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Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

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Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#91

Post by BlueTemplar »

lynguist wrote: post #84

I find the “a la mode” vs “au jus” discussion right under the daemon one very interesting! I wasn’t familiar with both of these expressions but I looked it up and “a la mode” is an American culinary expression, meaning “served with ice cream”. And “au jus” is also an American culinary expression, meaning “gravy” or “broth”. Now, even though they are both derived from a French expression that is a prepositional phrase…

I immediately ordered my daemon to cook me some pilipili au jus de cuniculus.

Also, I think I will risk opening my eyes now.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#92

Post by Vecr »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #89
n4r9 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing that the daemon's ability to allow only fast molecules through the gate depends on knowing their position and velocity simultaneously?

Yes, exactly, and this is what allows quantification. http://www.av8n.com/physics/thermo/entropy-more.html#sec-pha... With 'entropy' being an obsolete term for (lack of) information, and > “classical thermodynamics” is a contradiction in terms.

On the "information" part, I'm not sure that's correct, have you seen the papers that dispute the Bayesian versions of thermodynamics?

I think practically though, even before you hit anything "quantum", the requirement that you physically interact with the system is what dooms you.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#93

Post by eru »

n4r9 wrote: post #64
eru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the daemon doesn't need to know them all that precisely.

I think you'd have to be pretty precise to know if it's heading towards a hole that's only just large enough for it.

Why would you make the hole so small?

The main requirement for the hole is that it's small enough that (with high enough probability) only at most one or a handful of molecules will make its way through.

And that size is completely independent of the size of your molecules, and only depends on how many there are per unit volume. There's a lot of 'empty space' between molecules in a gas.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#94

Post by arp242 »

jasoneckert wrote: post #22

The *nix world is full of dark-but-fun terminology. Daemons run the system. New files get 666 (before the umask takes away unnecessary permissions). Parents kill their children before killing themselves. And sometimes you have to kill zombies.

From: https://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/index.html

One day I was at a restaurant explaining process control to one of my disciples. I was mentioning how we have to kill the children (child processes) if they become unresponsive. Or we can even set an alarm for the children to kill themselves. That the parent need to wait (wait3) and acknowledge that the child has died or else it will become a zombie.

The look of horror the woman sitting across had was unforgettable. I tried to explain it was a computer software thing but it was too late, she fled terrified, probably to call the police or something. I didn't really want to stick around too long to find out.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#95

Post by foobarian »

bbor wrote: post #56
jamesog wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should more properly be written as dæmon. The æ ("ash") character is usually pronounced more like "ee", as in encyclopædia. I've never heard anyone say "encycloPAYdia" :-)

Fascinating! This is why I stick with nice, clean structural linguistics, this applied stuff gets sticky. I just confirmed on Youtube that the (some?) British people do indeed pronounce "Aesthetic" as "ah-stet-ic" not "ee-stet-ic", and upon diving a bit, it seems that the rule is "don't ask for a rule, you fool! It's 'e' now except for when it isn't." Thanks for the interesting tidbit! The letter æ was used in Old En…

Oh I get it so it's like ä!

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#96

Post by danielheath »

vhodges wrote: post #29
jasoneckert wrote: post #22

The *nix world is full of dark-but-fun terminology. Daemons run the system. New files get 666 (before the umask takes away unnecessary permissions). Parents kill their children before killing themselves. And sometimes you have to kill zombies.

From: https://devrant.com/rants/1101391/my-daily-unix-command-list... unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep.

Device is not ready

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#98

Post by emmelaich »

brianmurphy wrote: post #54
JadeNB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now we can perhaps hash out whether the `lib` in `/usr/lib` is pronounced with a long or short 'i'. I hope I'm not the only one who pronounced it the first way with no real thought, and never noticed until I heard someone else say it with a long 'i' that that was obviously the logical pronunciation.

I have always pronounced lib like the word liberal. I was mind-blown the first time I heard someone pronounce etc as "et-see". et-see rolls off the tongue so much better than ee-tee-see that it makes perfect sense now.

I've pronounced it as `etcet` as short for `et cetera`. But that's probably my Australian habit of shortening everything.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#99

Post by tharkun__ »

magicalhippo wrote: post #87

I recall reading a mail exchange posted on some usenet group about, IIRC, some boss or similar higher-up being shocked to discover the UNIX systems they ran were full of demons, and as a devout christian wanted the sysadmin to put an end to that immediately. The sysadmin was repeatedly trying to explain that a daemon was not the same as a demon, without success. Tried to find the post again, but no dice :(

A real BOFH would've just complied with the boss' request and made sure all the daemons were killed and stayed dead.

Re: Origin of 'Daemon' in Computing

#100

Post by selimthegrim »

lynguist wrote: post #84

I find the “a la mode” vs “au jus” discussion right under the daemon one very interesting! I wasn’t familiar with both of these expressions but I looked it up and “a la mode” is an American culinary expression, meaning “served with ice cream”. And “au jus” is also an American culinary expression, meaning “gravy” or “broth”. Now, even though they are both derived from a French expression that is a prepositional phrase…

You can say sandwich au jus but it refers to the sandwich with gravy not the gravy
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