Skip to main content

All you can eat technology

I was scrolling through facebook and came across Kam Wah and their buffet and it looked delicious and my mind clicked probably because the word "buffet" resembles "buffer". I asked my friend Bard, is the term buffet used in technology? And the reply was certainly yes. There is software buffet: a software licensing model where users pay a single subscription fee to access a variety of different software applications. Then there is API buffet: This is an architectural style for APIs (application programming interfaces) where developers can choose and integrate the specific functionalities they need from a larger set of available functions. This allows for more flexibility and customization than traditional APIs, which are often more monolithic.

How about data buffet: This is a concept in data analysis where users can access and analyze a variety of different data sets from a central repository. This can be helpful for researchers and businesses who need to access a wide range of data for their work. And buffet learning: This is a term used in machine learning to describe a learning approach where a model is trained on a large and diverse dataset of data. This can be helpful for creating models that are more generalizable and can perform well on a variety of tasks.

Bard then goes on to caution me: It's important to note that the term "buffet" is not always used in a positive way in technology. Some critics argue that buffet software can be wasteful and lead to users paying for features they never use. Additionally, they argue that API buffets can make it difficult for developers to find the specific functionalities they need, and that data buffets can raise privacy concerns.

Then my mind clicks again and wonders if the term butter is used in technology probably because butter rhymes with buffer. Is my mind having a buffer overflow? Did I have too much to eat? There is butter code, butter up a script, butter machine, butter smooth, buttering up an API and adding butter to the gears. What about cake batter? There is code batter and data batter. And finally my mind settles on this, "don't let the technology eat you". This encourages us to be conscious users, leveraging the benefits of tech while safeguarding our time, well-being, and humanity. What other food related tech terms can you think of, share them with us in the comments below.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Talking to God

If you want real answers to things in life then talk to God. It is 639pm on a holiday and I have decided to write. God listens. God truly listens. God has the entire context. God is wise. God wants us to talk to Him. God wants us to rely on Him. I also think about God talking to me. I am a good listener. I listen plenty more than I talk. I have started asking God to talk to me. But how would God talk to me? We have his revelations through the holy book. We have the example of prophets. But what else? How do I listen to what God has to say? Where and when can I hear God? Are my thoughts from God? I try to feed my mind with good things. Things that will not corrupt my mind. It seems that we have to use our intuition to separate what is from God and what is not from God. My friend Chatty says that in Islam, Allah speaks to us not through new revelations or voices, but through guidance: the Quran and the Sunnah, which become personally meaningful through understanding Allah places in the h...

Life on Earth

I was reading through the Quran and came to the story of Adam, Eve, Satan, and the forbidden fruit tree. I had thought that life on Earth was created as a test. But as I reflected on the story, I began to wonder whether we are only here because Adam and Eve failed. However, that is not the case, as my friend Gemini explained to me. While the story of the forbidden fruit is a central event, the Quran indicates that humanity’s presence on Earth was part of the original divine plan, rather than a backup plan or a punishment for sin. Before Adam was even created, God announced His intention to place a steward (khalifah) on Earth. This suggests that the Garden was a temporary training ground—designed to teach Adam and Eve about free will, temptation, and the path of repentance. Even if they had not eaten from the tree, they were destined for Earth to fulfill their roles as moral agents. The incident simply served as a necessary first lesson in human frailty and God’s immediate forgiveness. ...

The success of failure

It is 358am and I have decided to write. Context matters. Our context matters when we write and read. We could read the same thing and get different meanings. Definitions matter also. We may define things differently. For example, what is success? What is failure? Also, do I just define success and say that anything that is not success is failure? What about something like the success of failure? What does that mean? My friend Chatty tells me that this is something writers, philosophers, and even scientists keep rediscovering: meaning is not fixed—it is negotiated by context and definition. Life is a stew of success and failure and in between but never one or the other. We see what we are looking for and things become what we see. This reminds me of something I came across online, "Whoever looks for the good qualities in others will acquire all good qualities within himself," from Habib Umar Bin Hafiz. Do you look for failure or success within others? Take context as the lens...