Is it just random letters arrived to by keyboard mashing like a lot of federated websites seem, or is there any thought behind it?
Here is the answer on the Polish instance directly from @ernest, kbin’s creator. For reference, he was being accused of being a gun lover based on the name of the Polish instance “karab.in” and “magazines,” as well as his Monty Python profile pic with a gun in it.
Here are the relevant sections from Ernest on the origins of both kbin and magazine:
Hey, I’m the admin of kbin.social. The name “kbin” comes from the Linux “/sbin” directory - I’ve mentioned it multiple times before. The name of the Polish instance - karab.in - does indeed reference a rifle, but it’s just a play on words, and it was actually chosen through a survey among other domains. It’s simply easy to remember and sounds nice in Polish. There’s no place for nazi bullshit on my instances.
On the other hand, the name “magazyn” refers to the virtual edition of a late 90s gaming newspaper :D
Thanks for providing the references. This should be at the top.
No problem, hopefully it will make its way up there haha.
We still don’t know what the K stands for though.
The K stands for Kool, same as in KDE.
🤣🤣
Kool kool kool
So /sbin from Linux + k from karabin from the Polish word for rifle
But the creator doesn’t want it the instance to be seen as rifle-focused or otherwise militant and violent, so it just carries the “rifle-wielding polish linux user”-name without wanting to focus on militant Polish nerds.
I found this
according to ernest it stems from /sbin. though one of the early instances was named karabin based on the karabine gun and thus shortened to kbin (or rather expanded from kbin).
(Ernest Wiśniewski is the creator of kbin)
It also explains “magazines”.
Ernest has actually said that the name “magazine” isn’t gun related and that it’s a reference “to the virtual edition of a late 90s gaming newspaper” (see this thread and my other comment for the full story)
Someone in that thread also explains that in Polish the names are different:
Polish word “magazyn” means storage or newspaper, but "magazynek " is a gun mag.
EDIT: Didn’t word good.
This just changed my whole worldview.
🤯
Great. Now we gotta Google what a Karabin Gun is.
but like… why tho?
Because of the rapid fire content, I guess?
shrug
It’s such a bad domain name
It’s Polish for “rifle”.
so it’s a “gun rifle”? why in the world would they name a platform after it?
It was a play on words, from /sbin. More info in the top thread.
Not sure, perhaps he liked the domain karab.in. But honestly, there’s plenty of weirder names out there, even among the biggest brands.
A short rifle
why tho? why is that the name of the platform then?
It isn’t. It has nothing to do with a gun
deleted by creator
Because a carbine is your weapon of choice when you’re part of a small group fighting Nazis and Capitalist imperialists, and the founder of kbin is a Polish communist.
The Fediverse wasn’t started as reddit 2.0, it was a safe haven for tankies.
lol
Is he?
This just happens to have the “karabin” in the name but it simply means a rifle.
probably a big bin for k’s
And we’re gonna need all those different k’s if ever want to find out how Kenya is spelled.
So there are no countries starting with K in Africa except Kenya with starts with a K but starts with a K?
Welcome to AI powered search engines.
The fuuuture!
Ah, the joys of large “language” models…
Wtf?
Just tried this for myself and got the same result. That’s bizarre.
It’s from this discussion of the limitations of cat-I-farted.
cat-I-farted
Only French speakers will get that one. Bonjour !
That’s chatGPT. But be very afraid, it’s totally gonna take your job!
ChatGPT won’t be what takes your job, it’s what comes after.
I seriously don’t understand the people who disregard it based on the state of ChatGPT. It will only get better over time. And by over time, I mean weeks to months; this tech is maturing faster and faster. The change from GPT3 to ChatGPT to GPT4 to GPT4 that can see images, has all come in the blink of an eye.
Human labor is on borrowed time
Maybe historically. But the more I used or got exposed to chatGPT the more I realised how bad it still is. It certainly won’t be coming for my job, even in the next 20 years, I’m sure of that. It’s a bit like nuclear fusion. It’s been ready for use in the next 25 years for like 75 years.
If you’re using ChatGPT, you’re using an outdated model. GPT-4 is better than it and has been out for some time.
ChatGPT is weaker and not something I’d use frequently. GPT-4 is much stronger and much more useful. And the next generation is coming soon, which will be better than GPT-4.
It’s not like fusion in its current state since LLM AIs are already ready for use. The only task is making it more effective. Using the fusion example, it would be like if we’d finally developed a reactor that generates more energy than it consumed, and now only sought to make it create more power
So kind of like K Mart?
Fun fact, Kbin is actually where all the big Ks from all the signs went when all the Kmarts shut down. Only, it turns out they were made of meat all along, so the refrigeration costs have been pretty significant… Kbin only runs the social media platform to earn enough money to pay for it all.
Kmarts blue light bin of special K
Kbinception
I’d read somewhere that there’s some sort of Linux programming reference in the name, but I don’t know anything about Linux so I can’t quite remember. Don’t quote me on that, though
Linux has directories (folders) that contain programs. The two major conventions are /bin (short for binary which is another name for an executable program) and sbin (system/super user binaries).
Kbin seems like a play off of that, don’t know what the k implies tho.
