"Ballmer Peak" meaning in English

See Ballmer Peak in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Etymology: Coined by American cartoonist, author and engineer Randall Munroe in 2007 in his webcomic xkcd, after Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000–2014. Etymology templates: {{coinage|en|Q285048|in=2007}} Coined by American cartoonist, author and engineer Randall Munroe in 2007 Head templates: {{en-prop|head=Ballmer Peak}} Ballmer Peak
  1. (Internet slang, humorous) A fictional level of drunkenness (originally stated to correspond with a BAC of 0.129–0.138%) said to confer one with superhuman programming ability. Wikipedia link: Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, xkcd Tags: Internet, humorous
    Sense id: en-Ballmer_Peak-en-name-kfdWlZcp Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
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          "ref": "2008 November 13, Domo, “Scoreboard Request for A10 bonus”, in uw.cs.cs241 (Usenet):",
          "text": "I think he's researching drug use and its relation with Ballmer's Peak.",
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          "ref": "2016 June 1, krw, “Reflow soldering for dummies”, in sci.electronics.design (Usenet):",
          "text": "If the programmers writing autonomous vehicle software are in the Ballmer peak, will they get charged with DWI?",
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          "ref": "2021 June 1, Kate Julian, “America Has a Drinking Problem”, in The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2021-11-08:",
          "text": "At a talk he later gave on wu-wei at Google, Slingerland made much the same point about intoxication. During the Q&A, someone in the audience told him about the Ballmer Peak—the notion, named after the former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, that alcohol can affect programming ability. Drink a certain amount, and it gets better. Drink too much, and it goes to hell. Some programmers have been rumored to hook themselves up to alcohol-filled IV drips in hopes of hovering at the curve's apex for an extended time.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-02 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (db8a5a5 and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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