A recursive acronym is an acronym that refers to itself in the expression for which it stands. The term was first used in print in 1979 in Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, in which Hofstadter invents the acronym GOD, meaning "GOD Over Djinn", to help explain infinite series, and describes it as a recursive acronym. Other references followed.
Computer-related examples
In computing, an early tradition in the hacker community (especially at MIT) was to choose acronyms and abbreviations that referred humorously to themselves or to other abbreviations. P...
Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине, Piknik na obochine, ) is a short science fiction novel written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in 1971. As of 1998, 38 editions of the novel were published in 20 countries. The novel was first translated to English by Antonina W. Bouis. The preface to the first American edition of the novel (MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York, 1977) was written by Theodore Sturgeon. The film Stalker is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatskys.
Book title
Roadside Picnic is a work of fiction based on the aftermath of an ex...
An eigenvector of a square matrix A is a non-zero vector v that, when multiplied by A, yields the eigen vector multiplied by a single number \lambda; that is:
A v = \lambda v
The number \lambda is called the eigenvalue of A corresponding to v.
Wolfram Research, Inc. (2010) [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Eigenvector.html Eigenvector]. Accessed on 2010-01-29.
In analytic geometry, for example, a three-element vector may be seen as an arrow in three-dimensional space starting at the origin. In that case, an eigenvector of a 3×3 matrix A is an arrow whose direction is either preserved o...
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Blue Coat Systems Inc., formerly CacheFlow, based in Sunnyvale, California, United States is a provider of Web surveillance, content filtering, security, and WAN optimization solutions. Founded in 1996, Blue Coat provides products to more than 15,000 customers worldwide. It identifies itself as an application delivery network (ADN) specialist. Blue Coat Appliances are primarily used in industry as security appliances providing surveillance, content filtering, and Web Proxy with a secondary use as a Cache Engine. Usually used in conjunction with a firewall rather than in lieu of same.
O...
Taking the piss is a British term meaning to take liberties at the expense of others, or to be unreasonable. It is often used to mean (or confused with) taking the piss out of, which is an expression meaning to mock, tease, ridicule, or scoff. It is also not to be confused with "taking a piss", which refers to the act of urinating. Taking the Mickey (Mickey Bliss, Cockney rhyming slang) or taking the Michael is another term for making fun of someone. These terms are most widely used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
Usage
The term sometimes refers to...
