Finding Out Who You Are

Nov 14

When you hear a word or phrase and you don’t hear the entire context you are very prone to make a mistake about how it’s actually being used. You will apply your own thoughts and feelings and create a new context. And yet this is also a fun way to test out certain aspects of yourself.

Judging by what you think of the following, you can find out what kind of a person you are. So see what you’re made of!

List of ambiguous terms

1. DB

2. Apache

3. Coupling

4. CA

5. Perl

6. Python

And so think about this list and what you’ve thought about for each. Here are some of the possibilities that I’ve come to think of for each of them:

Possible definitions for ambiguous terms

1. Diamond Bar, CA

The city is a possible definition that would indicate that you’re aware of this Los Angeles County city.

Database

This is what I think of usually since I’ve become more and more knowledgeable about them.

Decibel

Well usually it’s actually dB, but who’s checking?

1. American Indians

This is likely one of the more popular thoughts. It was the first result on Wikipedia anyways!

Courtesy of Flickr user DavePearson.

Attack Helicopter

Used during the latter part of the 1900’s and even currently, it is a pretty well-known and well-loved machine used on the front lines.

HTTP Server

That means it is the software used to serve you web pages. You see it everyday and don’t even know it as it is reported to serve nearly 50% of all web pages!

1. Some arbitrary connection between 2 pieces

Used to identify the connection between any of a whole slew of objects, including those used in automobiles, between train cars, other mechanical devices, etc.

Well…sex

There is a good possibility this is what you thought of. Unless you thought of…

Good computer science practices

Good coupling in computer science is the loose dependence of a particular module on another module. This lends itself to the objected-oriented methodology that is predominant in programming today.

1. California

Almost everyone in the United States will think of this unless you’re…

From Canada

In which case you’ll think of your lovely country. However another one that is a possibility is…

Certificate Authority

Used for authentication as a trusted third party, this is very popular in cryptography. When you visit a website prepended by “https” instead of “http” you look for that little lock icon in your browser. Well that lock indicates that a Certificate Authority has provided the website with a digital certificate and you are trusting that the CA has performed due process before you submit your important information to the website.

1. Misspelling of pearl

Maybe the person just forgot the “a”.

Programming language

A popular scripting language that can be used for a wide variety of tasks. Often it’s extremely quick to construct usable scripts with this language and it provides constructs for easy text processing. There are plenty of modules available to do just about anything that you want to do. It has the distinct pleasure of allowing the programmer the write the most disgustingly hard to read code ever because its philosophy of allowing the programmer many ways to do the exact same thing. Super.

1. Courtesy of Flickr user ricmcarthur.

A snake!

Generally not dangerous to humans, they are intimidating for their large size. They kill their prey by constricting them and thus are extremely strong.

Another programming language

Focusing on readability, it’s rather a joy to work in compared to other languages. This high-level programming language sits over C/C++ and allows for all types of extensibility. It also sits in contrast to Perl because it strives to only have a single method, and preferably only that single method of doing something. It is easy to learn and easy to read although it allows great functionality if you so desire. Can you tell that I like it?

Conclusion About Me

So what do all of these things have in common? I’m sure that if you’ve read them all (which, thank you very much for doing so!) you’ll notice that there is a disambiguation that tends towards the nerd in me. That’s right, they can all be nerdy. Haha I wonder if anyone else out there thought of the nerdy options for those phrases.