alt Hacker NewsIt's true of kitchen-ant comments as well: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
We have to figure out where this comes from! It's so recent: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828285 references https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535 - that's the earliest I've seen so far. Others?
Edit: thanks ChatGPT: https://barrypopik.com/blog/there_is_never_one_cockroach_bus...
Proverb #232 of https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/2759983.pdf says it's attested from 1991:
232 There is never just one cockroach. (1991)
Variant: There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen
Ants are nicer though.
Replies
Completely tangential but I always find it interesting how different expressions become attached to specific contexts in people's heads.
"This old house as got good bones" is the realtor 'slaps roof of car' meme that seems to have caught on during the 2010s and peaked during COVID. Now I hear people mindlessly propagating it whenever they talk about renovating/buying an old home.
I'm sure that we'll be hearing this ants in the kitchen of the house with good bones thing forever now.
Possibly Nathan Calvin on Twitter in August: If you find two ants in your kitchen, the best estimate of the total number of ants in your kitchen is not two
August 5th about Open AI:
https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2084856543561093535
September 4th.. still about Open AI:
https://x.com/_NathanCalvin/status/2095854095139537064
November 11th.. Alex Lawsen on Twitter, referencing Nathan's post (above):
A 1985 Dallas Morning News article attributes the heuristic to "Sanders", as cited in a 2003 mailing list (https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2003-Septe...).
Fable 5.2 couldn't access the full DMN text (nor can I), but suggests the article is about "local TV journalists reacting to a report on minority hiring" and "Sanders" is probably a reporter named Bob Ray Sanders, a reporter in the region (who was later inducted to the National Association of Black Journalists' Hall of Fame). What he actually said is sadly paywalled in the archives.
Warren Buffet said the cockroach variant in his 1989 investor letter.
https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1989.html
"In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen."