• Shteou@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Grok is old programmer slang for ‘understanding.’ It’s a shame Elon has subverted such a great piece of linguistic history

    • theredknight@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Grok is from the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It means to understand something so fully you can control it. In the book the main character is raised by Martians which teach him a form of meditation that involves grokking things so he essentially has magical powers over things he understands.

      I doubt Elon has read it. He definitely missed the part about understanding things and is rushing for the controlling things.

    • gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Nah, Linux Programmers are all nerds, and they started using it, which then made basically every programmer use it, but it’s way older, 1960s sci-fi novel

    • tym@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Pales in comparison to his bastardization of the name Tesla. He’s a modern-era edison through and through

      • mirshafie@europe.pub
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        2 days ago

        Hey now. Despite everything, Edison was an actual inventor and actually a self-made man. Musk doesn’t have shit on Edison.

        • tym@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Edison was a patent-thief and anything attributed to his name should have an asterisk next to it. He gets credited with the lightbulb, but nobody talks about how he electrocuted dogs with Tesla’s alternating current to try to sway the industry to direct current. Imagine how crappy everything would be if everything were run off car batteries. Fuck that guy.

          • mirshafie@europe.pub
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            11 hours ago

            Edison was a problematic person to say the least, but he was an inventor and he did not come from wealth. I think that nowadays it’s pretty much known that he was an asshole that attached his name to inventions that he had very little to do with, but at least he did contribute some things. Elon Musk is a con-man through and through.