Can't You Assholes Name Things Properly?

There used to be a time when you looked at a computer catalog, thought to yourself "oh, this one's a Pentium III 550 MHz" which would probably be faster than another cheaper one labeled 'Pentium III 500 MHz'.

There was also a time when if the rump of a BMW said 325i, you knew full well it was a 3-series with a 2.5 litre engine. The same goes for their compatriots and rivals Mercedes Benz; an E 230 should be an E-class with a 2.3.

But no. This isn't the case anymore. Intel, AMD, BMW, MB, and many more leaders in their respective industries have resorted to using seriously confusing names, and have done so in equally confusing ways.

I can understand lying to name a car 335i despite it having a 3.0, because the 3.0 is turbocharged and therefore not just a 3.0. Mercedes also does this: their 63 AMGs are actually 6.2, and their 65 AMGs are 6.0 but with twin turbos. This sort of makes sense. Maybe they don't want to name their cars 330i TURBO. Perhaps they like a little subtlety.

But then you have the baffling case of the opposite, like the (facelifted, W 211) E 240. Sure, it was a 'step up' from the E 230, since everybody wants a bigger engine nowadays. But instead of shoving in a 2.4, you put in a 2.6-litre V6. What's wrong with naming the car, gee, I dunno, maybe E 260? The realization that it's not what it seemed was even more painful in a country like Malaysia, where our road tax is based on the engine's capacity.

Now you wanna add in sDrive and xDrive. Fine, maybe xDrive makes sense, since you want people to know this car/SUV has all-wheel drive. But why would you want your car to say sDrive, when all it really means is just 'plain old rear wheel drive'? Why?

And then you have microprocessors. It used to just be all about the clock speed. But now we have to take so much more information into account. How many cores (one? two? three? four? six? eight?). What's the front side bus like. How much L2 cache. Any L3 cache? DDR2 only or DDR3 capable? And since every single industry is under pressure by the green squad, you have the low energy versions. In short, you have a lot to deal with. But it's not that hard to come up with a naming system that makes sense.

Intel went from the understandable Pentium line, to the bullshit we have today. First it was Core Solo and Core Duo. Then Core 2 Solo and Core 2 Duo. Was this part two? Will the next line be Core 3 Solo/Duo? Apparently not, because it was Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7. And all of that came with a three digit suffix that wouldn't mean a damn thing to the average consumer. You look at a laptop and you think "oh, this has i5!" but what does that mean? Does it have five cores?

The i3 line is the lower end, and are all dual core. The i5s are the mid-level, and, depending on the suffix, either dual- or quad-core. The i7s are the bad ass gamers wet dream ones. Most are quad core but the special ones, have six. The Core i7-975 Extreme Edition has four cores and the Core i7-980X has six cores. So, bigger number = more cores? No. The Core i7-970 has six cores. So, which one to buy? Consult your geekiest friend.

AMD was worse. Back when Intel's naming made sense (Pentium IV 800 MHz), AMD named their chips based on a number which was ... it's overclocking ability? ... or was it how it compared to Intel's chips? ... I really don't know. Whatever the number meant/was, it sure as hell was not the clock speed (which they conveniently made rather difficult for the average consumer to find out). And people bought PCs based on clock speed. In my opinion, it was a sly tactic by AMD to use bigger numbers than Intel, despite the processor being slower.

Anyway, currently their naming system is pretty much like Intel's, with the suffix and all. But at the very least they also add yet another suffix telling you how many cores there are. So the Phenom II X6 1090T has six cores. Granted, not everyone will know the 'X6' tells you that. But in one sense, it's easier to shop AMD than it is Intel.

Please, just name it whatever the hell you want. Add in however many suffixes you deem necessary. But make sure the numbers make sense.

Quotes of the Semester

"I added 10 points to your exam scores just to make you guys a little bit happier. In the end I will obviously curve your grades based on how you do in the course. But I guess it's a psychological thing knowing you did 'better'. 10 points for everyone--it won't mess up the distribution anyway."
-- Yaroslav Kryukov, Ph.D

A: You COPIED and PASTED everything she wrote?
B: Yes. Yes, I did. I mean, I'll PARAPHRASE.
A: But you just said everything she wrote was RETARDED.
B: Well I never did say I wasn't retarded, did I?

"Go home and watch 'Dazed and Confused' and the original 'Tron'. I am NOT above putting a bonus question referencing 80s movies in my exams."
-- Rebecca Nugent, Ph.D

"How many of you are going part time next semester? Let me rephrase that: How many of you are going part time next semester just to save 25 grand? You're all losers."
-- Carol Goldburg, Ph.D

"Sometimes... it's safer to be racist."
-- You Know Who You Are

"It's...it's blowing my-- It's blowing my mind. My mind is literally blown. You don't have surnames? Get outta here! My mind is literally blown right now. It, it, it's just, whoa..."
-- Rebecca Hirsch

"Hey! That looks like something you already have!"
-- Safiyyah Mohsin (cis)

"This line of shoes from Rockport are microwave-friendly. That's mean you can put them in a microwave and you don't have to cuci pakai tangan."
-- Yours Truly

"He was talking about his data set, 'coz that's what statisticians do on dates--we talk about our data. He said about 1/3 of it was bad data or stuff that had missingness, and he got rid of them--almost 100 observations from his sample of around 300. Whoa, there. I could stand a really dry first date, but deleting bad observations? Ohhhh, no no no, this definitely won't work out."
-- Rebecca Nugent, Ph.D on a first date with a fellow grad student

"Since we didn't cover that much material since the last exam, this one will be, how you say, more creative. What's a creative exam question? NOW YOU GONNA FIND OUT."
-- Irina Gheorghiciuc, Ph.D

"Go to Belgaufre, on Rue Neuve. Theirs are the best. Oh my god, I love waffles. I'm so hungry, we should stop talking waffles right now. I want a waffle so bad!"
-- Annelies Deuss, Ph.D in no way hiding her Belgianness