"Denali versus McKinley: a brief history of the debate over a mountain’s name"
This article highlighted something I'd never had pointed out before: that Denali had multiple names from different indigenous people.
At 20,310 feet tall, Denali is visible for hundreds of miles around. For thousands of years, it has been called not just Denali but a variety of names by Alaska Native people living around the Alaska Range, according to language experts.
Athabascans to the north and west of the range referred to "the high one" with varying names, including Deenalee in the Koyukon language, Denaze in Upper Kuskokwim and Denadhe in Tanana, wrote University of Alaska linguist and professor emeritus James Kari in "Shem Pete's Alaska," a guide to Dena'ina place names.
Groups living to the south of the Alaska Range identified it as "the big mountain," or Dghelay Ka'a in Upper Inlet Dena'ina, Dghili Ka'a in Lower Inlet Dena'ina and Dghelaay Ce'e in Ahtna, Kari wrote.
The name "Denali" is derived from the Koyukon name — which doesn't actually mean "the great one," as widely believed, Kari wrote. Instead, the word represents something nearer to "high" or "tall."
"Trump's birthright citizenship order temporarily blocked"
Proud Washington state is among those who brought this lawsuit to stop one of the most offensive and stupid executive orders from the orange menace.
U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour issued a ruling on Thursday temporarily blocking President Trump's executive order that aimed to end birthright citizenship for children born to migrants in the U.S. temporarily or without legal status. Coughenour issued the temporary restraining order after a hearing in Seattle.
The judge signed the temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit brought by Oregon, Arizona, Illinois and Washington state, one of several suits opposing the administration's effort to curb the right of citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil.
In a standing-room-only courtroom in downtown Seattle, Coughenour interrupted the attorney for the Justice Department, Brett Schumate, to tell him how unconstitutional he thinks the administration's order is.
"I've been on the bench for four decades, I can't remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is," Coughenour said, describing Trump's order as "blatantly unconstitutional."
The history of the pizza box
Tonight the wife and I had some pizza for dinner. And as I brought the pizza in, I was reminded of the periodical question I have - how did we get the nearly ubiquitous pizza box design? Where did it come from? Well, turns out Scott Wiener wrote an article about it in 2018, which ranked first in DuckDuckGo when I searched for "origins of the pizza box."
Prime Target on AppleTV
I started watching it because it's about math and stuff. I loved Numb3rs. It's not what I expected, but I am enjoying it.
Also, I'm 95% sure the show concept came from wanting to call a show 'Prime Target.'
"My team's intern just found a critical bug by shitposting in our codebase"
Found this story on LinkedIn and it made me laugh.
So our summer intern (who I'm 90% sure is a professional shitposter moonlighting as a dev) just saved our entire authentication service by being, well, an absolute agent of chaos.
Background: We have this legacy auth system that's been running since before TikTok existed. No one touches it. It's documented in ancient Sanskrit and COBOL comments. The last guy who understood it fully left to become a yoga instructor in Peru.
Enter our intern. First week, he asks why our commit messages are so boring. Starts adding memes to his. Whatever, right? Then he begins leaving comments in the codebase like:
// This function is older than me and probably pays taxes // TODO: Ask if this while loop has health insurance // Here lies Sarah's hopes and dreams (2019-2022), killed by this recursive call
The senior devs were split between horrified and amused. But here's where it gets good.
He's reading through the auth code (because "the commit messages here are too normal, sus") and adds this gem:
// yo why this token validation looking kinda thicc though // fr fr no cap this base64 decode bussin // wait... hold up... this ain't bussin at all
Turns out his Gen Z spider-sense wasn't just tingling for the memes. Man actually found a validation bypass that's been lurking in our code since Obama's first term. The kind of bug that makes security auditors wake up in cold sweats.
The best part? His Jira ticket title: "Auth be acting mad sus rn no cap frfr (Critical Security Issue)"
The worst part? We now have to explain to the CEO why "no cap frfr" appears in our Q3 security audit report.
The absolute kicker? Our senior security engineer's official code review comment: "bestie... you snapped with this find ngl"
I can't tell if this is the peak or rock bottom of our engineering culture. But I do know our intern's getting a return offer, if only because I need to see what he'll do to our GraphQL documentation.
Automated Archives for January, 23rd 2025
This post was automatically generated.
Articles To Read
The following are articles that I saved today. Substance and quality will vary drastically.
- Are Cell Phones Really Destroying Kids’ Mental Health?
- The fugitive prince
- Why Witchcraft Is on the Rise
- Children of the Wicker Man | Evan Millar and John Semley
Chess For the Day
Record: 5-0-5
Net Elo Change: +13
Games Played
- sayapmerah34 - WIN
- rinkiyakechacha - LOSS
- BackusNaur - LOSS
- JazinBracero - WIN
- Berlow_DS - WIN
- Indonesia23 - WIN
- Oleg_Kozyrev - WIN
- GAMB8THOS - LOSS
- BenitaDomm - LOSS
- bilo33 - LOSS
Blog Posts On This Day
- January 23, 2024 (2 posts)
- January 23, 2023 (9 posts)
- January 23, 2021 (15 posts)
- January 23, 2005 (1 post)