhone.
    - Mirioron 5y ago
      I ate an Apple. My favorite fruit is an Apple. I have an Apple in my backpack. The teacher has an Apple of her desk. I saw an Apple. I picked up an Apple. I the the Apple away. I mean the Apple fruit. This is Swype on my android phone.
- alberth 5y ago
  The parent might be referring to the dispute between The Beatles (Apple Corp) and Apple Computer (which later became Apple Inc.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer
- 5y ago

pazimzadeh 5y ago

Facebook is metastasizing (spreading out because you have exhausted the local energy supply and need to spread out to stay alive.

gkoberger 5y ago

I get your point, but... nobody is going to call it Meta, much like nobody calls it Alphabet. They pick names like that for that reason, I think... they're generic and bland and make it really hard to get riled up about. "Meta is evil" doesn't have the same ring to it, ya know? (Not to add fuel to the fire, but Block is another recent example of this.)