Ballmer Peak

(en.wikipedia.org)

84 points | by thunderbong 18 hours ago

9 comments

  • fifilura 14 hours ago
    There is a danish movie related to maintaining the optimal drunkedness.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10288566/

    • rozab 5 hours ago
    • pgsandstrom 12 hours ago
      The most danish movie ever made. It gets an extra layer if you are at least somewhat familiar with the hedonistic aspect of danish culture (at least in contrast to swedish culture).
    • PorciiVorbesc 12 hours ago
      I felt like there's a seed of truth to that plot, even if it's probably not scientifically proven. I could always get more complex problems solved when I had a slight buzz than without, at least in college. I don't know now.
      • CalRobert 1 hour ago
        things don't go so great in the end...
      • adfghiono9i 7 hours ago
        That is not actually what the movie's about.
    • dcrazy 5 hours ago
      Starring Mads Mikkelsen, no less?
  • bronlund 14 hours ago
    I have reference this more times than I'm willing to admit. Usually together with that old rumor; that back in the days, if you went to a computer show, it was pretty obvious that the Apple guys were smoking and the Microsoft guys were drinking :)
    • bitwize 4 hours ago
      The high-level Apple guys were tripping balls, especially—in all seriousness—Jobs.
  • TomMasz 9 hours ago
    Back in the '90s I worked for a small consulting company that was conveniently next to a bar that we often went to after work on Friday. One of the other software engineers, who was an exceptionally gifted programmer, would walk back to the office to write some more code. He said he was his most profific/creative after a couple of beers.
  • nraynaud 13 hours ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balmer_jump I learned just a few days ago of what probably originated the joke.
    • eps 13 hours ago
      It's a different Balmer.
      • nraynaud 12 hours ago
        Jokes are inspired by taking off from the exact subject at hand, that’s what imagination is about, not staying in the box.
    • jibalt 10 hours ago
      > probably originated the joke

      A completely baseless claim ... "probably" means > .5 probability, but there is no evidence to support that; it's sheer speculation.

  • burnt-resistor 55 minutes ago
    Before the advent of the brogrammer, I had a British manager/lead programmer at (big name GPS supplier) who kept a 6-pack of beer in his desk for sipping alone after everyone else went home. I don't know if it was either sad the drinking alone part or concerning that the code would drive one to drinking. Maybe there's something to a beer enabling flow state.
  • Angostura 13 hours ago
    See also the Mitchell and Webb ‘inebriati’ sketch - https://youtu.be/-Zj50DmBFp0
  • someonebaggy 6 hours ago
    Why does this deserve a Wikipedia article when so many other more important things don't?
    • bazoom42 1 hour ago
      Probably because someone has created the page and nobody has deleted it.
    • amclennon 5 hours ago
      Be the change you want to see in the world. Submit a Wikipedia article about a subject you truly care about
  • taejavu 14 hours ago
    I wonder how many other XKCD comics now have Wikipedia articles?
    • someonebaggy 6 hours ago
      Hopefully none, since they don't meet Wikipedia's notability requirements and much more important things (such as places with thousands of people, and software with tens of thousands of users) have been rejected for not meeting the same requirements.
    • xeonmc 13 hours ago
      citogenesis is the obvious answer
    • zeumo 13 hours ago
      Luckily, "xkcd" doesn't refer to anything else than the comic AFAIK, so we can easily search and find that 143 English Wikipedia articles reference the comic. [0] Glossing over the list, I'd count 4 of these are directly referencing a specific comic or a concept invented in one: Time, Ballmer Peak, and Geohashing.

      There are more if you include special pages, like Citogenesis reported by sibling.

      The other way around, folks at the Explain xkcd wiki have categorized the comics and 56 of them reference Wikipedia. [1]

      [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&fu...

      [1] https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Wikipedi...

    • Uhhrrr 14 hours ago
      I wonder how many Wikipedia articles have XKCD comics?

      Edit: I asked Opus 5.5, medium effort, and got a lame answer. Then asked it for "extra" effort, and the summary of that is:

      WP->xkcd: Ballmer Peak, Geohashing, Time, a few other passing mentions

      xkcd->WP: Missal of Silos, Rolle's Theorem, at least 54 other general references to WP

      • sig-11 14 hours ago
        This obviously calls for a Venn diagram. Wikipedia articles about xkcd strips about wikipedia articles?