4 ms·

The company behind it is called gehirn to add more fun to the story. :)

throwaway892238 3y ago
I'm honestly kinda spooked out at the multiple websites and companies here that seem to be from NGE. I can't really tell if these are fake or real.
- djur 3y ago
  There's a product called "Soylent" and a company called "Palantir" -- lots of precedent for this kind of thing.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    Aah yes, we've finally invented the Torment Nexus from the famous sci-fi classic Don't Invent the Torment Nexus
    - djur 3y ago
      This goes way back. Over a century ago a guy named his beef extract after the Victorian equivalent of the Force from Star Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
      - sehansen 3y ago
        This life force "Vril" is from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, best known in hacker circles as the author of the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" and the namesake of the Bulwer-Lytton (bad) Fiction Contest. Winning entries are a fortune staple. Or "were", since the newest entry on my Arch Linux box is from 1990.
    - XorNot 3y ago
      I hate that tweet. It was coined in the context of whatever Meta was doing with "the Metaverse" which for some reason everyone decided to lose their minds about as some sort of imminent threat rather then just a ge nobody wanted to play. The thing is, The Metaverse wasn't a problem in Snow Crash. It just was - it was a thing, and it was generally regarded as one of the last places not totally under the dystopian corporate lawlessness that the rest of the world was. So the motivating example is built on misunderstanding the original text, in the same way that Meta doing it was built on misunderstanding everything about the concept.
      - krapp 3y ago
        Language and memes evolve beyond their original intended context, boo.
        worthless-trash 3y ago
        I think OP knows, its still okay to be mad about things, we do not need to accept everything is what it is.
        lebean 3y ago
        Language evolves = you are wrong to use the original meaning of words? Hm
        krapp 3y ago
        "Language evolves" means language evolves. To insist that the only valid use of the torment nexus meme is in the context of a reference to the Metaverse from Star Crash vis a vis Facebook's meta is language prescriptivism at its most absurd. It works as a general metaphor in numerous contexts relative to the tech industry and the dystopic effects of its own utopian nerd hubris, in trying to make science fiction real while failing to heed the warnings of that same science fiction. In fact, there was a whole HN thread about an article on just that phenomenon recently[0,1]. The meme is used so often because there are many, many torment nexuses. Just as the definition of "enshittification" ceased to be bound to a description of platform decay almost as soon as it went viral here, and "literally" has been its own contronym for literal centuries, "torment nexus" has evolved to communicate a broader concept than was originally intended. And that's OK. It doesn't take anything away from the original usage. Yes, one can be angry that human language doesn't follow the strictly defined, rigid rules of a programming language, and that the meaning of words can change quickly, and that language is fluid, sometimes vague and even self-contradictory. But to be mad that other people are using a meme in a way you don't approve of is petty and silly, because that's how the internet works. Such people need to touch grass and get a life. [0]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires... [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38813976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38813976

I'm honestly kinda spooked out at the multiple websites and companies here that seem to be from NGE. I can't really tell if these are fake or real.

djur 3y ago
There's a product called "Soylent" and a company called "Palantir" -- lots of precedent for this kind of thing.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Aah yes, we've finally invented the Torment Nexus from the famous sci-fi classic Don't Invent the Torment Nexus
  - djur 3y ago
    This goes way back. Over a century ago a guy named his beef extract after the Victorian equivalent of the Force from Star Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
    - sehansen 3y ago
      This life force "Vril" is from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, best known in hacker circles as the author of the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night" and the namesake of the Bulwer-Lytton (bad) Fiction Contest. Winning entries are a fortune staple. Or "were", since the newest entry on my Arch Linux box is from 1990.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I hate that tweet. It was coined in the context of whatever Meta was doing with "the Metaverse" which for some reason everyone decided to lose their minds about as some sort of imminent threat rather then just a ge nobody wanted to play. The thing is, The Metaverse wasn't a problem in Snow Crash. It just was - it was a thing, and it was generally regarded as one of the last places not totally under the dystopian corporate lawlessness that the rest of the world was. So the motivating example is built on misunderstanding the original text, in the same way that Meta doing it was built on misunderstanding everything about the concept.
    - krapp 3y ago
      Language and memes evolve beyond their original intended context, boo.
      - worthless-trash 3y ago
        I think OP knows, its still okay to be mad about things, we do not need to accept everything is what it is.
      - lebean 3y ago
        Language evolves = you are wrong to use the original meaning of words? Hm
        krapp 3y ago
        "Language evolves" means language evolves. To insist that the only valid use of the torment nexus meme is in the context of a reference to the Metaverse from Star Crash vis a vis Facebook's meta is language prescriptivism at its most absurd. It works as a general metaphor in numerous contexts relative to the tech industry and the dystopic effects of its own utopian nerd hubris, in trying to make science fiction real while failing to heed the warnings of that same science fiction. In fact, there was a whole HN thread about an article on just that phenomenon recently[0,1]. The meme is used so often because there are many, many torment nexuses. Just as the definition of "enshittification" ceased to be bound to a description of platform decay almost as soon as it went viral here, and "literally" has been its own contronym for literal centuries, "torment nexus" has evolved to communicate a broader concept than was originally intended. And that's OK. It doesn't take anything away from the original usage. Yes, one can be angry that human language doesn't follow the strictly defined, rigid rules of a programming language, and that the meaning of words can change quickly, and that language is fluid, sometimes vague and even self-contradictory. But to be mad that other people are using a meme in a way you don't approve of is petty and silly, because that's how the internet works. Such people need to touch grass and get a life. [0]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires... [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38813976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38813976