I’d learned about this last week, and this stuff is a bunch of Wikipedia searches so forgive me if I miss anything :]
Similar to git master and whitelist/blacklist having addressed racist origins, I’ve just learned that “ricing” – i.e. way-far-from-default, colorfully souped-up *nix customizations – came from a derogatory word for Asian “riced out” cars.
(click to enlarge spot where I came to learn about this)
Example in the lemmy.ml/c/linux community.
The linked Wikipedia article doesn’t list *nix ricing specifically, but it’s probably not a far reach – for example, tech’s master-slave came from cars too.
Now I’m not here to start a debate on whether the term itself is bad. The arguments are done to death and predictable (old threadhope I can link here). Rather, I posit that we could probably invent a new term if we forced it hard enough.
For example, 4chan forcibly invented the use of the ok hand for “white power”, as a collective prank (Wikipedia).
Further, Tumblr invented 'then beg' as an insult response to 'I beg your pardon/to differ'. (click to enlarge)
Based on Pukicho.
So why can’t Lemmy invent something too?
Here are some earlier takes. (click to enlarge for source, but they are listed below anyway)
I surmise it has to be (1) somewhat unique and (2) short and nounable/verbable.
- Customization doesn’t fit – it’s too broad. Changing the wallpaper is a customization – diagonalizing your screen is a rice (term to be replaced…).
- Bespoke doesn’t fit either. That’s for a duct-tape script you hack together.
- Pimping out… is not a good alternative. It preexists(citation needed?) and has inertia but it’s not any better.
- Souping up… doesn’t roll off the tongue so much. But it’s food-related (and thus not far from “rice”). Though I can’t see myself saying “Yo, check out this epic soup.”
Brainstorming welcome :P
I’m shreking up my arch install rn
Ebbin my neezerinstall until it scrooges
Sometimes, I Miles Edward O’Brien my VM GPU passthrough.
Pixel polishing. A term we use for frontend code at work (all backend developers).
Many daily-used words come from derogatory older meaning, it does not mean the current word with its current use is racist.
Moreover you noting “git master” as racist shows you think slavery only applies to a specific race which shows your ignorance.
The “linguist” take… Linguistics is about studying and observing language, not prescribing usage based on fake authority figure.
Personally I don’t feel either way about this stuff being racist or not. I’m an Asian and I am completely unaffected. But I do think that some people are, and it’d probably be nice to help those people vs. ignoring them.
For git master specifically, it was based off of a foggy memory of something in my RSS feed, and I was just pointing out that it was something that some companies addressed.
You’re in good faith so that’s cool. I just think those are kind of a waste of time because it throws bad shade over antiracism while it is still very much needed
Yeah, mods are power-tripping.
Gonna need a new Linux community soon.
Yeah always nice to be censored for stating facts
This will and probably has got a bunch of flak but I’m with you. There’s nothing wrong with recognising when we can pick a better term for something we enjoy.
Like, I get why people use “-porn” as a suffix and it isn’t offensive to me but I still won’t use that in a workplace. It’d be cool if someone thought of a better neologism!
-gasm!
jk I don’t have any better ideas
Spice/spiced could work. But it’s still an allusion, not sure if that defeats the point.
For example, 4chan forcibly invented the use of the ok hand for “white power”, as a collective prank
Which, outside of specific contexts where you’re already confident someone is a WN, was quickly forgotten and never really took off. It’s not a great example of a social shift.
I’ve always used decked regarding to it.
I removed this because it has nothing to do with linux specifically, and as expected, it brought out a lot of people defending the use of this historically racist term, and /asablackman’ing it.
I’ve reinstated it and removed the offending comments for now.
Also I don’t know why this needs a discussion at all. There’s hundreds of words in english for something that looks good, and you can be more specific about it : snazzy, sleek, cool, streamlined, nifty, retro
removed the offending comments
In one of which an Asian dude literally says it’s not used as a derogatory anymore. Talk about being offended for others
An stranger on the internet just gave you license to say a historically racist term, how convenient for you. Next they’ll be some /r/asablackman posters saying its okay for you to use the n-word, because it doesn’t bother them.
I think the difference is that with the n-word both the targets of the insult and the non-targets recognize it as an insult. Meanwhile considering the rice-word, both parties either only know the current-day meaning or think that the insult and the description of someone making their car look (but not function) like a race car are 2 different terms with different origin.
You also seem to imply that the asian poster might have just been a white person trying to prove their point. Well here is a video of a chinese-american using it (and not as some kind of “protest slur” or what’s the term for rappers using the n-word in their songs) https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=68sTT4mFTnA
I agree that using terms with racist origin is bad but I think that this term outside of the linux circles cannot be racist because nobody even knows it was racist at some point. edit: Obviously it should stop being used inside the linux circles because a) people here are more likely to read the wikipedia article than watch hours of automotive video content and b) the term does not even make sense for linux desktops because it just means “to make your desktop look cool”. There aren’t cosmetic linux desktop mods that make the computer look fast or like supercomputer or whatever.
Should they’ve included a selfie or an id pic? Because when black ppl use that n-word you’re trying to draw parallels with (which, BTW, is still a derogatory towards a person and has no other meanings, as far as I’m aware) nobody gets offended. And, aside from the use of the “r-word”, their comment was a valid opinion on topic asking for that opinion
I saw a BlackPeopleTwitter post yesterday where one local (so, black) user gave another Asian user a coveted “invite to the cookout” for posting some decently well meaning kinda intersectionalist words, and they ATE THE FORMER USER ALIVE, saying paraphrased obviously “we give this privelage out way too readily to people who evidence the bare minimum decency”. Some people want to gel so bad they jump the gun and so you can’t assume one minority giving you a privelage related to their community stands for all in the community. The paradox of the N-pass.
The paradox of the n-word pass is similar to the paradox of the daoist leader; if you were of good enough character (as an outsider/Bourgeoisie) to warrant the privilege of leadership/cookout, then you’d be wise enough to never want to use them.
Yeah but it doesn’t affect me and I’m fine with using a racist term because I choose not to think about it. That should make it fine for everyone.
I’m not racist I’m just so tired of all this anti-racist stuff @john89@lemmy.ca
Can’t people refer to it as their personalized setups? Or is that too hard to write?
Yeah but that’s missing the flair required by people who spend their evenings adjusting the radial blur on the window borders.
I have yet to see a personalized setup with blurred window borders xD
Ricing isn’t exactly the same as personalized though.
Ricing when it comes to cars is putting on a giant wing and a huge muffler on a Honda Civic.
Ricing in the Gentoo community is turning on every compiler optimization flag for the main portage config file without knowing what they’re doing, potentially actually de-optimizing your setup.
There’s an element of “overdone” involved usually whenever someone is called a ricer.
To personalize your setup, is to deviate from the default config to better match your preferences - whatever those may be, however over the top those may be.
That doesn’t imply any optimization, unless it’s what you personally prefer.
Exactly my point. Most of us customize our setup one way or another, usually. Few of us are ricers in the traditional sense.
rizzing?
Noodles - it’s a mess of dotfiles
I assume you’re joking - this is just a different food/culture/race association.
The idea of suggesting the word “noodles” doesn’t come from a racial point-of-view. I’m using “noodles” to describe the mess of dotfiles, which is like saying “spaghetti code” for poorly written code.
I guess you can argue it has a race association as the only reason we are coming up with a new word is because the old word is racist.
How about “pasta” then? That way it’s explicitly Italian instead. Or casserole? That actually kind of works, it’s a bunch of parts you mix together and bake to get something cool at the end.
Some people just want to be offended
what’s the association of noodles?
Customization is good!
Is “ricing” not originally related to customised cars from street racing or something? I personally don’t see an issue with it.
The activity itself is quite good for making people aware of how a desktop linux OS is working but doing it excessively is a bit silly so makes sense for jt to have a silly name.
Is “ricing” not originally related to customised cars from street racing or something?
It is not, as I learned 18d ago https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12165688
Riced out is an adjective denigrating a badly customized sports car, “usually with oversized or ill-matched exterior appointments”. … Examples of “rice burner” used literally, meaning one who burns rice or rice fields, as in stubble burning, date to 1917. In 1935 it appeared in a US newspaper caption with a racial connotation, disparaging East Asian people. … In some cases, users of the term assert that it is not offensive or racist, or else treat the term as a humorous, mild insult rather than a racial slur.
Decked out? Cranked?
I thought about “decked out”, though then people would say “look at my deck”, potentially creating ambiguity between card games and spiffy desktops.
And extra ambiguity with people talking about polishing their deck while also pronouncing it as dick
I mean there is an overlap between Linux users and those who play card games
I’d like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as card games, is in fact, GNU/card games, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus card games. 😉
Customizing the shit out of
I like this one.
I thought hard on this (I just like naming things). I came up with gemming. Graphical Environment Management. Unixgems.
It sorta works because customizing your environment is sort of like putting the finishing gems on it.
I think you might win.
